Suzanne Evans Wagner
Biographic Data
| ID | 228687 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Suzanne Evans Wagner |
| GIVEN NAMES | Suzanne Evans |
| FAMILY NAME | Wagner |
| SIGNATURE | WAGNER S E |
| AFFILIATIONS | Michigan State University |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-1639-0245 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 17 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 144 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 16 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2011 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Morphological leveling of noun class agreement in urban Swahili
In Nairobi Swahili, some speakers exhibit variability between expected, standardized subject-verb agreement markers and non-canonical variants. This paper investigates agreement variation for singular and plural animal-referent nominal subjects in noun classes 9 and 10. The data are drawn from sociolinguistic interviews and a picture description task for a socially-balanced sample of 12 young adult speakers. The non-canonical variants i- and zi- …
Sociolinguistic research projects as brands
Sociolinguistic projects can benefit from brand management practices to meet their research goals. This is especially (but not exclusively) relevant for projects involving longitudinal relationships between the researcher and the community. Scholars may be skeptical of branding, because it can evoke the idea of institutions spending money on corporate image rather than on research or teaching support. Yet by curating their project’s brand as an i…
MI Diaries: Ethical and practical challenges
The Michigan Diaries (MI Diaries) project was developed from late March to early April of 2020, in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. MI Diaries is a longitudinal sociolinguistic project, collecting “audio diaries” from participants throughout the pandemic and beyond. As a research project designed to obtain personal narratives from a time of deep anxiety and pain, and during a time where face-to-face data collection was not feasible, MI Di…
The long tail of language change: A trend and panel study of Québécois French futures
A previous panel study of 59 speakers of Montreal French showed an increase in inflected futures (IF) at the expense of periphrastic futures (PF) as this population aged, running counter to the direction of historical change: reduction of IF. Matching two samples of speakers across the same time interval by age and social characteristics, the current trend study investigates whether or not this increase reflects retrograde change in the speech co…
A Tale of Two Shifts: Movement Toward the Low-Back-Merger Shift in Lansing, Michigan
Research Article| December 01 2019 7. A Tale of Two Shifts: Movement Toward the Low-Back-Merger Shift in Lansing, Michigan Monica Nesbitt; Monica Nesbitt MONICA NESBITT is a Society of Fellows Postdoctoral Fellow at Dartmouth College. Her research interest is in phonological variation and change across varieties of North American English. She has published her work in the University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics and presented at v…
Old‐age language variation and change: Confronting variationist ageism
The speech of older adults (65+ years old) is a rich resource for a wide range of researchers, including oral historians, developmental psychologists, health communication scholars, speech and hearing specialists, and discourse analysts. Yet in variationist sociolinguistics—the study of language variation, language change, and their social motivations—older adults have fallen afoul of a kind of scholarly ageism. This article provides linguists wi…
Panel Studies of Variation and Change
Quantifying the referential function of general extenders in North American English
Discourse markers (like, I don't know, etc.) are known to vary in frequency across English dialects and speech settings. It is difficult to make meaningful generalizations over these differences, since quantitative discourse-pragmatic variation studies 'lack [a] coherent set of methodological principles' (Pichler 2010:582). This has often constrained quantitative studies to focus on the form, rather than the function of discourse-pragmatic featur…
Pinning Down Enregisterment: Using Pinterest to Teach Students About Dialect Awareness
Review Article| May 01 2014 Pinning Down Enregisterment: Using Pinterest to Teach Students About Dialect Awareness Suzanne Evans Wagner Suzanne Evans Wagner Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google American Speech (2014) 89 (2): 208–218. https://doi.org/10.1215/00031283-2772077 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation Suzanne Evans Wagner; Pinning Down Enregisterment: Usin…
Linguistic correlates of Irish-American and Italian-American ethnicity in high school and beyond
