About

Michelle Kamigaki-Baron

Aloha mai!

My name is Michelle Kamigaki-Baron. I am from Oʻahu, the descendent of coffee pickers from Hōnaunau on Moku O Keawe. I am currently a PhD Candidate at the University of British Columbia. I am a heritage speaker of Pidgin and an on-going learner of ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi.

Growing up in Hawaiʻi, I witnessed three major injustices dealing with language faced by members of our community:

  • ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi is currently a minority language, even in the occupied Kingdom of Hawaiʻi
  • Although Pidgin is the first language for over half the population of Hawaiʻi, we are often told it is inappropriate to speak Pidgin in the classroom. This prevents Pidgin speakers from experiencing quality education without ridicule, and contributes to poor motivation to succeed.
  • Many people who speak Pidgin are Kānaka Maoli or generational kamaʻāina both of which indicate high interest in learning ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi.

My hope is to understand how we can advocate for many kamaʻāina who speak Pidgin and are eager to learn to ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi. My dissertation research investigates the psycholinguistic connections between Pidgin and ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi to understand how we might take advantage of Pidgin knowledge when learning ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi.

Additional Information

In 2023, I was selected as a UBC Public Scholar for my work on Understanding the Psycholinguistic Connections between ‘ōlelo Hawaiʻi and Pidgin demonstrating tangible impact for public good. To learn more about this work, please visit UBC Public Scholars.

I also do work with languages outside of Hawaiʻi, including Anishinaabemowin and Secwepemctsín. For these languages, I have conducted acoustic analyses of the sound system, contributed to online dictionaries and computational tools for the languages, and have worked with teachers and students in the community. To learn more about the Secwepemctsín work, please visit the UBC Secwepemctsín Research Group blog. To learn more about the Anishinaabemowin work please visit the Experimental Linguistics and Fieldwork (ELF) Lab.

My Linguistic Research Interests

My linguistic research interests include the cognitive representations of language, the interaction between language systems spoken by multilinguals, the various types of implicit language acquisition (proto-lexicon), language revitalization, and second language education. I use a variety of methods to conduct research, including psycholinguistic experimental tasks, corpus linguistics, computational models, fieldwork, and surveys.

Media Appearances

I am a passionate science communicator, and am always open to talk or collaborate.

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