Past and present Brown linguists presented two papers at the New Ways of Analyzing Variation (NWAV) 54 conference in Montreal:

 

Cassius Hall ('26) and Felix Kpogo (former Brown Presidential Postdoctoral Fellow, now at Wayne State University) presented on "Accommodation to US-style Rhoticity by Ghanaian-English Speakers in New England." This talk explored second dialect acquisition of rhoticity, finding that D2 accommodation is gradient and socially conditioned.

 

Jaime Benheim, Daniella Coyle ('26), Chloe Johnson ('28), Bryce Massey ('27), and Ellie Miller ('28) presented on "Stylistic use of creak in local identity construction," based on UTRA-funded projects. This talk focused on the social meaning of topic-based style-shifting in creaky phonation by younger Providence residents.