James N. Stanford, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Linguistics and Cognitive
Science
Dartmouth College
E-mail: James.N.Stanford@Dartmouth.edu
Research interests:
Sociolinguistics, Sociophonetics, Dialect Contact, Language Contact,
Quantitative and Acoustic Analysis of Linguistic Variation,
Socio-Tonetics, Linguistic Construction of
Identity, Indigenous Minority Languages, Sociolinguistics of Lesser
Studied Languages, Phonology and Phonetics, Sui (a
Tai-Kadai minority language of China), Hmong, Tone
Phonetics, Acoustic Phonetics, Variation in Indigenous
Minority
Languages, Endangered Languages, Indigenous Immigrant Communities in
the U.S., Anthropological Linguistics, Ethnic Minority
Languages of China, Language and Gender, Dialect Contact in Marriage,
Communities of Descent,
Exogamy and Linguistic Construction of Clan/Lineage Groups, New England
English
Dialects, Agent-Based Modeling in Linguistics, Dialect Geography,
Dialectometry
Link to full CV(PDF)
Link to 2007 dissertation (PDF)
PUBLICATIONS AND PRESENTATIONS
Book:
Stanford, James N. & Dennis R. Preston (eds) (2009). Variation
in indigenous minority languages.
Amsterdam/Philadelphia: Benjamins. 519 pp.
link
Articles for Peer-Reviewed Journals:
Stanford, James N., Nathan Severance & Kenneth Baclawski, Jr.
(under review). Disrupted transmission of
traditional Eastern New England dialect features in New Hampsha'. Language Variation and Change.
Stanford, James N. & Yanhong Pan (accepted pending revision). The
sociolinguistics of exogamy: Dialect acquisition in a Zhuang village. Journal of Sociolinguistics.
Stanford, James N. & Laurence A. Kenny (in press).
Reconsidering transmission and diffusion: An
agent-based model of vowel
chain shifts across large communities. Language Variation
and Change 25(2).
Stanford, James N. (2012). One size fits all?
Dialectometry in
a small clan-based indigenous society. Language
Variation and Change 24(2):247-78. link
Stanford, James N., Thomas Leddy-Cecere & Kenneth Baclawski
(2012). Farewell to the founders: Major dialect changes along the
east-west New England border. American
Speech 87(2):126-69. link
*This article was reported in The New York Times, The Chronicle of Higher Education,
The Boston Globe, Boston
NPR, and Vermont
Public Radio.
Stanford, James N. & Jonathan P. Evans (2012). The
influence of Mandarin Chinese on minority languages in rural southwest
China: A
sociolinguistic study of tones in contact. International Journal
of the Sociology of Language 215:79-100. link
Stanford, James N. (2011). A 50-year comparison of
regional dialect variation in the Sui language. Journal of the
Southeast Asian Linguistics Society 4(2):120-43. link
Stanford, James N. (2010). Gender, generations, and nations: An
experiment in Hmong American
discourse and sociophonetics. Language
and Communication 30(4):285-96. link
Stanford, James N. (2010). The role of marriage in linguistic contact
and variation: Two Hmong
dialects in Texas. Journal
of Sociolinguistics 14(1):89-115. link
Stanford, James N. & Lindsay J. Whaley (2010). The sustainability
of languages. International Journal
of Environmental, Cultural,
Economic and
Social Sustainability 6(3):111-22. link
*Reprinted as an
invited chapter in Frieda Gebert & Kevin Gibson (eds) (2012) Sustaining living culture. Common
Ground Publishing. 87-101.
Stanford, James N. (2009). "Eating the food of our place":
Sociolinguistic loyalties in
multidialectal Sui villages. Language
in Society 38(3):287-309. link
Stanford, James N. (2008). Child dialect acquisition: New perspectives
on parent/peer influence. Journal of
Sociolinguistics
12(5):567-96. link
Stanford, James N. (2008). A sociotonetic analysis of Sui dialect
contact. Language Variation and
Change
20(3):409-50. link
Stanford, James N. (2007). Sui adjective reduplication as poetic
morpho-phonology. Journal of East
Asian Linguistics 16(2):87-111. link
Stanford, James N. (2007). Lexicon and description of Sui adjective
intensifiers. Linguistic
Discovery 5(1):1-27. link
Book Chapters, Proceedings, and Other Articles:
Meyerhoff, Miriam & James N. Stanford (in prep). Invited conclusion
chapter in Sociolinguistic systems,
Dick Smakman (ed). Routledge Press.
Stanford, James N. (forthcoming). Language acquisition and language
change.
Invited chapter in The Routledge
handbook of historical linguistics, Claire Bowern & Bethwyn
Evans (eds). Routledge Press.
