American Dialect Society

This list of linguistics and language experts is intended for media or professional contacts only. It is not a source of first resort for everyday language questions, such as those which are easily answered by a good dictionary, a trip to the library, or a Google search.

The people listed below are happy to help journalists find or verify necessary facts, but please do NOT contact every person on this list with the same questions. Choose one or two who have the appropriate expertise and ALWAYS tell them whom else you are contacting, either from this list or from elsewhere. This will save much duplicate effort and allow your contacts to defer to someone with more expertise.

If you do not see an expert appropriate to your topic, please email administrator@americandialect.org, who can often recommend the best person to talk to from this list or elsewhere.

While this is list is not a speaker’s bureau, many of the people listed below are also available for public speaking engagements and would be happy to discuss giving a presentation, speech, or session at your upcoming conference or event.

Name	Affiliation	Topics and Expertise	Email	Phone
Aaron J. Dinkin	University of Toronto	American English dialects, especially upstate New York; sound change	email	647-973-8953
Anne Curzan	University of Michigan	word origins, history of the English language, language change, future of English, dictionaries	email	734 936 2881
Ben Zimmer	Wall Street Journal (columnist), The Atlantic (contributing editor)	slang, word origins, new words, neologisms, American speech, dictionaries, language and technology, political language	email	740 485 2105
Bethany K. Dumas	University of Tennessee	applied linguistics broadly defined, including forensic linguistics and educational and social applications of linguistic science, with focus on institutional language, particularly legal language; variation, regional and social, especially in American English; linguistic diversity and literacy; linguistic prejudice and discrimination; discourse analysis	email	865 661 6671
Charles Boberg	Department of Linguistics, McGill University	regional variation in North American English pronunciation and vocabulary, especially Canadian English, English spoken in Canada	email	514 748 9536
Connie Eble	University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill	history of the English language, language issues in Louisiana and New Orleans	email	919 967 7365; 919 962 0469
David Douglas Robertson	consulting linguist	pidgin English, Chinook (Chinook Jargon), language contact, Salish, American Indian English	email	509 828 7344
David K. Barnhart	Barnhart Dictionary Companion	new words (neologisms), trademarks, semantics, dictionaries, lexicography	email	845 489 0333
Dennis R. Preston	Oklahoma State University, Michigan State University (emeritus)	sociolinguistics, dialectology, dialects, folk linguistics, language variation, second language acquisition	email 1, email 2	home 405 564 0636, cell 405 269 7941
Edwin Battistella	Southern Oregon University	language of public apologies	email	541 552 6620
Erik R. Thomas	North Carolina State University	sociophonetics, North American dialects, ethnic dialects	email	919 880 7809 (cell)
Frank Nuessel	University of Louisville	onomastics (study of names): personal names, place names, brand names, ageist terminology	email	502 852 0503
G. Burns Cooper	University of Alaska Fairbanks	forensic phonetics, sociophonetics, Alaskan Englishes, linguistic poetics	email	907 474 5303 (office), 907 669 8884 (cell)
Gerald Cohen	Missouri University of Science & Technology	etymology, especially of American slang, and the origin of terms such as "hot dog," "shyster," "eureka," "The Big Apple," "gung ho," "jazz," "namby-pamby"	email	573 341 4629
Grant Barrett	A Way with Words, American Dialect Society	new words, neologisms, slang, language change, popular perceptions of language, dictionaries, dictionary, lexicography, political language, grammar, writing well, editing	email	646 286 2260
Jack Grieve	Aston University	American dialects, big data, corpus linguistics, forensic linguistics, grammatical variation, lexical variation, new words, slang, social media	email	+44 (0) 121 204 3784
Jennifer Cramer	University of Kentucky	sociolinguistics, Southern English, Appalachian English, perceptions of language	email	859 257 6983
Jennifer Nycz	Georgetown University	American accents & dialects; mobility & accent/dialect change; accent change over the lifespan; acquiring new accents; shifting accents according to audience or topic; phonetics	email	202 687 5956
Jesse Sheidlower	past president, American Dialect Society, (formerly) Oxford English Dictionary	slang, obscenity, neologisms, usage, defining	email	917 620 2539
Joe Abraham	Louisiana State University	grammarian and editor; expert witness: contracts, statutes, policies, patents, etc.; fluent in slang and the language of rap	email	225 262 0138
