Thomas C. Purnell

Degrees and Institutions

• PhD Linguistics, University of Delaware, 1998 (“Principles and Parameters of Phonological Rules: Evidence from Tone Languages”)
• MA English (Linguistics), George Mason University, 1992
• BA English, California State University, Los Angeles, 1986

Courses Taught

English Department

• English 214, The English Language
• English 314, Structure of English
• English 315, Phonology
• English 316, English Variation in the US
• English 319, Language, Race, and Identity
• English 416, English in Society
• English 414, Global Spread of English
• English 709, Advanced English Phonology
• Topics courses: Linguistic Geography (Spring 2018); English Speech Analysis (Spring 2015)
• Seminar courses: English Vowels; Labov; English Stress and Poetic Metrics; Global English

Language Sciences Program

• Linguistics 101, Introduction to Human Language
• Linguistics 103, Language, History, and Society
• Linguistics 306, General Phonetics
• Linguistics 310, Phonology
• Linguistics 426, Field Methods: Isan; Gujarati; Tibetan; Hmong
• Linguistics 510, Phonological Theories
• Linguistics 561, Introduction to Experimental Phonetics
• Linguistics 562, Advanced Experimental Phonetics
• Seminar courses: Phonetic Variability; Constraint-based Theories; Stress-Tone Interaction

Integrated Liberal Studies (First-Year Interest Group Courses)

• Locality of Language: A linguistics study of English literature
• Language, Race, and Identity

Edited Volumes

• Wisconsin Talk: Linguistic Diversity in the Badger State. (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 2013). (editor, with Eric Raimy & Joseph Salmons)
• “Accommodative tendencies in multidialect communication” Journal of English Linguistics 38/3 (2010). (guest editor with Malcah Yaeger-Dror,)
• “Accommodation to the locally dominant norm: Variationist analyses” American Speech 85/3 (2010). (guest editor with Malcah Yaeger-Dror, )

Selected Publications

• “The History of English in the United States.” In The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of World Englishes (John Wiley, 2024).
• “Midwestern American Englishes.” In The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of World Englishes (John Wiley, 2024).
• “Old English Vowels: Diachrony, privitivity and phonological representations.” Language 95/4 (2019): e447-e473. (with Eric Raimy & Joseph Salmons)
• “Greeting and Response: Predicting Participation from the Call Opening.” Journal of Survey Statistics and Methodology 6/1 (2018): 122–148. (with Nora Cate Schaeffer, Bo Hee Min, Dana Garbarski & Jennifer Dykema)
• “Rule-Based Phonology: Background, principles and assumptions.” In The Routledge Handbook of Phonological Theory (Routledge, 2017): 135-166.
• “Subliminal accent’: Reactions to the rise of Wisconsin English.” Journal of Linguistic Geography 4/1 (2016): 15-30. (with Danielle Schuld, Joe Salmons, and Eric Raimy)
• “Upper Midwestern English.” In Listening to the Past (Cambridge, 2016): 298-324. (with Eric Raimy & Joseph Salmons)
• “Distinctive features, levels of representation and historical phonology.” In The Handbook of Historical Phonology , P. Honeybone & J. Salmons (eds.). (Oxford: Oxford University Press, forthcoming, 2014). (with Eric Raimy)
• “Hearing the American language change: The state of DARE recordings.” American Speech (forthcoming, 2013).
• “Making linguistics matter: Building on the public’s interest in language. ” Linguistic Compass 7/7 (2013): 398-407. (with Eric Raimy & Joseph Salmons)
• “Dialect recordings from the Hanley Collection, 1931-1937.” American Speech 87/4 (2012): 511-513 (audio article).
• “Teaching, researching and doing outreach on Wisconsin Englishes. ” American Speech 87/3 (2012): 369-370 (audio article). (with Eric Raimy & Joseph Salmons)
• “Phonetic detail in the perception of ethnic varieties of US English.” In A Reader in Sociophonetics (Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 2010): 289-326.
• “Contact and the development of American English.” In Handbook of Language Contact (Oxford: Blackwell, 2010): 454-477 (with Joseph Salmons).
• “The vowel phonology of urban Southeastern Wisconsin.” In AAE speakers and their participation in local sound changes: A comparative study. (Publication of the American Dialect Society volume #94, Durham: Duke University Press, 2010): 191-217.
• “Convergence and contact in Milwaukee: Evidence from select African American and white vowel space features.” Journal of Language and Social Psychology 28/4 (2009): 408-427.
• “Phonetic influence on phonological operations.” Contemporary Views on Architecture and Representations in Phonological Theory (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2009): 337-354. .
• “Defining dialect, perceiving dialect and new dialect formation: Sarah Palin’s speech.” Journal of English Linguistics 37/4 (2009): 331-355. (with Eric Raimy & Joseph Salmons)
• “Pre-velar raising and phonetic conditioning: Role of labial and anterior tongue gestures.” American Speech 83/4 (2008): 373-402.
• “Structured heterogeneity and change in laryngeal phonetics: Upper Midwestern final obstruents.” Journal of English Linguistics 33/4 (2005): 307-338.
• “German substrate effects in Wisconsin English: Evidence for final fortition.” American Speech 80/2 (2005): 135-164.
• “Perceptual and phonetic experiments on American English dialect identification.” Journal of Language and Social Psychology 18/1 (1999): 10-30.

Current Projects

I am currently working on a book with Eric Raimy (English) and Joseph Salmons (German, CSUMC) Modularity in phonology to appear in the Cambridge University Press Key Topics in Phonology Series. We also continue our work on Wisconsin Speech Chain On-Line (WiSCO), a tool for teaching the speech chain, in conjunction with staff at DoIT. Also, Nora Cate Schaeffer with others in Sociology and I are analyzing “hello” as spoken by respondents to the Wisconsin Longitudinal Survey. Bill Idsardi (U Maryland) and I are working on an NSF grant examining neuromagnetic correlates of dialect.