Individual Sensitivity to the Frequency of Socially Meaningful Linguistic Cues Affects Language Attitudes
In forming an impression of a speaker, listeners are attentive to the frequency of nonstandard language features, using it to calibrate their judgments. We show that the ability to track and socially evaluate nonstandard variant frequency is subject to individual differences. Listeners judged an aspiring newscaster on the standardness of her speech in a series of read-aloud passages that had been manipulated for proportional frequency of a nonsta…
Light on Contemporary Inner Life
This review compares the soul revelations of the thirteen writers in Marked by Fire: Stories of the Jungian Way, a book dedicated to Jung's generosity and depth of self-disclosure in Memories, Dreams, Reflections (1963) and The Red Book (2009). These stories describe the harrowing dangers, as well as the healing powers, of forces in the collective unconscious. They motivate the reader to engage in continuous soul exploration. The writers' diversi…
We act like girls and we don't act like men: Ethnicity and local language change in a Philadelphia high school
How is ethnicity indexed linguistically in a speech community in which immigrant L2s have typically not been spoken for three or more generations? Drawing on recordings and ethnographic observations of eighteen white high school girls in south Philadelphia, speakers of Irish descent are shown to differentiate themselves from speakers of Italian descent through their use of (ay0), that is, Canadian Raising. (ay0) is an ongoing sound change in Phil…
Real-time evidence for age grad(ing) in late adolescence
This study provides real-time support for the hypothesis, previously inferred from apparent time studies, that stable sociolinguistic variables are age-graded. Stable variables have been shown to exhibit a curvilinear pattern with age in which adolescents use nonstandard variants at a higher rate than adults do. An analysis of the morphophonological variable (ing) was carried out using recordings and ethnographic observations of 13 young American…
Aquiline Tarimo, Ethnicity, Citizenship, and State in Eastern Africa
Age Grading in Sociolinguistic Theory
Distinguishing linguistic change at the community level ('generational change') from linguistic change at the individual level ('age grading') is "one of the major issues in contemporary sociolinguistics" (Tagliamonte 2012:247). This article gives a brief history of the study of language change in the community, before turning to the types of linguistic behavior that have been observed across individuals' lifespans. The article also discusses the…
Age grading in the Montréal French inflected future
The rise of the periphrastic future (PF) at the expense of the inflected future (IF) is an established historical trend in Québécois French over at least the past 150 years. Previous research has also found higher rates of PF among younger speakers, many displaying categorical use in affirmative contexts. Because an apparent time interpretation of the synchronic data fits the historical record, we expected concomitant speaker stability across the…
Age Grading in Sociolinguistic Theory
Distinguishing linguistic change at the community level ('generational change') from linguistic change at the individual level ('age grading') is "one of the major issues in contemporary sociolinguistics" (Tagliamonte 2012:247). This article gives a brief history of the study of language change in the community, before turning to the types of linguistic behavior that have been observed across individuals' lifespans. The article also discusses the…
Real-time evidence for age grad(ing) in late adolescence
This study provides real-time support for the hypothesis, previously inferred from apparent time studies, that stable sociolinguistic variables are age-graded. Stable variables have been shown to exhibit a curvilinear pattern with age in which adolescents use nonstandard variants at a higher rate than adults do. An analysis of the morphophonological variable (ing) was carried out using recordings and ethnographic observations of 13 young American…
Age grading in the Montréal French inflected future
The rise of the periphrastic future (PF) at the expense of the inflected future (IF) is an established historical trend in Québécois French over at least the past 150 years. Previous research has also found higher rates of PF among younger speakers, many displaying categorical use in affirmative contexts. Because an apparent time interpretation of the synchronic data fits the historical record, we expected concomitant speaker stability across the…
Individual Sensitivity to the Frequency of Socially Meaningful Linguistic Cues Affects Language Attitudes
