It is with a very very heavy heart that we must share with you the news that our esteemed colleague and friend Wolfgang "Wolf" Wölck passed away. Wolf's dedication to the department and students was exemplary. We invite students and colleagues to share their memories of Wolf. To post or view comments please click here.
Wolfgang Hans-Joachim “Wolf” Wölck was born September 19, 1932, in Königsberg, East Prussia (now Kaliningrad, Russia). He received a Ph.D. from Goethe University Frankfurt in English and Linguistics in 1963. He held appointments at Albert Ludwig University Freiburg, 1964-1965, and Indiana University Bloomington, 1966-1969, before joining the Linguistics Department at the University at Buffalo as an Associate Professor in 1970. (The department had been founded a year earlier after a gestation period of 13 years as a program within UB’s Anthropology Department.) He was promoted to Full Professor in 1975 and SUNY Distinguished Service Professor in 1997. He chaired the UB Linguistics Department from 1977 through 1987 and again from 1989 through 1991. He also served as Director of UB’s Latin American Studies Program from 1972 through 1976.
Wölck was a pioneering sociolinguist with a specialization in contact linguistics. His career is associated with a series of landmark innovations in the field. His dissertation examined the sociophonetics of the Scots dialect of Buchan, Aberdeenshire (Wölck 1965), based on field research carried out in the beginning of the 1960s, at a time when neither sociolinguistics nor sociolinguistic fieldwork were established concepts. He introduced the community profile, a method for determining the composition of samples for sociolinguistic studies of (primarily geographically defined) communities (Wölck 1976). In Buffalo, Wölck discovered the phenomenon of ethnolects, neighborhood-level varieties that were perceived well into the 1980s by Buffalonians as phonetic traces of the varieties of English spoken by the various immigrant communities of the 19th century (Wölck 1981, 2002). From 1968 through 1996, he led a longitudinal survey of Quechua-Spanish bilingualism funded by the Peruvian government, which resulted in policy recommendations for the standardization of Peruvian Quechua – the language received official status in 1975 – and in a short grammar (Wölck 1987). And together with his collaborator Peter Nelde, he was commissioned by the European Union to study the effects of the European Charter for Regional and Minority Languages throughout the EU membership countries.
Professor Wölck officially retired from the University at Buffalo in 2001, but continued teaching and advising until 2012, generously donating his salary to the UB Linguistics Department. He is survived by his spouse of nearly 60 years, Carolyn Ann Wölck née Burch.
References
Wölck, W. (1965). Phonematische Analyse der Sprache von Buchan [Phonemic analysis of the language of Buchan]. Heidelberg: Carl Winter.
---- (1976). Community Profiles: An alternative to linguistic informant selection. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 9:43-47 (reprinted in Linguistics 17(7)).
---- (1987). Pequeño Breviario Quechua. Lima: Instituto de Estudios Peruanos.
---- (2002). Ethnolects – between bilingualism and urban dialect. In Li Wei et al. eds., Opportunities and challenges of bilingualism: Contribution to the Sociology of Language 87. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. 157-170.
Wölck, W. & E. K. Carlock. (1981). A method for isolating diagnostic linguistic variables: The Buffalo ethnolects experiment. In H. Cedergren & D. H. Sankoff (eds.), Variation omnibus. Papers in English and French from the Eighth Colloquium on New Ways of Analyzing Variation in English (NWAVE) held in Montréal, Québec, Canada, 1980. Carbondale, IL: Linguistic Research. 17-24.
I just learned of the passing of Dr. Wolfgang Wölck, or Wolf for those of us who had the privilege of knowing him. Y mi Profe. There is so much that ought to be said about Wolf. He was generous with his time, his knowledge, his enthusiasm and his home. But to me, there will never be enough to say about Wolf.
ReplyDeleteWolf was my doctoral advisor. But more importantly, he is the reason I am the scholar I am. When I called UB Linguistics in early 2001 to inquire about the graduate program in Linguistics at the University at Buffalo, he took my call and chatted amply with me and he encouraged me to apply.
I had called past the applications deadline. I had an associate's degree in advertising design and a BFA in packaging design from the Fashion Institute of Technology. I had discovered Linguistics maybe a year before, tops. I did not know the difference between phonetics and phonology. Plus, Wolf had just retired or was about to retire. But he encouraged me to apply.
When I am in discussions about stringent admissions to PhD programs to ensure the quality of this and the rigor in that, I think of Wolf and I push back. Wolf did not dwell on whether I had meaningful research questions already formulated, or had an academic writing sample of quality. I didn’t. He chose to look for something else. Maybe passion. That's probably all I had to offer back then. Whatever it was that he saw, I am grateful for his willingness to open academia to me. My entire career was possible thanks to Wolf's openness.
