Events

Events / Faculty / Research

MI Diaries at MSU Science Fest 2026

May 13, 2026

On April 11th, the Sociolinguistics Lab’s Michigan Diaries Project set up at MSU’s annual Science Festival to talk to the public about sociolinguistics!

In addition to answering people’s questions about language and hyping them up to become participants for the Diaries project, we ran two informal studies throughout the day to gauge changes in time in Michiganders’ preferred terms for a fizzy drink (pop, soda, or other), as well as the realization of Michiganders’ pre-nasal /æ/ vowel (is the vowel in ‘hand’ the same as the one in ‘cap’?)

Professor Betsy Sneller helping visitors add to the Pop vs. Soda chart.
Team member Connor Bechler giving the MI Diaries rundown to a curious prospective participant.
Rush hour at the MI Diaries Science Fest booth.
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Conferences / Events / Faculty / Graduate Students / Research

Michigan State Presenting at LSA 2026

December 2, 2025

Five MSU linguists (including Sociolinguistics Lab members Mofart Ayiega & Leah Nodar) will be presenting their work at the Linguistics Society of America’s annual conference, taking place this year in New Orleans from January 8th – 11th!

Please find their talk titles below:

  • Mofart Ayiega (co-authored with Dr. Suzanne Wagner) – Morphological Leveling of Noun Class Agreement in Urban Swahili
  • Dr. Leah Nodar – Twelve Variables of Africatown English in 1927 and 1979
  • Jingying Xu (co-authored with Dr. Cristina Schmitt):
    • Beyond Truth Conditions: Context Modulates Telicity Interpretation
    • Learning Telicity in Context: Developmental Evidence from Mandarin Children
  • Ellie Xia (co-authored with Dr. Alan Hezao Ke) – Tonal Marking of Telicity in Hakka: An Agree-Based Analysis
  • John Ryan (co-authored with Yaxuan Wang) – Reference, Aspect, and Event Completion in Mandarin Sentence Judgments

Click ‘Continue Reading’ for abstracts.

Continue ReadingMichigan State Presenting at LSA 2026
Conferences / Events / Faculty / Graduate Students / Research

MSU Linguists Presenting at NWAV 53

September 23, 2025

This November, Adam Barnhardt, Mofart Ayiega, Rose Fisher, Jess Shepherd, Connor Bechler, Annan Kirk, and Karthik Durvasula will be presenting at NWAV 53 (New Ways of Analyzing Variation) at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor!

  • Adam will be presenting “Creaky voice: A women-led sub/exurban-centric sound change in white Michigan English“
  • Mofart will be presenting “Morphological Non-agreement on Animate Nouns in Swahili“
  • Rose will be presenting “Language Loyalty and Maintenance: The Case of Pennsylvania Dutch“
  • Jess will be presenting “Paths of sound change in the [mɪɾən]: /tən/ in two varieties of Michigan English”
  • Connor will be presenting “Modeling and Documenting Variation across Pumi Varieties“
  • Annan Kirk will be presenting “Really is really frequent: intensifiers and change in Michigan English“
  • Karthik will be presenting “Near mergers are compatible with categorical representations”

NWAV 53 will run from Nov. 5th – 7th. Register here.

Click ‘Continue Reading’ for abstracts.

Continue ReadingMSU Linguists Presenting at NWAV 53
Conferences / Events / People / Research / Undergraduates

Socio Lab students present at UURAF

April 12, 2025

Undergraduate members of the Sociolinguistics Lab and/or the MI Diaries project team demonstrated their research skills at MSU’s 2025 University Undergraduate Research and Arts Forum (UURAF) on April 11, 2025. Presenters included:

  • Sabrina Ruiz, Who’s afraid of the Big Bad C*nt? Changes in offensiveness across generations.
    • Senior thesis project supervised by Dr. Betsy Sneller.
  • Sara Kirkman, Emoji and age: Exploring age-based variations in expressing emotions via emojis
    • Senior thesis project supervised by Dr. Betsy Sneller.
  • Xhanna Travina, A/B testing for engaging users with Knowledge Commons newsletter emails
    • Mentor: Larissa Babak (College of Arts and Letters)
  • Hannah Choi, Interpreting the simple past as the present perfect (with Jaina Kittle, Kay Humpert, Mason Dellot)
  • Ezekiel Brown, Verb agreement with non-DP subjects
Sabrina Ruiz with her UURAF poster
Xhanna Travina with her UURAF poster.

Continue ReadingSocio Lab students present at UURAF