Upcoming Geek Speak at BHSU to explore ‘proper’ and Standard English

Dr. Andrey Reznikov, associate professor of English, will hold a presentation exploring the importance of Standard English, its structure and function in the upcoming Geek Speak lecture "I'm Like, Who Needs This Grammar Stuff?" The discussion will take place Thursday, Oct. 13 at 4 p.m. in Jonas Hall, room 110 at BHSU. Event is free and open to the public.

The upcoming Black Hills State University Geek Speak lecture will explore the meaning of Standard English, and examine who gets to decide what proper English is today.

Dr. Andrey Reznikov, associate professor of English, will hold a presentation exploring the importance of Standard English, its structure and function.

Reznikov's presentation "I'm Like, Who Needs This Grammar Stuff?" will take place Thursday, Oct. 13 at 4 p.m. in Jonas Hall, room 110. The event is free and open to the public.

"The value of Standard English is not in its number of speakers but in its role and function in the system," says Reznikov. He added that every language has its own grammar. Reznikov argues that most people get scared when they hear the word grammar because they often misunderstand what it means.

"Grammar is not rules, it's the structure. In our native language we don't think about it, because it is subconscious," says Reznikov. "When we learn a foreign language, the structure becomes clear."

Language is constantly changing, reflecting the needs of society. According to Reznikov, the primary need of society is communication.

"We can communicate without language but it is more difficult and more restricted. The value of language is that it is the universal means of communication," adds Reznikov.

Change in language we observe on a daily basis does not happen overnight. Reznikov emphasizes that the change is gradual.

"Everyone speaks their own social, professional, regional, and generational dialect. Language is therefore a concept, a mixture of all these different dialects," says Reznikov. "The standard language makes it stable, and unites all the speakers of the same language."

The Geek Speak lecture series, sponsored by the BHSU University Honors program, features academic discussion and topics not normally discussed in the traditional classroom. The goal of the weekly lectures is to expose students to diversity within the disciplines.

For more information, contact Dr. Courtney Huse Wika, director of the University Honors Program and assistant professor of English, at 605-642-6918 or email Courtney.HuseWika@BHSU.edu.

In addition to the on-campus presentations, some Geek Speaks will also be presented at the Jacket Zone store in downtown Spearfish. The following on-campus Geek Speak presentations, which are held Thursdays at 4 p.m. in Jonas Hall, room 110, are scheduled for this semester:
  • Oct. 20, "999 Mona Lisas in the Age of Digital Reproduction:  A Tribute to the Life & Work of Walter Benjamin," Dr. Tim Steckline, professor of speech
  • Oct. 27, "Lawyers, Home Runs, and Money: The Long and Ongoing Corruption of Professional Baseball, America's Past-its-Time," Dr. David Cremean, professor of English
  • Nov. 3, "Are We All Related? Race and the Embrace of The Other," Jace DeCory, assistant professor of history and American Indian Studies, and Dr. Tim Steckline, professor of speech
  • Nov. 10, "Violence Against Native Women Occurring at Epidemic Rates. What is Being Done?" Dr.  Nikki Dragone, assistant professor of English
  • Nov. 17, "Supersymmetry, Superstrings and the quest for the Theory Of Everything," Dr. Parthasarathi Nag, professor of math
  • TBA:  The University Honors Student Capstone Defense