In forming an impression of a speaker, listeners are attentive to the frequency of nonstandard language features, using it to calibrate their judgments. We show that the ability to track and socially evaluate nonstandard variant frequency is subject to individual differences. Listeners judged an aspiring newscaster on the standardness of her speech in a series of read-aloud passages that had been manipulated for proportional frequency of a nonsta…
Linguistic correlates of Irish-American and Italian-American ethnicity in high school and beyond
Quantifying the referential function of general extenders in North American English
Discourse markers (like, I don't know, etc.) are known to vary in frequency across English dialects and speech settings. It is difficult to make meaningful generalizations over these differences, since quantitative discourse-pragmatic variation studies 'lack [a] coherent set of methodological principles' (Pichler 2010:582). This has often constrained quantitative studies to focus on the form, rather than the function of discourse-pragmatic featur…
Old‐age language variation and change: Confronting variationist ageism
The speech of older adults (65+ years old) is a rich resource for a wide range of researchers, including oral historians, developmental psychologists, health communication scholars, speech and hearing specialists, and discourse analysts. Yet in variationist sociolinguistics—the study of language variation, language change, and their social motivations—older adults have fallen afoul of a kind of scholarly ageism. This article provides linguists wi…
We act like girls and we don't act like men: Ethnicity and local language change in a Philadelphia high school
How is ethnicity indexed linguistically in a speech community in which immigrant L2s have typically not been spoken for three or more generations? Drawing on recordings and ethnographic observations of eighteen white high school girls in south Philadelphia, speakers of Irish descent are shown to differentiate themselves from speakers of Italian descent through their use of (ay0), that is, Canadian Raising. (ay0) is an ongoing sound change in Phil…
Age grading in the Montréal French inflected future
The rise of the periphrastic future (PF) at the expense of the inflected future (IF) is an established historical trend in Québécois French over at least the past 150 years. Previous research has also found higher rates of PF among younger speakers, many displaying categorical use in affirmative contexts. Because an apparent time interpretation of the synchronic data fits the historical record, we expected concomitant speaker stability across the…
Real-time evidence for age grad(ing) in late adolescence
This study provides real-time support for the hypothesis, previously inferred from apparent time studies, that stable sociolinguistic variables are age-graded. Stable variables have been shown to exhibit a curvilinear pattern with age in which adolescents use nonstandard variants at a higher rate than adults do. An analysis of the morphophonological variable (ing) was carried out using recordings and ethnographic observations of 13 young American…
Aquiline Tarimo, Ethnicity, Citizenship, and State in Eastern Africa
Age Grading in Sociolinguistic Theory
Distinguishing linguistic change at the community level ('generational change') from linguistic change at the individual level ('age grading') is "one of the major issues in contemporary sociolinguistics" (Tagliamonte 2012:247). This article gives a brief history of the study of language change in the community, before turning to the types of linguistic behavior that have been observed across individuals' lifespans. The article also discusses the…
Light on Contemporary Inner Life
This review compares the soul revelations of the thirteen writers in Marked by Fire: Stories of the Jungian Way, a book dedicated to Jung's generosity and depth of self-disclosure in Memories, Dreams, Reflections (1963) and The Red Book (2009). These stories describe the harrowing dangers, as well as the healing powers, of forces in the collective unconscious. They motivate the reader to engage in continuous soul exploration. The writers' diversi…
We act like girls and we don't act like men: Ethnicity and local language change in a Philadelphia high school
How is ethnicity indexed linguistically in a speech community in which immigrant L2s have typically not been spoken for three or more generations? Drawing on recordings and ethnographic observations of eighteen white high school girls in south Philadelphia, speakers of Irish descent are shown to differentiate themselves from speakers of Italian descent through their use of (ay0), that is, Canadian Raising. (ay0) is an ongoing sound change in Phil…
Pinning Down Enregisterment: Using Pinterest to Teach Students About Dialect Awareness