Muchas gracias, Profe, por la oportunidad que me otorgó usted. Espero que esté complacido. Descanse usted en paz y tranquilo.
I’ll always remember the first time and the last time I met Wolf. The first time was when I was interviewing for my future job at UB in 2002. I had been parked in what I did not know then was called the Wolf Library, with time to prepare for my job talk. In steps this man who looks like a classic Hollywood movie star (as my wife has always been fond of noting), greets me in German in the most jovial manner (if there’s a dictionary entry for the phrase in a jovial manner, it should be accompanied by a pic of Wolf for sure), and hands me a used copy of a German weekly to help me get my mind off the impending stress test. I forget now which one; it may have been neither the Frankfurter Allgemeine, which aligns with Wolf’s other adopted hometown, Frankfurt, where his alma mater was, nor the Zeit, which was better aligned with his politics, but rather the Süddeutsche.
ReplyDeleteSo I had been introduced to the phenomenon that was Wolf, and to the two traits he never failed to project in my presence: joviality and generosity. The last time I saw Wolf was on the day of his passing, perhaps just an hour or so before he left us. I was stopping over at the Wölcks’ place en route to campus to say hello. And as I was making ready to leave, Wolf reminded me one last time, as he never failed to do, that I was always welcome to stay with them in case of inclement weather. (By way of background, I live in Rochester, and WNY blizzards and lake snows can still be a bit unpredictable in terms of shutting down I-90.)
I know from our conversations that Wolf loved his life and was proud of the places he got to visit, the people he got to meet, and the work he was able to do. It had enriched him. And nothing seemed to gratify him more than being able to help students find and stay their course. I also knew that he wasn’t always the confident, happy, and easygoing man he habitually projected. He had been scarred by horrific trauma as a barely adolescent boy several times at the end of the war. I have to believe that his irrepressible drive to make people feel at home was partly rooted in these experiences of a childhood war refugee.
Mach’s gut, Herr Kollege, lieber Wolf! I’ll remember you with every dry martini.
While Wolf was already several years retired by the time I arrived at UB, he was still an active and unmissable presence in the Linguistics department. He seemed to come from a different era—in the best possible way–and had a generous and welcoming manner that could always brighten your day. His long and productive career also made him an excellent source of advice for how to grow as a scholar, not only in terms of how to approach research problems but also about how to approach the administrative side of university life. I found him to be an especially valuable source of insight when I served as department chair, and he helped me through some difficult situations with his ever-present grace and understanding, even though, by that time, he had been retired for more than fifteen years.
ReplyDeleteI think it’s fair to say that the UB Linguistics Department would not be what it is today without him, and his influence will undoubtedly continue to shape the department for the better for many years to come.
Qué vida tan bien vivida tuviste, querido lobo. Un fuerte abrazo.
ReplyDeleteI am so deeply saddened to have lost Wolf, perhaps the last true gentlemen in Buffalo. Wolf was the gentlest, kindest, most considerate and thoughtful man in everyone's world in the Linguistics Department at Buffalo, always open and friendly and helpful to every person he met. Knowing that we will not see his wonderful smile again is heartbreaking.
ReplyDeleteMy encounters with Wolf, though few in number, left an indelible impression on me. He possessed a genuine kindness and warmth that made you feel instantly at ease, and a contagious joy that could brighten any day. I wish I were a bit more like Wolf. I wish we all were. Thank you Wolf.
ReplyDeleteWolf was still teaching graduate seminars when I first started in Linguistics. Every week, dressed impeccably as always, he would stop by to see me before his seminar class carrying a box of cookies to share with his class. He did love sweets and everyone loved Wolf. He was one of the most caring, kind, and generous people I have ever known. Every semester he would take all of the linguistics staff members out to lunch. My most memorable experience was when he stopped by one day and said, “Look what I received!” He showed me a very thick envelope filled with money. He explained that he had lent a student three thousand dollars several years ago and the student paid him back in cash leaving it in his mailbox. Wolf, we will all miss you dearly.
ReplyDeleteIt is very difficult to sum up sixteen years of seeing a person almost every workday. Most of that time Wolf was the department chair, but he always treated me (and everyone else) as a highly valued member of the department. He wanted everyone to be happy, and he usually achieved that (pretty astounding!). He was also very interested in fairness. When he became the chair he told me that his predecessor had unfairly given higher pay increases to the other assistant professor because he was male. Wolf made a special effort to rectify that situation. Because of Wolf’s work, the UB Linguistics Department has become a stellar and internationally known department. As others have said, his delightful charm, his remarkable generosity and his kindness to all made him a truly wonderful person to work with. He was a very special friend.