Stanford, James N. (in press). Methods in tone dialectology. In Alena
Barysevich, Alexandra D’Arcy & David Heap (eds.), Proceedings from the Fourteenth
International Conference on
Methods in Dialectology. University of Bamberg Studies in
Linguistics, vol. 55. Frankfurt: Peter Lang.
Stanford, James N. (in press). Lexicalized poetry: Aesthetic patterns
in the Sui adjective lexicon. Invited
chapter in Grammatical
aesthetics in the Mainland Southeast Asian linguistic area,
Jeffrey P. Williams (ed). Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Stanford, James N. (2013). How to uncover social
variables. Invited
vignette in Data
collection in sociolinguistics:
Methods and applications, Christine Mallinson, Becky Childs
& Gerard Van Herk (eds). Routledge Press. 25-28.
Stanford, James N. & Timothy J. Pulju (2012). Invited book review
of Sociolinguistic typology: Social
determinants of linguistic complexity by Peter Trudgill, Oxford
University Press, 2011. Studies
in Language 36(4):947-55. link
Leddy-Cecere, Thomas, Kenneth Baclawski, Nacole Walker & James
Stanford (2011). New England borderlands: A new investigation of
the
east-west dialect boundary. University
of Pennsylvania Working Papers
in Linguistics 17.2: Selected papers from NWAV-39. link
Stanford, James N. (2009). Clan as a sociolinguistic variable. In James
Stanford & Dennis
Preston
(eds.), Variation in indigenous
minority languages. Amsterdam/Philadelphia:
Benjamins. 463-484. link
Stanford, James N. & Dennis R. Preston (2009). The lure of a
distant horizon: Variation in
indigenous minority languages. In James Stanford & Dennis Preston
(eds.),
Variation in indigenous minority
languages. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: Benjamins. 1-20. link
Stanford, James N. (2006). When your mother tongue is not your mother's
tongue: Linguistic
reflexes of Sui exogamy. University
of Pennsylvania Working Papers in
Linguistics 12.2: Selected Papers from NWAV-34. 217-229. link
Stanford, James N. (2004). Shuiyuzhong xingrongcide teding houzhui
diaocha [Study of Sui
word-specific adjective intensifiers]. Qiannan Minzu 33: 34-39. Duyun,
China: Qiannan Minzu Yanjiusuo. link
Conferences and other presentations:
2013
Plenary talk to be presented at the International
Conference on Sino-Tibetan Languages and Linguistics (ICSTLL-46),
Dartmouth College, August 7-10.
Language acquisition and language change. Invited talk presented
at the Foundations of Historical
Linguistics workshop in conjunction with the Linguistic Society of America Annual
Meeting, Boston, January 5.
With Nathan Severance and Kenneth Baclawski. Interrupted transmission:
Eastern New England dialect features in rural central New Hampshire.
Paper presented at the Linguistic
Society of America Annual
Meeting, Boston, January 3.
Recent dialect research in New Hampshire and Vermont. Invited talk
presented for the Plymouth State University Department of Languages
and Linguistics, Plymouth, New Hampshire, February 28.
2012
Transmission and diffusion in rural China and rural New England:
Evidence for the "outward orientation" of the language learning
faculty. Invited colloquium talk presented for the University of
Pennsylvania Department of Linguistics, November 29.
Variation in indigenous minority languages: Theoretical impact and
research challenges. Invited colloquium talk presented for the
Swarthmore College Department
of
Linguistics, November 28.
With Laurence Kenny. Gender in a world without sex: An agent-based
simulation of gender and language variation. Paper presented at New Ways of Analyzing Variation 41,
Indiana University, October 26.
Invited workshop for New Ways of
Analyzing Variation 41, Indiana University: "Sociolinguistic
fieldwork in minority communities" (with Carmen Fought,
Kalina Newmark & Nacole Walker), October 25.
With Ian Stewart. The question of density: Multi-agent modeling of
field data in Sui exogamous villages. Paper presented at NWAV-ASIA/PACIFIC 2, Tokyo,
Japan, National
Institute for Japanese Language and Linguistics, August 1-4.
With Thomas Leddy-Cecere and Kenneth Baclawski. Farewell to the
Founders: Dramatic changes between eastern and western New England.
Paper presented at the American
Dialect Society Annual Meeting,
Portland, Oregon, January 6.
2011
Dialectometry and place in a clan-based indigenous society. Paper
presented at New Ways of Analyzing
Variation 40,
Georgetown University, October 28.
With Laurence Kenny. Testing transmission and diffusion with an
agent-based model. Paper presented at New
Ways of Analyzing Variation 40,
Georgetown University, October 28.
Methods in tone dialectology. Paper presented at Methods in Dialectology 14,
University of Western Ontario, Canada, August 3.
With Yanhong Pan. Dialect acquisition and exogamy in a Zhuang minority
village in southern China. Paper presented at NWAV-ASIA/PACIFIC,
University of Delhi, India, February 24.
