Spoken language conveys multiple messages simultaneously. In addition to conveying a 'regular' linguistic message, utterances convey information about the people who produce them. This includes information about their identity (are they older, gay, and liberal [like me]?), and their state of mind (are they angry? what is their attitude toward the topic being discussed?). Part of learning language means learning how to convey these different pieces of social information.
I study how adults and children with and without communication disorders (including hearing impairment, speech sound disorder, and developmental language disorder) perceive and produce different types of sociolinguistic variation. I focus particularly on sociolinguistic variation related to gender, sexuality, and race.
Over the course of my career, I have studied many other things, too. I have studied relationships between word learning and speech sound learning in different groups of children. I have studied how people perceive and convey sexual orientation through speech. I have studied speech perception in adults and children with cochlear implants. I have studied phonetic and phonological variation.
This profile contains a representative sample of my publications and research activities. For a full list of publications, please see my CV (on this profile), or visit my Google Scholar profile, or my profile at Experts@UMN. Both of those are linked to this profile.
Educational Background
- Ph.D.: Speech and Hearing Science, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, 2000 - none
- B.A.: Linguistics, State University of New York, Buffalo, NY, 1992 - none
- M.A.: Speech-Language Pathology, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, 1997 - none
Specialties
- Childhood speech-sound disorders
- Speech-sound development in children
- Speech perception
- Speech production