ReplyDeleteI have known Wolf for many years. He was caring, brilliant, and fun to play tennis with and talk about the state of the world. However, I am especially thankful to him for teaching me how to make a perfect martini. Thank you Wolf! A toast to a life well lived❤️💙
ReplyDeleteDuring my 1987-88 stay in Buffalo (as a visiting student from West Germany), I had some nice encounters with Wolfgang Wölck, and while we did not interact more closely (as my interests were not in sociolinguistics), I understood the centrality of his role in the department. It is sad to hear of his passing.
ReplyDeleteWolf was one of the nicest people I met in academia. He always had a kind word for you and cheered me up when I wasn't feeling so well during my time in Buffalo.
ReplyDelete“Hallo, hallo, hier ist der Wolf!” That is one of the typical phrases that Wolf – big smile, glorious voice, wonderfully trimmed mustache, meticulously dressed, radiating human warmth – used when entering the office of the Brussels-based Research Centre on Multilingualism. The first time I had the privilege of meeting Wolf was back in the spring of 1999, in that very same office. I had, of course, heard his name before (Peter Nelde would often tell beautiful stories about his Euromosaic and other adventures with Wolf), but meeting that German-American professor from the State University of New York at Buffalo in person was something else … or perhaps not, because Wolf behaved exactly as I had been told he would: he was kind, generous, and an expert in effortlessly putting everyone – even an inexperienced junior researcher like myself – at ease. In fact, already on the second day of his visit, he had more or less arranged that I would come and visit him at his house in Buffalo, after visiting the Neldes in the Gaspésie and dropping them off at the airport in Montréal, where they boarded a flight to the AILA conference in Tokyo. “My house is your house,” he told me – house meaning ‘The Wölck House’, masterfully and warmly managed by Carolyn, who, when I appeared on the doorstep in August 1999, immediately made me feel at home (in one of the cosiest houses I’ve ever had the chance to visit). From the moment I walked in, Carolyn and Wolf (and let’s not forget PC and her successors!) treated me – as if it were the most natural thing in the world – as one of the family. What a gift! And there have been many more.
ReplyDeleteWolf’s stories about his life in linguistics, his encounters with colleagues (just check the guest book for all the stars of our trade who visited the Wölcks), his days as head of department, and the professional challenges one faces in academia (and how to deal with them) have helped me to find my own path in the academic world and to make the decisions I needed to make.
Like many other contributors to this tribute page, I had the privilege of being able to rely on Wolf’s skills as a (people’s) manager as well as on his advice as a highly skilled sociolinguist (with anything but a narrow view of an ever-expanding field), whenever I needed to. Even now, when I sit down to write articles and chapters, Wolf still sits on my shoulder, reminding me to weigh my words and not to get carried away by verbose mumbo jumbo (that advice was first given to me as a PhD student; it came with a smile and with those clever eyes that seemed to say, “I know I’m smiling, but do listen carefully”). And I keep on cherishing his advice to keep my academic feet firmly on the ground and to take time to enjoy the good things in life – among them: roasted goose, a tender sirloin steak (seasoned with some secret Peruvian spices), corn (Wolf was definitely “the fastest corn eater in the world”), asparagus, salmon (any kind), good wine, and – I almost forgot – a drop of whisky (thanks to Wolf, Ardbeg is still my favourite).
I miss you, my dear friend, but when I listen carefully, I can still hear you talking and laughing and that makes the sun shine in my head.
The news of Wolf’s passing initially brought tears to my eyes but then my heart warmed as many joyous memories came rushing over me like a gentle breeze. I met Wolf in the mid-90s as a PhD student in the former Department of Modern Languages at UB. After just one visit to his office, I felt very much ‘at home’ for so many reasons with the obvious one being Wolf’s research and teaching focus on sociolinguistics and the other his East Prussian origins just as was the case with my Opa. While I benefitted greatly from Wolf’s classes and PhD co-supervision, the office conversations hold a special place in my heart. This was the space where I listened to stories that were narrated in the most extraordinary of ways and I obtained a wealth of practical advice on conducting interviews, even if we have moved on nowadays from using cassette tapes to digital recordings. As has been written, Wolf seemed to be from another time in the best sense of the term, yet he was also timeless as his advice and inspiration lives on.
ReplyDeleteI experienced Wolf much as each of his colleagues above wrote. He was handsome, gracious and a true friend. Hearing that he is no longer with us was a shock. Some people were meant to live on forever. Just meeting Wolf in the xerox room, or the elevator was enough to start the day with a smile. Goodbye Wolf.
