Research – Sociolinguistics Lab

MSU Linguists Accepted at NWAV

September 23, 2025

This November, Adam Barnhardt, Mofart Ayiega, Rose Fisher, Jess Shepherd, Connor Bechler, 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“
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.

Faculty / Research

New Post-Doctoral Researchers

September 1, 2025

MSU Linguistics recently hired two new post-docs, Leah Nodar and Joel Berends, to work with the MI Diaries project.

Welcome, Leah & Joel!

Leah Nodar is a Visiting Research Scholar in the Department of Linguistics, Languages, and Cultures. She is a postdoctoral researcher in linguistics on the MI Diaries project. Her research interests include dialect development, network analysis of discourse, and the role of personal investment in a social identity on language continuity and change.

Joel Berends works with the MI Diaries project and as an Assistant Professor of Teacher Education at MSU. His work involves youth who are interested in pursuing careers in education as part of MSU’s Community Teachers Program. His scholarship includes work with African and Asian immigrant youth, museum and cultural studies, diasporic literacies, discourse analysis, sports, poetry, and arts-based research and methodologies. His teaching, research, and community-engagement directly include youth in determining and deliberating curriculum, career pathways, and futures for learning communities.

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!

Research

Open position: Post-doc in Linguistics and Education

May 6, 2025

We’re hiring! Come and work in the Sociolinguistics Lab under the direction of Dr. Betsy Sneller.

Position description

The successful applicant will join the MI Diaries project, which is collecting sociolinguistic data from Michiganders across the state. The position primarily will be in helping the MI Diaries project develop partnerships with middle and high school classrooms across the state, developing lesson plans for grades 5-10 based on MI Diaries data (in partnership with WGVU PBS Station), supporting project maintenance, and developing reports or manuscripts about community outreach in collaboration with the principal investigator (Betsy Sneller). We especially invite applicants with a record of success in both sociolinguistics and K-12 Education, as working with schools is a critical component of this position. There are no required teaching responsibilities for the position.

Important dates

Applications accepted from April 25, 2025 onwards. Review of applications will begin June 1, 2025. The position will remain open until filled.

More information

See the full position description at MSU Careers.

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)
- Mentors: Alan Munn, Cristina Schmitt (Linguistics) – Language Acquisition Lab
Ezekiel Brown, Verb agreement with non-DP subjects
- Mentors: Alan Munn, Louis Konkoly (Linguistics) – Language Acquisition Lab