News – Page 13 – Sociolinguistics Lab

Congratulations to NWAV 47 Presenters!

September 27, 2018

The Sociolinguistics lab will be sending many projects to the 47th Annual NWAV Conference at New York University in New York City from October 18-21, 2018, including several talks! Congratulations to Silvina Bongiovanni, Monica Nesbitt, Matt Savage, and Alex Mason for getting accepted!

There will be practice talks in the weeks leading up to the conference, and all are invited to attend lab meetings to learn more and/or provide feedback!

Please see the Sociolinguistics lab calendar for specific dates of each practice talk!

TRAP: The loss of tensing in Michigan (Monica Nesbitt)
Style & attitude: The social evaluation of the BET vowel (Matt Savage & Alex Mason)
On the relationship between vowel nasalization and nasal weakening: Evidence from a Caribbean and non-Caribbean dialect of Spanish (Silvina Bongiovanni)
It’s a TRAP!: The trigger for the Elsewhere Shift in Lansing, Michigan (Alex Mason)
Attitudes toward TRAP in Michigan (Monica Nesbitt)
“It’s an American Symbol!”: Non-native speakers’ take on remarkable LIKE (Irina Zaykovskaya) – Practice Talk: October 5, 2018; Wells Hall B243; 12:30pm-3:00pm via Skype

Meetings

Sociolinguistics in Fall 2018

September 25, 2018

The semester is in full swing and so are the Sociolinguistics students at Michigan State! There’s no shortage of research going on, including senior theses, research papers, conference preparation and more! If you’re interested in sociolinguistics, would like to get involved in research, or just want to see what it’s like, please feel free to join us for our meetings. We’d be happy to have you!

Our schedule can be found here!

Events

Talking Black in America

February 21, 2018

Next Wednesday, February 28th, in honor of Black History Month, we’ll be screening the amazing new documentary, Talking Black in America in B310 Wells Hall, 6pm.

Read more about the article Talking Black in America

People / Research / Undergraduates

Undergraduate Updates!

January 18, 2018

Alichia Crandall and Renaysha Goodebailey graduated from MSU last semester. For her senior thesis, Alichia analyzed a dataset from a rapid and anonymous survey of people’s responses to being thanked (you’re welcome vs no problem vs others), modeled on an activity originated by Dr. Aaron Dinkin of San Diego State University. Renaysha collected word list data from friends and family in her home city of Pittsburgh, to investigate the progress of /u/-fronting in the African American community there. Renaysha’s work follows up on research by Dr. Maeve Eberhardt of the University of Vermont.
And congratulations to freshman Socio Lab member Jared Kaczor, who is an MSU Citizen Scholar, and who made the Dean’s List last semester! Jared is working this semester with Savannah Feeley on a project run by Irina Zaykovskaya, investigating non-native English speakers’ acquisition of vernacular ‘like’.

51 Citizen Scholars made the Dean's List for Fall 2017! Congrats to all of our students on their hard work last semester! pic.twitter.com/GDjLz7fuLT
— MSU Citizen Scholars (@MSUCitScholars) January 18, 2018

Graduate Students / People

Dr Mingzhe Zheng!

December 20, 2017

Congratulations to Mingzhe Zheng, who on November 21, 2017 successfully defended his doctoral dissertation You have to learn to adapt: A sociolinguistic study of the “Asian City” of southeast Michigan. Dr Zheng is currently a postdoctoral fellow in Chinese at Earlham College, Indiana.