I’m broadly interested in how linguistic features play into the ways that we understand and create the social world around us. I am particularly interested in how we use social information to understand spoken language, and how we use linguistic styles to form ideas about who other people are, both in explicit commentary/evaluations, and in lower-level, more automatic behavior.

In my research, I aim to connect a) what we know about the use of linguistic variation as a socially meaningful resource in interactions with b) what we know about how speech is perceived at automatic and controlled levels. This allows me to think about how linguistic styles are represented cognitively, and how they’re connected with social constructs like personae.

To address these questions, much of my work has focused on phonetic features implicated in regional variation in the U.S. I explore these features from as many angles as I can: how they pattern macro-socially, how purportedly “place-linked” features are used in intersectional identity construction, particularly with respect to racialized identities, how they shift over time, how they’re used in ideological performances like parodies, and how they’re perceived by listeners.

You can read more about The Chicagoland Language Project here and see list of my publications here.