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Barker Lectures

The Barker Lectureship is named in honor of Dr. James L. Barker (1880–1958), an internationally renowned scholar in phonetics and former chairman of BYU’s Language Department (1907-1914).

Dr. Barker, who also taught at Weber Academy, the University of Utah, and the University of Chicago, studied at the University of Neuchâtel, the Collège de France and the Sorbonne and later lectured on dozens of American and European university campuses. He was honored for his work in phonetics by a decoration from the French government – the Palmes d’Officier de l’Académie. Dr. Barker served twice as mission president for the LDS Church – from 1942–1944, as President of the Argentina Mission, and from 1946–1949 as President of the French Mission.

In addition to authoring many scholarly articles and books, he translated The Book of Mormon into French in 1906 and wrote The Divine Church, a treatise on the Christian Church to the restoration. Dr. Barker spoke and taught German, French, Spanish, and Italian. In 1952 he returned to the BYU faculty and was teaching here at the time of his death, in 1958, in an automobile accident.

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Jennifer Bown

Language, Power, and Identity: Russian Speakers in the Baltic


2023
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Daryl Hague

Translating literacy: Becoming critical readers as we make and read translations, with help from Opus the Penguin and Mexico's Underdogs

2022
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Lynn Williams

How to address a king without a kingdom: Language and reputation in XVII-century Europe

2021
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Dan Dewey

Social Interaction

2020
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Jeff Turley

What language errors reveal about human nature

2019
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Deborah Dean

Genre approximation, acquisition, and appropriation

2018
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