Linguistics
Dr. Murray Munro named to the Royal Society of Canada
On November 19, 2021, Among them was SFU Linguistics faculty member, Dr. Murray Munro.
Fellows are elected by their peers for their outstanding scholarly, scientific and artistic achievement. 鈥淩ecognition by the RSC for career achievement is the highest honour an individual can achieve in the Arts, Social Sciences and Sciences.鈥�
We asked Dr. Munro, 鈥淎s an Applied Linguist, how does your research meet the real world? And how did you get started in your field?鈥�
Munro did not begin with a linguistics degree. 鈥淚 got into this because I was a language teacher 鈥� in fact my first degree was a B.Ed. and I initially thought I might teach high school. But I got into teaching adults instead.鈥�
鈥淭here were a lot of refugees coming to Canada 鈥� it was the time of many Vietnamese refugees coming to Canada late in the 1970s. So, the job I got right out of university was teaching English to adults.鈥� Munro鈥檚 teaching and research focus evolved from this fortuitous first job.
鈥淲hile I did teach children a little bit, most of my career has been teaching adults. And I have found it really rewarding.鈥�
鈥淚t seemed like it was a useful thing to do because there were so many people coming into the country who came with very limited English language skills; and one of the problems was pronunciation, especially for people coming from Vietnam, because the vowel system is so different from English. They had a particular cluster of difficulties with English sounds, so a lot of teachers became interested in focusing on that, to help them be better communicators.鈥�
Munro talks about how the underlying intent of their work was always meeting their student鈥檚 needs with the question, 鈥榃hat can we do to help you be a better communicator?鈥� And says, 鈥淥ur feeling generally is, we are not trying to get rid of your accent 鈥� because everyone has an accent 鈥� most adult learners, and many child learners of additional languages, retain a 鈥榝oreign鈥� accent the rest of their lives. That鈥檚 just normal; and that鈥檚 not a bad thing because it doesn鈥檛 necessarily hamper communication.鈥�
Working with this principle, Munro had lots of teaching colleagues who were academically oriented and interested in doing their master鈥檚 degrees alongside their work. He found himself working with his colleague, Tracey Derwing (currently Adjunct Professor in Linguistics, SFU), who was just about to start a PhD. He started his MSc around the same time. Deeper into his studies he became very interested in phonetics, 鈥渘ot just for language teaching but other aspects of phonetics as well.鈥� Munro says, 鈥淚 had a pretty good time doing my master鈥檚,鈥� and so he went on to do a PhD.
鈥淭he feeling all along was that I and my colleagues wanted to inform teaching, to make it work better, to tune it better to student鈥檚 needs. And we still strongly believe that there is value in doing research in this area.鈥�
We congratulate Dr. Murray Munro on being a welcomed as a 2021 Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.
