HRI Lecture Series - "Using Corpus Linguistics to Investigate Approaches to Oyster Fishery Management Across Political Boundaries"

"Using Corpus Linguistics to Investigate Approaches to Oyster Fishery Management Across Political Boundariesics"

SHANNON FITZSIMMONS-DOOLAN, PH.D.
PROFESSOR OF APPLIED LINGUISTICS, TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY-CORPUS CHRISTI
HRI FELLOW

Oysters are critical resources that filter water, generate habitat, and safeguard shorelines in coastal and marine ecosystems across the globe. Management of oyster resources—particularly balancing conservation needs with sustainable oyster fisheries—greatly affects oyster health and stocks. However, due to their broad geographical distribution, oyster resource management can vary as a patchwork of different management strategies across political boundaries. In the U.S. Gulf of Mexico, oyster resources are managed by five different states (Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida). State-specific oyster management documents provide the primary frameworks for decision-making, yet little is known about the specific content of these documents or how their differences reflect state-level conditions and priorities that may affect oyster resources at the regional level. This seminar presents a study which analyzes the most current oyster fishery guidance document for each U.S. Gulf state using corpus linguistics techniques—including keyword and concordance analyses—to identify what makes each oyster fishery management document distinct and how those distinctions can be related to each other in a regional framework. Findings highlight the distinct priorities of each state (e.g., Louisiana’s emphasis on oysters as a product), common issues (e.g., oyster stressors), and trends in management over time. Results have implications for regional management and providea methodological approach that can be adapted to inform natural resource management strategies in different contexts and in other regions globally.

Shannon Fitzsimmons-Doolan is a Professor of Applied Linguistics in the English Department at Texas A&M University—Corpus Christi and a Harte Research Institute Fellow. She is a founding member and sometimes coordinator of the TESOL Certificates program, which has landed TAMU-CC students jobs in 15 different countries thus far. Her research interests include applied corpus linguistics, language ideologies, language policy, and content-based instruction. She has published in journals such as Corpora, International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, Language Policy, and TESOL Quarterly. She has a forthcoming Cambridge Element: Lexical Multidimensional Analysis: Identifying Discourses and Ideologies with Tony Berber Sardinha. Her collaborations with Dr. Beseres Pollack as an HRI Fellow focus on identifying linguistic patterns in texts related to conservation and restoration to support sustainability and management goals.