Workshop on socio-tonetics for East and Southeast Asian languages.
Presented at NWAV-ASIA/PACIFIC,
University of Delhi, India, February 23.
PDF of the workshop
Procedures
for Normalizing Tones in R (txt file of detailed instructions)
2010
Adding diversity to dialectology: A real-time study across 50 years in
a clan-based indigenous Sui region in rural China. Paper presented at New Ways of Analyzing
Variation 39, University of Texas-San Antonio, November 6.
Panel organizer: “Variation in less commonly studied minority
languages” at New Ways of Analyzing
Variation 39, University of Texas-San Antonio, November 6.
With Thomas Leddy-Cecere, Kenneth Baclawski, Nacole Walker, and
Dartmouth Dialectology.
New England
borderlands: A new investigation of the east-west dialect boundary.
Paper presented at New Ways of
Analyzing
Variation 39, University of Texas-San Antonio, November 4.
Variationist sociolinguistics in indigenous minority languages.
Colloquium
talk presented for the University of
Chicago Linguistics Department, University of Chicago, May 13.
Socio-tonetic perspectives on Sui clans: "Communities of Descent."
Invited talk
presented for the University of
Chicago Language Variation and Change
Workshop, University of Chicago, May 14.
Variation in less commonly studied languages. Colloquium talk presented
for the Yale
University Department of Linguistics, Yale University, January 18.
With Allyson Ettinger and Mai Youa Moua. Linguistic construction of
gender and generations in Hmong American communities. Paper presented
for the Linguistic Society
of America Annual Meeting, Baltimore, Maryland, January 10.
Variation in adjective expressives among Sui clans. Paper presented for
the Linguistic Society
of America Annual Meeting, Baltimore, Maryland, January 8.
2009
With Faith Nibbs. Multiple layers of hybridity in Texas: Dialects and
intermarriage between Hmong supra-clan divisions. Paper presented
at the 108th Annual Meeting of the
American Anthropological
Association, Philadelphia, December 6.
The role of less commonly studied languages in theory and description:
Sociolinguistic reflections. Invited talk/panelist for the
Biennial Conference of the Rice
Linguistics Society, Rice
University, February 21.
Linguistic construction of gender in Hmong American communities. Paper
presented for the Feminist
Inquiry Seminar, November 3, Dartmouth College.
2008
Organizer of an invited special session on "Variation and change in
less
commonly studied minority languages" at New Ways of Analyzing Variation
(NWAV-37), November 7,
Houston.
"For better or for worse, for your dialect or for mine": Hmong Daw/Mong
Leng dialect contact through marriage. Paper presented at New Ways of
Analyzing Variation (NWAV-37),
November 7, Houston.
Becoming R-ful: Introductory R for linguists. Workshop presented
for the Rice University Linguistics
Society, March 20.
Dialect contact, identity, and tone. Colloquium talk presented at
Academia Sinica, March 6, Taipei, Taiwan.
With Nancy Niedzielski. New directions in sociolinguistics. Paper
presented at the Joint National
Taiwan University-Rice University
Workshop on Linguistics, March 3, Taipei, Taiwan.
Dialect non-convergence in exogamous Sui clans. Poster presented
at the Linguistic Society of America
Annual Meeting, January 5, Chicago.
2007
Clan identity performed linguistically: A study of inter-clan
immigration among of the Sui people of Guizhou, China. Paper presented
at the 106th Annual Meeting of the
American Anthropological
Association, December 2, Washington, DC.
The road less traveled: Indigenous minority languages and variationist
sociolinguistics. Poster presented at New
Ways of Analyzing
Variation (NWAV-36), October 12, University of Pennsylvania.
Dialect contact in Sui clans. Colloquium presented for the Rice
University Department of Linguistics, September 20.
Using R for vowel normalization and plotting. Workshop presented for Friends of Sociolinguistics, April
18, Michigan State University.
2006
Identity and dialect contact in Sui speech communities. Paper presented
at the Michigan Linguistic Society
Annual Meeting, October 28, Oakland
University.
Dialect acquisition among Sui exogamous women. Paper presented at the
Linguistic Society of America Summer
Meeting, June 24, Michigan State
University.
With Bo-Young Kwon. Child acquisition of /s/+C clusters: /s/ perceived
as a degenerate syllable. Paper presented at the Linguistic Society of
America Summer Meeting, June 23, Michigan State University.
2005
When your mother tongue is not your mother’s tongue: Linguistic
reflexes of Sui exogamy. Paper presented at New Ways of Analyzing
Variation (NWAV-34), October 22, New York University.
Poetic morpho-phonology: Rhyme, alliteration, emergence of the
unmarked, and identity avoidance revealed in Sui adjective
reduplication. Paper presented at the Third
Workshop on Theoretical
East Asian Linguistics (TEAL-3), July 22, Harvard University.
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