ReplyDeleteI first met Wolf at a talk he gave at the Brussels Center of Multilingualism in March 1991, when he was on Belgian Science Foundation grant to spend a semester there. The Center was run by his dear friend Peter Nelde, and Wolf soon became my friend, too. When I met him I was not sure whether I wanted to pursue an academic career (I had obtained my PhD 3 years earlier and had published a CUP book in 1990), but Wolf really pushed me to not let go of my expertise in the field of (bilingual) child language acquisition, and gave me feedback on my "homework" - viz., write a professional academic CV, and later, after I had decided I would apply for a postdoctoral fellowship with the Belgian Science Foundation, he was a great mentor. I wanted to investigate socially relevant differences in (monolingual) Antwerpian 4-year-olds' speech and Wolf, who was, amongst others, a sociolinguist specializing in the measurement of attitudes, greatly helped me conceptualize my application. It succeeded and at the beginning of my postdoc I became a visiting scholar at UB (and at Carnegie Mellon U.) so I could further prepare the methods I was going to be using. Wolf was instrumental in this and when he told me I should start by talking to people about how they saw the ideal 4-year-old I asked yes but how many people and for how long - and he just replied: "you'll see", which made me feel a bit panicky but then after returning to Belgium I learned just how strongly language attitudes were community based and after my students and I had talked to 108 Antwerp adults we stopped because we kept getting the same answers (which turned out to show a very different ideal from another Dutch-speaking city, Amsterdam: Pieter Muysken - who Wolf knew very well through his work in South America - shared a document from his daughter's preschool that described what the teachers expected from 4-year-olds there - pretty much the opposite of what was seen as ideal in Antwerp). Anyhow, my postdoc project went very well and Wolf and I co-published and co-presented on it quite a bit. In the mid 1990's Wolf was co-editing the first De Gruyter Handbook of Contact Linguistics and I was honored to work with him on editing many of the chapters he was responsible for. We also co-edited a separate volume on contact linguistics. Much later, Wolf agreed to be interviewed for a chapter on individual bilingualism that I was writing for the Cambridge Handbook of Language Contact edited by Salikoko Mufwene and Anna Maria Escobar (who had been Wolf's student and a close friend). Amongst others, the chapter offers linguistic biographical case studies of two famous Prussians, Frederick the Great and Wolf. It was fascinating to document Wolf's bilingualism throughout his 9 decades.
ReplyDeleteAs my career progressed, Wolf continued to mentor me, and above all, he became a very dear friend. It is not exaggerated to say that without his mentorship early on I might not have developed my career as I have. I am very grateful both for his mentorship and for his friendship. Wolf has influenced so many lives - he will live on in our memories and heart.
When my husband Jim and I were young faculty members, with a younger son mad to ski, Wolf, whom I knew through hallway encounters, and Carolyn, who shared his passion for teaching every single student, invited us for an afternoon with them at their chalet in Holiday Valley. They gave us delicious food and lively conversation, and then Wolf took us out on one of the longer gentle slopes. One of his knees was already bad, but he could still glide and cut on a single ski, and looked like Cary Grant on the slopes. What a wonderful colleague and friend!
ReplyDeleteIt has been hard to write about Wolf, but I know he would smile with these memories.
ReplyDeleteMy graduate studies had been ‘decided’ before I started. I was to apply to the University at Buffalo to work under the direction of Dr. Wolfgang Wölck since I had already shown interest in studying linguistics when I started undergraduate studies. Of course, I would come to Buffalo and work with Wolf! After all, he had been part of the team of linguists and social scientists that worked on Quechua languages and Indigenous communities in the late sixties and early seventies in my native Peru as part of the agenda of the ‘Plan de Fomento Lingüístico,’ that my father directed at the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos. Wolf designed and led the first sociolinguistic study on language use and attitudes with speakers of an Amerindian language in Latin America. Several other Peruvians and Latin Americans had come to Buffalo since both Paul Garvin and Madeleine Matthiot, also on the linguistics faculty, were members of the PILEI and ALFAL (mundoalfal.org), organizations of language research in Latin America.
Wolf became my advisor for my master's and doctoral research. He was tough (yes, there were tears), but I would not have wanted it any other way. Our interactions were straightforward and rich, and he was always encouraging and supportive. This period also marked my career, my teaching, and the way I view the value of research. I can still hear Wolf questioning me about the 'whys' and 'what fors' in my work.
To make my Buffalo years even more special, Carolyn and Wolf invited me to live with them at their home at the end of my first year in Buffalo. Conversations about linguistics, life, food, and learning how to ski in Ellicottville and about their Butterflies and Pickles Club gave me a strong life balance that I am very grateful for and accompanies me to this day.
Wolf, saying THANK YOU is not enough for all your impact on my personal and professional life. Pensando en ti, Wolf.
I just learned about Wolf's passing. My deep condolence. He was a true gentleman, very kind, very cordial and sympathetic. He touched my students' lives including mine. Thank you.
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