Our research group explores how social factors condition language variation and change, and how language informs our understandings of ourselves and others in a social context. Much of our research aims to bridge gaps between what we know about the use of linguistic variation as a socially meaningful resource, on the one hand, and what we know about cognitive and ideological representations of speech and of the social world, on the other. We use a variety of methods to explore production, perception, and representation of sociophonetic variation, focusing on style, personae, sociolinguistic perception and cognition, raciolinguistics, and language variation and place. We are home to the Chicagoland Language Project. Check out the Research tab for current projects!
We are affiliated with the Department of Linguistics at Northwestern University.
Please check our Schedule tab regarding upcoming meetings.