John Baugh	Washington University and Stanford University	linguistic discrimination, linguistic profiling, studies of linguistic variability, African American English, minority dialects in the United States, educational linguistics, linguistics and the law, forensic linguistics	email	650 520 3313
John Victor Singler	Department of Linguistics, New York University	sociolinguistics, pidgins and creoles, history of African American English, New York City English, West African Englishes	email	212 254 6495
Julie Roberts	University of Vermont	Vermont speech, child dialect acquisition, sound change, prescriptivism rules and political considerations	email	802 373 8673
Kathryn Remlinger	Grand Valley State University, Department of English	dialect and identity in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, dialects and tourism	email	626 331 3122
Katie Carmichael	Virginia Tech	sociolinguistics, language varieties in the American South, Louisiana language & culture, New Orleans English, Louisiana French, Cajun English, language attitudes about regional U.S. dialects	email	703 350 7904
Kirk Hazen	West Virginia University	language and society, ethnic dialects, Appalachian English, Southern English, language and education, language change	email	304 293 9721
Lal Zimman	University of California, Santa Barbara	language, gender, and sexuality; transgender identity; LGBT language issues; gay men’s voices; pronouns; gender norms; gender differences in the voice; coming out; sex reassignment / gender transition; speech therapy	email	415 533 2202
Luanne von Schneidemesser	Senior Editor, Distinguished Scientist Emerita, Dictionary of American Regional English	Dictionary of American Regional English, dictionaries, German influence on American English, Wisconsin words	email	608 233 3051, 608 556-8110
Lynne Murphy	University of Sussex (Brighton, UK), British vs. American blog "Separated by a Common Language"	British versus American English, word meaning, politeness, dictionaries and thesauruses, opposites and synonyms	email	+44-1273-678844
Malcah Yaeger-Dror	University of Arizona	sociophonetics, dialect variation, variation in singing and broadcast styles, automated speech recognition, the influence of demographic characteristics and political choices on speech variation in the US, disagreement strategies	email	520 326 5747
Marianna Di Paolo	Department of Anthropology & Department of Linguistics, University of Utah	sociolinguistics, sociophonetics, Western American English (esp. Utah), Texas English, Shoshoni/Gosiute, Tongan, language & the law/forensic linguistics (focus on jury instructions)	email	801 581 4389, 801 585 7611
Neil Alexander Walker	San Joaquin Delta College	Native American languages, general linguistics	email	707 430 8802
Rebecca Babcock	University of Texas Permian Basin	script/screenplay consulting, language acquisition, Haitian Creole, discourse analysis, folk linguistics (folk beliefs about language)	email	432 552 2304
Salikoko S. Mufwene	University of Chicago, Department of Linguistics	origins of African American English; emergence of creoles and the evolution of European colonial languages in general, especially English and French; colonization, globalization and language from the point of view of language vitality/endangerment/loss; evolutionary emergence of language in mankind; ecology of language	email	773 702 8531 (office), 773 255 8887 (mobile)
Salvatore Callesano	University of Texas at Austin	sociolinguistics, language perceptions and attitudes, sociophonetic variation of Spanish (U.S. and abroad) and U.S. English, language in U.S. Latino communities	email	603 387 2286
Sonja Lanehart	University of Texas at San Antonio	African American language, Ebonics, language and identity, language and discrimination, sociolinguistics, African American literacies, critical race theory, educational linguistics, critical discourse analysis	email	210 458 6610
Stefan Dollinger	University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada	dialectology, historical linguistics, language and identity, lexicography, Canadian English, American English, Global Englishes, Austrian German, dictionaries	email	604 822-4095 Twitter: @CanE_Lab
Tom Purnell	University of Wisconsin-Madison	sociophonetics; American English dialectology and substrate influences; ethnic and regional variation especially Maryland and Upper Midwestern English	email	608 770 9441 (cell)
Toni J. Morris	University of Indianapolis, Professor Emerita	early English, history of the English language, word origins	email	317 322 8494, 317 459 1963
Valerie Fridland	University of Nevada, Reno	sociolinguistics, American dialects, regional vowel shifts	email	775 784 7546
Walt Wolfram	North Carolina State University William C. Friday Distinguished University Professor	ethnic dialects of American English (African American, American Indian, Latino), social dialects, American English dialectology, dialect recession and expansion, language revitalization, public sociolinguistic education, sociolinguistic engagement	email	919 515 4151