Goals
This VIP offers data to understand English as spoken by diverse populations in Georgia. We produce academic articles and presentations about regional and ethnic language variation; change over time; and accents as signifiers of identity and attitudes. Students develop skills in human subjects research, sociolinguistic theory, phonetic measurements, statistics, data science, and academic literacy. The team fosters a welcoming socio-intellectual community and a growth mindset, encouraging humanities-confident students to learn technical tools and inviting computing-confident students to appreciate the social richness of language data.
Issues Involved or Addressed
Language, politics, society, linguistics, psychology, demographics, speech. With approval from the Georgia Tech IRB, we are building an audio corpus of the speech of over 180 young adults who grew up in Georgia, from which we measure the position of the tongue in the mouth when producing vowels in order to quantify sociolinguistic variation in accents across individuals and over time. Our participants are all young adult college students who grew up in Georgia, but they are diverse with respect to gender, ethnicity, hometown, and their attitudes towards the South. It's been argued that the "southern accent" is losing ground to a new pan-regional, pan-ethnic sound system known as the "Low Back Merger Shift." We explore the extent to which different people use these different vowel systems as a function of their demographic traits and ideological orientations.
Methods and Technologies
Academic Majors of Interest
- Business›Accounting
- Business›Finance
- Business›General Management
- Business›Global Development
- Business›IT Management
- Business›Leadership and Organizational Change
- Business›Marketing
- Business›Operations and Supply Chain Management
- Business›Strategy and Innovation
- Computing›Algorithms, Combinatorics and Optimization
- Computing›Analytics
- Computing›Computational Media
- Computing›Computational Science and Engineering
- Computing›Computer Science
- Computing›Cybersecurity
- Computing›Human-Centered Computing
- Computing›Human-Computer Interaction
- Computing›OMSCS asynchronous
- Computing›OMSCS asynchronous, case-by-case
- Computing›OMSCS synchronous
- Computing›OMSCS synchronous, case-by-case
- Design›Architectural Technology
- Design›Architecture
- Design›Building Construction
- Design›Building Construction and Facility Management
- Design›City and Regional Planning
- Design›Geographic Information Science and Technology
- Design›Industrial Design
- Design›Music Technology
- Design›Urban Design
- Engineering›Aerospace Engineering
- Engineering›Applied Systems Engineering
- Engineering›Bioengineering
- Engineering›Bioinformatics
- Engineering›Biomedical Engineering
- Engineering›Chemical Engineering
- Engineering›Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering
- Engineering›Civil Engineering
- Engineering›Computer Engineering
- Engineering›Electrical Engineering
- Engineering›Environmental Engineering
- Engineering›Health Systems
- Engineering›Industrial Engineering
- Engineering›International Logistics
- Engineering›Machine Learning
- Engineering›Materials Science and Engineering
- Engineering›Mechanical Engineering
- Engineering›Medical Physics
- Engineering›Robotics
- Ivan Allen›Applied Languages and Intercultural Studies
- Ivan Allen›Chinese
- Ivan Allen›Digital Media
- Ivan Allen›Economics
- Ivan Allen›Economics and International Affairs
- Ivan Allen›French
- Ivan Allen›German
- Ivan Allen›Global Economics and Modern Languages
- Ivan Allen›Global Media and Cultures
- Ivan Allen›History, Technology, and Society
- Ivan Allen›International Affairs
- Ivan Allen›International Affairs and Modern Languages
- Ivan Allen›International Affairs, Science, and Technology
- Ivan Allen›Japanese
- Ivan Allen›Korean
- Ivan Allen›Literature, Media, and Communication
- Ivan Allen›Public Policy
- Ivan Allen›Spanish
- Other›Education
- Other›Entrepreneurship
- Other›Film and Media Studies
- Other›Music
- Other›Pre-Law
- Physics
- Sciences›Applied Physics
- Sciences›Applied Physiology
- Sciences›Biochemistry
- Sciences›Biology
- Sciences›Chemistry
- Sciences›Earth and Atmospheric Sciences
- Sciences›Mathematics
- Sciences›Neuroscience
- Sciences›Physics
- Sciences›Psychology
- Sciences›Statistics
Preferred Interests and Preparation
Language / Society / Politics
Experience with or willingness to learn qualitative and quantitative data analysis skills.
Completion of LING 2100 (Intro to Linguistics) not a strict requirement.
Meeting Schedule & Location
Team Advisors
- Modern Languages