Review Article| May 01 2014 Pinning Down Enregisterment: Using Pinterest to Teach Students About Dialect Awareness Suzanne Evans Wagner Suzanne Evans Wagner Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google American Speech (2014) 89 (2): 208–218. https://doi.org/10.1215/00031283-2772077 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation Suzanne Evans Wagner; Pinning Down Enregisterment: Usin…
Linguistic correlates of Irish-American and Italian-American ethnicity in high school and beyond
Individual Sensitivity to the Frequency of Socially Meaningful Linguistic Cues Affects Language Attitudes
In forming an impression of a speaker, listeners are attentive to the frequency of nonstandard language features, using it to calibrate their judgments. We show that the ability to track and socially evaluate nonstandard variant frequency is subject to individual differences. Listeners judged an aspiring newscaster on the standardness of her speech in a series of read-aloud passages that had been manipulated for proportional frequency of a nonsta…
Quantifying the referential function of general extenders in North American English
Discourse markers (like, I don't know, etc.) are known to vary in frequency across English dialects and speech settings. It is difficult to make meaningful generalizations over these differences, since quantitative discourse-pragmatic variation studies 'lack [a] coherent set of methodological principles' (Pichler 2010:582). This has often constrained quantitative studies to focus on the form, rather than the function of discourse-pragmatic featur…
Panel Studies of Variation and Change
Old‐age language variation and change: Confronting variationist ageism
The speech of older adults (65+ years old) is a rich resource for a wide range of researchers, including oral historians, developmental psychologists, health communication scholars, speech and hearing specialists, and discourse analysts. Yet in variationist sociolinguistics—the study of language variation, language change, and their social motivations—older adults have fallen afoul of a kind of scholarly ageism. This article provides linguists wi…
A Tale of Two Shifts: Movement Toward the Low-Back-Merger Shift in Lansing, Michigan
Research Article| December 01 2019 7. A Tale of Two Shifts: Movement Toward the Low-Back-Merger Shift in Lansing, Michigan Monica Nesbitt; Monica Nesbitt MONICA NESBITT is a Society of Fellows Postdoctoral Fellow at Dartmouth College. Her research interest is in phonological variation and change across varieties of North American English. She has published her work in the University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics and presented at v…
The long tail of language change: A trend and panel study of Québécois French futures
A previous panel study of 59 speakers of Montreal French showed an increase in inflected futures (IF) at the expense of periphrastic futures (PF) as this population aged, running counter to the direction of historical change: reduction of IF. Matching two samples of speakers across the same time interval by age and social characteristics, the current trend study investigates whether or not this increase reflects retrograde change in the speech co…
MI Diaries: Ethical and practical challenges
The Michigan Diaries (MI Diaries) project was developed from late March to early April of 2020, in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. MI Diaries is a longitudinal sociolinguistic project, collecting “audio diaries” from participants throughout the pandemic and beyond. As a research project designed to obtain personal narratives from a time of deep anxiety and pain, and during a time where face-to-face data collection was not feasible, MI Di…
Sociolinguistic research projects as brands
Sociolinguistic projects can benefit from brand management practices to meet their research goals. This is especially (but not exclusively) relevant for projects involving longitudinal relationships between the researcher and the community. Scholars may be skeptical of branding, because it can evoke the idea of institutions spending money on corporate image rather than on research or teaching support. Yet by curating their project’s brand as an i…
Morphological leveling of noun class agreement in urban Swahili
In Nairobi Swahili, some speakers exhibit variability between expected, standardized subject-verb agreement markers and non-canonical variants. This paper investigates agreement variation for singular and plural animal-referent nominal subjects in noun classes 9 and 10. The data are drawn from sociolinguistic interviews and a picture description task for a socially-balanced sample of 12 young adult speakers. The non-canonical variants i- and zi- …
Linguistic Variation and Morphology (14 works) · Sociology (12 works) · Linguistics (10 works) · Multilingual Education and Policy (9 works) · Psychology (8 works) · Phonetics and Phonology Research (7 works) · Anthropology (5 works) · Language, Discourse, Communication Strategies (5 works) · Philosophy (5 works) · Computer Science (4 works)