RESEARCH AND TEACHING INTERESTS

I am a quantitative sociolinguist, specializing in morpho-syntactic variation. Most of my research has focused on variation in Gullah and African-American Vernacular English (AAVE), with a particular focus on the putative relationship between the two varieties. My 1998 Ohio State University dissertation Exploring the AAVE-Gullah Connection: A comparative study of copula variability deals with these issues from both synchronic and diachronic perspectives. I also have interests in language and gender. I am currently working with Cynthia Haller (CUNY), Victoria Gallagher (N.C. State University), and Richard Felder (N.C. State University) on a study of gender and communication in Engineering student workgroups-a project funded by a grant from the Engineering Information Foundation. Courses taught include introductory survey courses in Linguistics and Sociolinguistics as well as a course on Language and Gender and a seminar on African-American English.

COURSES TAUGHT

Undergraduate Courses
•Introduction to Linguistics
•History of the English Language
•Language and Gender
•Seminar on African-American English

Graduate Courses
•Introduction to Linguistics
•Introduction to Sociolinguistics

PUBLICATIONS

Single Authorship

1999. Review of African American English. Structure, history, and usage. Salikoko Mufwene, John Rickford, Guy Bailey, John Baugh, eds. Routledge, 1998. Diachronica XVI: 2. 372-380.

1996. Past marking in Gullah. The University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics 3: 1. Miriam Meyerhoff, ed. 63-72.

1996. Review of The Crucible of Carolina: Essays in the development of Gullah language and culture. Michael Montgomery, ed. The SECOL Review, Spring 1996. 132-134.

1994. Variability in negation in African-American Vernacular English. Language variation and change 6: 3. 359-397.

Joint Authorship

Haller, Cynthia, Victoria Gallagher, Tracey Weldon, Richard Felder. July, 2000. Dynamics of peer education in cooperative learning workgroups. Journal of Engineering Education 89: 3. 285-293.

---. 1999. Dynamics of peer interactions in cooperative learning. American Society of Engineering Education (ASEE), Proceedings.

Jannedy, Stefanie, Robert Poletto, Tracey Weldon eds. 1994. The Language Files. 6th edition. Columbus: Ohio State University Press.

MANUSCRIPTS ACCEPTED FOR PUBLICATION

Reflections on the Ebonics controversy. To appear in American Speech (Diamond Anniversary Edition): 75: 3.

Copula variability in Gullah: Implications for the history of AAVE. To appear in a volume of the Creole Language Library. John Lipski, ed. John Benjamins.

The place of Gullah in the African-American diaspora: A study of past marking variability. To appear in Unshackled voices: The alchemy of African American English language (A postcolonial perspective). Mary Zeigler and Viktor Osinubi, eds.

Review of Beyond Ebonics: Linguistic pride and racial prejudice. John Baugh. Oxford, 2000. To appear in English World-Wide.

CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS

2000
“The Gullah copula: A comprehensive analysis.” Gullah: A linguistic legacy of Africans in America-A conference on the 50th anniversary of Africanisms in the Gullah dialect. Howard University, Washington, D.C.
1999
“Dynamics of peer interactions in cooperative learning.” Presented with Cynthia Haller, Victoria Gallagher, and Richard Felder. American Society of Engineering Education (ASEE), Charlotte, N.C.
1998
“The past copula in AAVE and Gullah.” New Ways of Analyzing Variation (in English) (NWAV(E)), Athens, Georgia.
1997
“A comparative look at the copula in Gullah and AAVE.” South Atlantic Modern Language Association (SAMLA), Atlanta, Georgia.
“Copula variability in Gullah and the Creolist Hypothesis.” Southeastern Conference on Linguistics (SECOL), Charlotte, North Carolina.
1996
"An examination of past marking variability in Gullah." SECOL, College Station, Texas.
"Another look at negative inversion in African-American Vernacular English: An HPSG account." Triangle Linguistics Club (TLC), Research Triangle Park, North Carolina.
“Copula variability in Gullah: Implications for the Creolist Hypothesis.” NWAV(E), Las Vegas, Nevada.
1995
"Past Marking in Gullah." NWAV(E), Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
1993
"A quantitative analysis of variability in predicate negation in a dialect of African-American Vernacular English NWAV(E), Ottawa, Canada.
 

 

Last update: 07/22/00