February welcomes Gordon P. Hemsley as the new Assistant Editor for Popular Linguistics Magazine! In addition to writing timely briefs for The Latest Word, Gordon is currently wrapping up his Bachelor’s degree in General Linguistics at Queens College (CUNY), where he has a penchant for syntax, endangered languages, and Praat. In the future, he hopes to pursue a career teaching computers how to be human (or humans how to be computers). You can follow his progress at or e-mail him at .
Our featured authors this month are Renee Blake and Cara Shousterman.
Renee is an Associate Professor in the Departments of Linguistics and Social and Cultural Analysis at New York University. Her work on African American English and West Indian American English has appeared in English Today, Journal of English Linguistics, Linguistics and Education, Language in Society, and Language, Variation and Change. Her current research examines language contact, race, ethnicity and class with a focus on African American English, Caribbean English Creoles and New York City English. She can be reached at .
Renee’s co-author, Cara, is a Ph.D. candidate at New York University. Her work on African American English and West Indian American English has appeared in English Today and the Journal of English Linguistics. Her current research examines regional variation and sound change in African American English, as well as the importance of place identity and ethnic differentiation for its speakers. She can be reached at .
February’s invited essayist is Janet M. Fuller, Director of Women’s Studies at Southern Illinois University – Carbondale and editor of Sociolinguistics section of the Language & Linguistics Compass. Her work on bilingualism and discourse analysis has appeared in The International Journal of Bilingualism, American Speech, Language in Society, The Journal of Linguistic Anthropology and The Journal of Sociolinguistics. Her current research focuses on Spanish–English and German–English bilingual children in the USA and Germany. She can be reached at
The story from the field this month is again brought to us by Patience Epps, Associate Professor in the Department of Linguistics at the University of Texas at Austin. Her research focuses on indigenous Amazonian languages, typology, and language contact and change. Her publications include A Grammar of Hup, as well as papers in Diachronica, International Journal of American Linguistics, Linguistic Typology, and Studies in Language. Her story, “The Path to Pij Dëh”, is an account of her experiences in the field in 2001, while studying the language of the Hup people of the northwest Amazon. She can be reached at
This month’s explanation of linguistic theory comes from Simanique Moody, a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Linguistics Department at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Her co-authored work on camouflage constructions in African American English has appeared in Language. Her current research focuses on language contact and variation in African American English. She can be reached at
Once again, February’s Cocktail Party Linguistics is a “Last Words” column written by Popular Linguistics Magazine‘s own intrepid Editor-in-Chief, DS Bigham. DS works on phonetics and sociolinguistics, investigating the effects of inter-ethnic dialect contact and accommodation among emerging adults. He can be reached at
And finally, this month we welcome Lauren Collister as a contributor to The Latest Word section.
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