Obituaries of Prof. Victoria Fromkin
1923-2000
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Obituaries of Prof. Victoria Fromkin1923-2000 |
NEW YORK TIMES
UCLA DAILY BRUIN
OBITUARY: UCLA LINGUIST VICTORIA A. FROMKIN
Victoria A. Fromkin, an internationally renowned scholar of linguistics and
UCLA professor, died Jan. 19 at age 76.
Dr. Fromkin, a professor emeritus, was a scholar in a wide array of fields
within linguistics, including the brain and language, the linguistic significance
of speech errors, phonetics, and psycholinguistics. She compiled a major
collection of speech errors and slips of the tongue produced spontaneously
in normal conversation and by brain-damaged patients to better understand
the mental representation of language.
Among her many publications, Dr. Fromkin is the senior co-author of the
best-selling textbook, "An Introduction to Language," which has been translated
into six languages; and editor of the recently published anthology, "Linguistics:
An Introduction to Linguistic Theory."
Dr. Fromkin earned her Ph.D. in linguistics from UCLA in 1965, and joined
UCLA's faculty in linguistics the same year. She served as department chair
from 1973 to 1977, and as dean of the university's graduate division from
1979 to 1989. Her appointment as vice chancellor of graduate programs (1980
to 1989) made her the first woman to achieve the rank of vice chancellor
or higher in the University of California system to that time.
"The UCLA community has lost a beloved teacher and eminent scholar," said
UCLA Chancellor Albert Carnesale. "Professor Fromkin's unbounded commitment
to her students, to her colleagues, and to the welfare of UCLA will remain
an inspiration to all who had the privilege of knowing her and learning from
her."
"Victoria Fromkin was a scholar of great distinction, who contributed enormously
not only to the field of linguistics, but also to the greatness of UCLA,"
said Brian Copenhaver, Provost of UCLA's College of Letters and Science.
"She did her graduate work at UCLA, and spent her distinguished career here;
UCLA is a better university because of her devotion to the university and
her excellence as a scholar, teacher and public servant."
"Vicki was respected enormously," said Edward Keenan, chair of UCLA's linguistics
department and her long-time colleague. "She was generous, compassionate,
warm, feisty, dynamic, candid - and above all, concerned. She became a role
model for many of us who don't usually think we need one. Even years after
she retired, she told me more useful information about the university than
any other single person."
Dr. Fromkin won many honors for her scholarship and teaching. She was elected
into the prestigious National Academy of Sciences, became president of the
Linguistic Society of America, and chair of the Board of Governors of the
Academy of Aphasia. She was a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and
Sciences, the New York Academy of Science, the Acoustical Society of America,
the American Psychological Society, and the American Association for the
Advancement of Science (AAAS). She was a recipient of UCLA's Harvey L. Eby
Award for the Art of Teaching and the UCLA Alumni Association's Professional
Achievement Award. She served as chair of the AAAS' section on linguistics
and the language sciences, and was a member of the executive board of the
Permanent International Committee of Linguists - the premier international
scholarly organization of linguists. In addition, she was the first woman
president of the prestigious Association of Graduate Schools in the American
Association of Universities. As a scholar, she was invited to lecture at
universities throughout the world, including Oxford and Cambridge.
She is survived by her husband, Dr. Jack Fromkin. He requests that in lieu
of flowers, donations be made to the UCLA Foundation/Mark Fromkin Memorial
Fund, and sent to Tim Kawahara, UCLA Alumni Association, James West Alumni
Center, Los Angeles 90095-1397. The fund benefits underrepresented entering
freshmen who demonstrate exceptional merit and financial need.
A memorial service for Dr. Fromkin is scheduled for Sunday Feb. 6, from 2-4
p.m., at UCLA's Faculty Center. For more information, please contact the
linguistics department at (310) 825-0634.
Back to Victoria Fromkin Home Page
UCLA Linguistics Dept. Homepage
Victoria A. Fromkin, an internationally renowned linguist who gathered the
flotsam of human discourse -- slips of the tongue, mishearings and other
speech errors -- and used it to illuminate the way in which language is organized
in the mind, died on Jan. 19 in Los Angeles. She was 76.
The cause was cancer, said officials at the University of California at Los
Angeles, where Dr. Fromkin, an emeritus professor of linguistics, had taught
since 1965.
In addition to publishing many articles on psycholinguistics, Dr. Fromkin
and Robert Rodman wrote ''An Introduction to Language'' (Harcourt Brace),
now in its sixth edition and regarded as the seminal undergraduate textbook
in the field.
As Dr. Fromkin was gleefully aware, everyday speech contains many a slip
'twixt the brain and the lip. While earlier scholars had noted the theoretical
usefulness of these errors, she was the first to gather them in quantity,
colleagues said, building a collection of linguistic inadvertencies like
spoonerisms (''speech production'' coming out as ''preach seduction''), semantic
substitutions (''That's a horse of a different race'') and slips of the ear
(''All of the members of the group grew up in Philadelphia'' heard as ''All
of the members of the group threw up in Philadelphia'').
To know Dr. Fromkin was to be accustomed to having every verbal lapse transcribed
for scientific posterity in a notebook she carried.
Dr. Fromkin used the collection, which grew to more than 10,000 examples,
to offer evidence of the unconscious knowledge of language structure that
people draw on whenever they speak.
A person who means to say ''bridge of the nose'' but says ''bridge of the
neck'' instead, she explained, was furnishing concrete, if unwitting, evidence
that the words ''nose'' and ''neck'' are stored near each other in some sort
of mental lexicon.
Dr. Fromkin was born Victoria Alexandra Landish in Passaic, N.J., on May
16, 1923. She received a bachelor's degree in economics from the University
of California at Berkeley in 1944. She married Jack Fromkin in 1948. A son,
Mark, died in an automobile accident at age 16.
