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 | Phone | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aaron J. Dinkin | University of Toronto | American English dialects, especially upstate New York; sound change | 647-973-8953 | |
| Anne Curzan | University of Michigan | word origins, history of the English language, language change, future of English, dictionaries | 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 | 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 | 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 | 514 748 9536 | |
| Connie Eble | University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill | history of the English language, language issues in Louisiana and New Orleans | 919 967 7365; 919 962 0469 | |
| David Douglas Robertson | consulting linguist | pidgin English, Chinook (Chinook Jargon), language contact, Salish, American Indian English | 509 828 7344 | |
| David K. Barnhart | Barnhart Dictionary Companion | new words (neologisms), trademarks, semantics, dictionaries, lexicography | 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 | 541 552 6620 | |
| Erik R. Thomas | North Carolina State University | sociophonetics, North American dialects, ethnic dialects | 919 880 7809 (cell) | |
| Frank Nuessel | University of Louisville | onomastics (study of names): personal names, place names, brand names, ageist terminology | 502 852 0503 | |
| G. Burns Cooper | University of Alaska Fairbanks | forensic phonetics, sociophonetics, Alaskan Englishes, linguistic poetics | 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” | 573 341 4629 | |
| Grant Barrett | Dictionary.com, A Way with Words (radio/podcast), American Dialect Society | new words, neologisms, slang, language change, popular perceptions of language, dictionaries, dictionary, lexicography, political language, grammar, writing well, editing | 646 286 2260 | |
| Jack Grieve | Aston University | American dialects, big data, corpus linguistics, forensic linguistics, grammatical variation, lexical variation, new words, slang, social media | +44 (0) 121 204 3784 | |
| Jennifer Cramer | University of Kentucky | sociolinguistics, Southern English, Appalachian English, perceptions of language | 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 | 202 687 5956 | |
| Jesse Sheidlower | past president, American Dialect Society, (formerly) Oxford English Dictionary | slang, obscenity, neologisms, usage, defining | 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 | 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 | 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 | 212 254 6495 | |
| Julie Roberts | University of Vermont | Vermont speech, child dialect acquisition, sound change, prescriptivism rules and political considerations | 802 373 8673 | |
| Kathryn Remlinger | Grand Valley State University, Department of English | dialect and identity in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, dialects and tourism | 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 | 703 350 7904 | |
| Kirk Hazen | West Virginia University | language and society, ethnic dialects, Appalachian English, Southern English, language and education, language change | 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 | 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 | 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 | +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 | 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) | 801 581 4389, 801 585 7611 | |
| Neil Alexander Walker | San Joaquin Delta College | Native American languages, general linguistics | 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) | 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 | 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 | 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 | 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 | 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 | 608 770 9441 (cell) | |
| Toni J. Morris | University of Indianapolis, Professor Emerita | early English, history of the English language, word origins | 317 322 8494, 317 459 1963 | |
| Valerie Fridland | University of Nevada, Reno | sociolinguistics, American dialects, regional vowel shifts | 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 | 919 515 4151 |