I am a fifth-year PhD student at Northwestern University with research interests concentrating in sociolinguistic perception and cognition. I am affiliated with SocioGroup and with the Phonatics discussion group. In my dissertation work, I’m currently exploring the ways in which listeners’ expectations guide their interpretations and memory of speakers’ sociolinguistic practice. In particular, I investigate how listeners’ memory of uptalk, a prosodic rising contour often negatively associated with women’s voices, differ depending on the speakers’ perceived identity as well as the listeners’ existing attitudes and expectations.
In 2017, I graduated from Eastern Michigan University with a BS in linguistics, and I wrote a thesis on linguistic attitudes in the Honors College at EMU.
Say hello at astecker [at] u.northwestern.edu!