Category: Alumni

MSU (socio)linguists reunited at NWAV 53

November 21, 2025

The NWAV 53 conference (November 5-7, 2025) was a big success for MSU linguistics! In addition to presenters, our general crew included alumni of the MSU Linguistics PhD program (Mingzhe Zheng, Monica Nesbitt) and Second Language Studies program (Jie Liu); MSU Linguistics MA (Jack Rechsteiner); and MSU Linguistics BA (Wil Rankinen). In addition to Betsy Sneller and Suzanne Wagner, faculty were represented by Karthik Durvasula (Linguistics, phonetics/phonology) and Rose Fisher (German). We were also delighted to include undergraduates from the Honors Seminar that Betsy and Suzanne are co-teaching 2025-2026 and from the Sociolinguistics Lab, as well as current graduate students. Here's to another great NWAV in 2026 in Montreal!

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(l-r back) Jie Liu, Mingzhe Zheng, Anthony Tokrri, Alison Phillips, Wil Rankinen, Connor Bechler, Karthik Durvasula, Jack Rechsteiner, Sophie Motawi, Drake Howard, [unknown], Millie Hacker, Adam Barnhardt. (l-r front) Shuyang Wei, Monica Nesbitt, [unknown], Bai Yang Clemens, Lily Kwon, Rose Fisher, Annan Kirk, Betsy Sneller, Jess Shepherd, Julia Bolash, Connor Mason, Suzanne Evans Wagner, [unknown].

Alumni / Graduate Students / Research

Emily Duggan Successfully Defends M.A. Thesis

September 1, 2025

This July, Emily Duggan (MA Linguistics 2025) successfully defended her thesis “Lesbian vs. Dyke: An examination of the differences in social meaning between two queer identity terms”. Emily was advised by Prof. Suzanne Wagner, and her committee included Suzanne, Betsy Sneller, and Karthik Durvasula. The thesis is currently available on ProQuest and will later become available on the MSU Library's thesis archive. Congratulations, Emily! Abstract This thesis constitutes a two-part, descriptive research study investigating perceived differences in indexical meaning between the identity terms lesbian and dyke for members of the L1 English-speaking LGBTQ+ community in the United States. The study tested the hypothesis that the meanings of lesbian and dyke have become more similar over time. Results from an initial survey eliciting free associations with the target words suggest that the primary zones of indexical difference between lesbian and dyke for this community are gender identity and expression of the referent. One of the association categories most commonly evoked by lesbian was ‘woman/non-man,’ while one of the association categories most commonly evoked by dyke was ‘masculine/butch/gender non-conforming.’ These indexical mappings and others were confirmed in a second survey, in which respondents rated the strength of association between a subset of elicited descriptors (including ‘woman,’ ‘woman and/or nonbinary,’ ‘femininity,’ and ‘masculinity’) and the identity terms lesbian and dyke. However, contrary to the above hypothesis, the youngest generation of participants were found to report the highest degree of difference between lesbian and dyke for many descriptors. This thesis serves as a model for future studies investigating the nuances of identity language and examines how the phenomenon of semantic change might be viewed through a sociolinguistic lens.

Alumni / Conferences / Events / Faculty / Graduate Students / People / Research

Socio Lab goes to New York City for NWAV 51

October 16, 2023

Adam Barnhardt presents "Not all sound changes in progress are used in early-adolescent stance-taking" Suzanne Wagner and Jack Rechsteiner in front of Wagner, Sneller & Rechsteiner's poster "Sociolinguistic research projects as brands" at NWAV 51. Betsy Sneller points to a diagram of the Northern Cities shift. Monica Nesbitt, Suzanne Wagner, Betsy Sneller, Yongqing Ye, Adam Barnhardt, and Shannon Harasta at NWAV 51. The MSU Sociolinguistics Lab was well represented at the NWAV 51 conference at Queens College, New York, October 13-15, 2023. We had presentations on some of our first analyses of linguistic data from the MI Diaries project: Dr. Betsy Sneller presented as first author on a talk about Michigan English vowel change in apparent time, and Linguistics PhD students Adam Barnhardt and Yongqing Ye presented their doctoral qualifying paper research on adolescent stance-taking and vowel nasalization respectively. In addition, we had a poster that described our experience of building the MI Diaries 'brand' over the last three years. We were pleased to include new first year Second Language Studies student Shannon Harasta, who presented her MA thesis research (Southern Illinois University, Carbondale) on queer individuals' sense of (dis)comfort with various audiences. And it would not be NWAV without a gathering of MSU Socio Lab alumni and associates, such as Dr. Monica Nesbitt (U Indiana Bloomington), Jack Rechsteiner (U Pittsburgh), Chun-Yi Peng (Borough of Manhattan Community College) and Jayce Garner (Pomona College and MI Diaries NSF-REU 2022).

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Monica Nesbitt, Suzanne Wagner, Betsy Sneller, Yongqing Ye, Adam Barnhardt, and Shannon Harasta at NWAV 51.

Alumni / Faculty / People

Visiting Research Scholar: Irina Zaykovskaya

November 17, 2021

Dr. Irina Zaykovskaya We're delighted to welcome Dr. Irina Zaykovskaya back to the MSU Sociolinguistics Lab as a Visiting Research Scholar! Irina holds a Ph.D. in Second Language Studies from Michigan State University. Because her research interests lie at the intersection of second language acquisition and sociolinguistics, she was an active SocioLab member during her time at MSU, stayed in touch with the Lab after graduation, and even participated in the MI Diaries project in its early days as a Facebook page manager. Irina's dissertation project revolved around the acquisition of variation: specifically, the acquisition of discourse pragmatics by non-native speakers of English. Using a combination of interviews/surveys and experimental methods, Irina investigated how speakers from various L1 backgrounds use remarkable (vernacular) like, what beliefs about and attitudes towards it they possess, and whether they pattern with native speakers in judging the naturalness of like in different syntactic positions. Her most recent paper is to appear in Multifunctionality in English: Corpora, Language and Academic Literacy Pedagogy. During her upcoming SocioLab sojourn, Irina is planning to continue her work on variation in the second language, join the MI Diaries project team, and hold regular office hours (online and offline) to offer help and mentorship to all sociolinguistics students. You can read more about Irina on her personal website.

Alumni / Conferences / Research

SLA meets LVC: Second language acquisition of sociolinguistic variation at SLRF conference

September 20, 2019

Irina Zaykovskaya (PhD 2019) and Suzanne Evans Wagner are co-convening a colloquium at this week's Second Language Research Forum (SLRF) conference, hosted by Michigan State University's Second Language Studies program. The colloquium, held on Friday, September 20th, is titled: Catching interlanguage in action: When SLA meets language variation and change. The goal is to bring together researchers who study second language acquisition of sociolinguistic variation, using quantitative (and often also qualitative) methods. Irina's PhD studies were in the Second Language Studies program, but she took a graduate course in sociolinguistics with Suzanne in 2014, and subsequently decided to take a variationist sociolinguistic approach to her work. Suzanne became her co-advisor, and Irina defended her dissertation (on L2 acquisition of US English vernacular like) in 2019. Researchers like Irina, who work at the interface of SLA and LVC, are still quite rare. SLRF seemed to be a good opportunity to inform other SLA scholars about the insights afforded by LVC approaches. To further support this initiative, Irina has created an online resource hub for people interested in SLA+LVC. The other panelists include Xiaoshi Li (MSU), Kimberley Geeslin (Indiana University-Bloomington) and Matthew Kanwit (University of Pittsburgh).