Returning to school in her late 30's to study linguistics, Dr. Fromkin received
a master's degree from U.C.L.A. in 1963 and a Ph.D. from the same institution
in 1965. She joined the faculty that year.
From 1980 to 1989, she was vice chancellor of graduate programs at U.C.L.A.,
one of the first women in the University of California system to hold such
a position.
She was a past president of the Linguistic Society of America. Dr. Fromkin
is survived by her husband.
''We all produce slips of the tongue,'' Dr. Fromkin wrote in 1980. ''And
those of us trying to understand the nature of language and language use
are grateful for this fact.''
Illustrations: Photo: In her books and articles, Dr. Victoria A. Fromkin
sought to understand how errors in speech were related to the workings of
the human mind. (Associated Press, 1984)
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Acclaimed linguistics
professor dies at 76
OBITUARY: Fromkin remembered as author,
scholar, administrator
By Neal Narahara
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
Both UCLA and the linguistics community lost one of their most distinguished
voices early Wednesday morning.
Victoria Fromkin, a professor emeritus who began teaching in UCLA's linguistics
department in 1965, and later served as vice-chancellor for Graduate Programs
and dean of the Graduate Division, died at 76.
"To me she represented the apotheosis of what a faculty member should be
- a wonderful teacher, researcher and a compassionate person," said Raymund
Paredes, associate vice-chancellor for academic development.
"She was one of my closest friends, a mentor to me," he added.
As a professor at UCLA, Fromkin was known for working well with both graduate
students and undergraduates alike, and was awarded UCLA's Harvey L. Eby Award
for the Art of Teaching .
Fromkin was responsible for the creation of the Linguistics 1 introductory
class in which more than 300 students regularly enroll.
During her career, Fromkin studied a number of subjects within the field
of linguistics, including the brain and language, speech errors, phonetics
and psycholinguistics.
"She was fond of quoting 'Language is a window to the mind,'" said Peter
Ladefoged, professor emeritus in linguistics and her committee chair during
her doctoral candidacy. "The change of language into thoughts was her real
area of study."
Fromkin earned her doctorate in linguistics at UCLA in 1965 - 17 years after
she graduated with a degree in economics from UC Berkeley. In between earning
her degrees, she married, and raised a son. After the death of her son, she
established a scholarship fund for underrepresented minority students in
his honor.
Fromkin was a groundbreaking scholar taking posts within academia - some
of which had never been filled by women before. Soon after receiving her
doctorate, Fromkin worked her way into the linguistics department as a professor
and became chair of the department from 1974-1978. She went on to administrative
jobs as dean of the Graduate Division and was appointed the first woman
vice-chancellor in the UC system.
"She did her graduate work at UCLA, and spent her distinguished career here,"
said Brian Copenhaver, Provost of UCLA's College of Letters and Science.
"UCLA is a better university because of her devotion to the university and
her excellence as a scholar, teacher and public servant."
Although Fromkin retired in the early '90s, she didn't stop working. Even
after she was diagnosed with colon cancer more than two and half years ago,
she maintained an active role in the academic community. Colleagues remembered
her being fully committed to her work.
"You could be talking to her about anything," Ladefoged said. "And in the
middle of the conversation she would whip out a notebook and write down an
error you'd just made."
She would later publish them in studies, Ladefoged said. In addition to being
highly active at UCLA, Fromkin was one of the country's foremost linguists,
having served as president of the Linguistic Society of America, chair of
both the Board of Governors of the Academy of Aphasia and Linguistics and
the Language Sciences of the American Association for the Advancement of
Science. Fromkin wrote several books including co-writing a best-selling
textbook, "An Introduction to Language." She had just finished work on
"Linguistics: An Introduction to Linguistic Theory, " having pushed for chapters
to be finished and having made sure she understood every word in it, Ladefoged
said.
"She was generous, compassionate, warm, feisty, dynamic, candid and above
all, concerned," said Edward Keenan, chair of UCLA's linguistics department,
in a statement.
"She became a role model for many of us who don't usually think we need one,"
Keenan, another of Fromkin's longtime colleagues, added.
She is survived by her husband Dr. Jack Fromkin.
In lieu of flowers, the family is requesting donations be made to the UCLA
Foundation/Mark Fromkin Memorial Fund.
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UCLA TODAY
IN MEMORIAM
Victoria A. Fromkin, a professor emeritus and internationally renowned scholar
of linguistics, died Jan. 19 at 76. "The UCLA community has lost a beloved
teacher and eminent scholar," said Chancellor Albert Carnesale. "Professor
Fromkin's unbounded commitment to her students, to her colleagues and to
the welfare of UCLA will remain an inspiration to all who had the privilege
of knowing her and learning from her." She compiled a major collection of
speech errors and slips of the tongue made in normal conversation and by
brain-damaged patients to better understand the mental represeentation of
language. She was also senior co-author of a best-selling textbook, "An
Introduction to Language." She was elected a member of many prestigious
organizations, including the National Academy of Sciences, and received top
UCLA awards for her achievements. She was the first woman president of the
Association of Graduate Schools in the American Association of Universities.
Fromkin served as department chair and dean of the graduate division. She
became the first woman to achieve the rank of a UCvice chancellor or higher
when she became vice chancellor of graduate programs. She is survived by
her husband, Jack. He requests that in lieu of flowers, donations may be
made to the UCLA Foundation/Mark Fromkin Memorial Fund and sent to Tim Kawahara,
UCLA Alumni Association, James West Alumni Center. The fund benefits
underrepresented freshmen of exceptional merit with financial need. A memorial
service is being planned. Call (310) 825-0634 for details.