Research & Publications
To see how the project has been reported on in the media, go to News Media.
For our public science and community outreach events, go to Public Engagement.
* = graduate student
** = undergraduate student
Publications
- fc 2024. Sneller, Betsy and Daniel Greeson. Distinct phonological reanalysis patterns in Michigan English TRAP. To appear in Proceedings of the 48th Annual Penn Linguistics Conference, Penn Working Papers in Linguistics.
2023. Wagner, Suzanne Evans. Including older adults in variationist sociolinguistics via mobile self-recording. Journal of Language and Aging Research 1(1): 23-26.
2023. Sneller, Betsy and *Adam Barnhardt. Sociolinguistic prompts in the 21st century: Uniting past approaches and current directions. Language and Linguistics Compass 17(3) e12484.
2022. Sneller, Betsy, Suzanne Evans Wagner and *Yongqing Ye. MI Diaries: Ethical and practical challenges. Linguistics Vanguard 8(s3).
2022. Sneller, Betsy. Covid-era sociolinguistics: Introduction to the special issue. Linguistics Vanguard 8(s3).
2021. *Rechsteiner, Jack and Betsy Sneller. Building community in digital fieldwork Reflection, Digital Fieldwork, September 13.
Talks
Refereed & Panels
- fc 2025. Sneller, Betsy and Suzanne Evans Wagner. “Small stories” as longitudinal oral history: MI Diaries. In panel “Using oral histories for sociolinguistic research”, Linguistic Society of America annual meeting, January 9-12.
- 2024. Sneller, Betsy and *Daniel Greeson. Distinct phonological reanalysis patterns in Michigan English TRAP. Penn Linguistics Conference 48, March 16-17.
- 2024. **Scroggins, Samuel and Betsy Sneller. I’m, um, nonbinary: Usage of UM/UH among nonbinary speakers. Illinois Language and Linguistics Society, March 1-2.
- 2024. **Zackerman, Caroline and Betsy Sneller. Canadian Raising via PRIDE lowering in Michigan. American Dialect Society Annual Meeting, New York, January 4-7.
- 2023. Sneller, Betsy, Suzanne Evans Wagner, *Adam Barnhardt, *Jack Rechsteiner, and *Yongqing Ye. It’s not the THOUGHT that counts for a LOT of Michigan English sound changes. New Ways of Analyzing Variation 51, Queens College, CUNY, October 13-15.
- 2023. Wagner, Suzanne Evans, Betsy Sneller, and *Jack Rechsteiner. Sociolinguistic research projects as brands. New Ways of Analyzing Variation 51, Queens College, CUNY, October 13-15.
- 2023. *Yongqing Ye. Nasalization change over time in Michigan English. New Ways of Analyzing Variation 51, Queens College, CUNY, October 13-15.
- 2023. *Barnhardt, Adam. The developmental imperative and indexical fields: What conditions variation for use in early-adolescent stance-taking? New Ways of Analyzing Variation 51, Queens College, CUNY, October 13-15.
- 2022. *Barnhardt, Adam. The early-adolescent indexical system amid rapid sound change: How are Northern Cities Shift and Low-Back-Merger Shift vowel realizations employed in acts of stance-taking? New Ways of Analyzing Variation 50, Stanford University, October 13-15.
- 2022. Wagner, Suzanne Evans, Betsy Sneller, and *Jack Rechsteiner. Sociolinguistic research projects as brands. Methods in Dialectology XVII, Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Germany, August 1-5.
- 2022. Sneller, Betsy and Suzanne Evans Wagner. MI Diaries: Starting a community-engaged DH Project during a global pandemic. Global Digital Humanities Symposium, Michigan State University, March 23-25.
- 2022. *Ye, Yongqing and *Adam Barnhardt. Tracking language change during a pandemic: Continuous remote data collection in the MI Diaries project. Illinois Language and Linguistics Society, February 25-26.
- 2021. Sneller, Betsy, Suzanne Evans Wagner and *Yongqing Ye. The MI Diaries Project. Linguistic Society of America annual meeting, January 7-10.
- 2021. Sneller, Betsy, (organizer). Sociolinguistic research in the time of COVID: Method, ethics, theory. Special session at the Linguistic Society of America annual meeting, January 7-10.
Invited
- 2023. Wagner, Suzanne Evans. Engaging the public for participation in linguistics research projects. University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany, May 17.
- 2023. Sneller, Betsy. Developing participant trust in remote sociolinguistic fieldwork. Bar Ilan University Linguistics Colloquium, January 24.
- 2022. Sneller, Betsy. Large scale sociolinguistic fieldwork via remote self-recordings. University of Pittsburgh Linguistics Colloquium, March 25.
- 2022. Wagner, Suzanne Evans. Self-recorded audio diaries as a source of data across the lifespan. Corpora for Language and Aging Research (CLARe), University of Alaska, March 9-11.
- 2021. Sneller, Betsy and Suzanne Evans Wagner. Challenges and opportunities for longitudinal data collection using self-recordings. University of Duisberg-Essen Sociolinguistics Lab, November 9.
- 2021. Yares, Laura and Betsy Sneller. The interdisciplinary water cooler: Sharing research technologies across disciplines. Michigan State University Center for Interdisciplinary, November 5.
- 2021. Wagner, Suzanne Evans. Post-adolescent language change in corpora large and small. Morphosyntactic Variation and Change in the Twentieth Century (MCV21), University of Cambridge, March 17-18.
- 2020. Sneller, Betsy and Suzanne Evans Wagner. MI Diaries: Tracking language change during a pandemic. University of Michigan Linguistics Speaker Series, November 6.
- 2020. Sneller, Betsy and Suzanne Evans Wagner. MI Diaries: Tracking language change during a pandemic. Graduate Linguistics Expo at Michigan State (GLEAMS), October 30.
- 2020. Sneller, Betsy and Suzanne Evans Wagner. MI-COVID Diaries: Starting a new remote project…fast. Michigan State University College of Arts and Letters workshop, How to Pivot Your Research During COVID-19, August 19.
Undergraduate Research
2024. Caroline Zackerman. Canadian Raising and metalinguistic awareness in Michigan English. Poster presented at Michigan State University Undergraduate Research and Arts Forum (UURAF), April 12. Mentor: Betsy Sneller.
2023. **Abed, Lena. Decoding discourse: Who is the “you” in you know? Poster presented at Michigan State University Mid-Michigan Symposium for Undergraduate Research (Mid-SURE), July 26. Mentors: *Adam Barnhardt, Suzanne Wagner.
2023. **Ganago, Paul. Pet inter- Hey, don’t eat that! – interrupted speech. Poster presented at Michigan State University Mid-Michigan Symposium for Undergraduate Research (Mid-SURE), July 26. Mentors: *Adam Barnhardt, Betsy Sneller.
2023. **Peng, Janice. Oh, I’m quoting something I don’t like: Usage of “oh” to signal negative stance. Poster presented at Michigan State University Mid-Michigan Symposium for Undergraduate Research (Mid-SURE), July 26. Mentors: *Jack Rechsteiner, Suzanne Wagner.
2023. **Scroggins, Sam. I’m, um, nonbinary: Usage of UM/UH among nonbinary speakers. Poster presented at Michigan State University Mid-Michigan Symposium for Undergraduate Research (Mid-SURE), July 26. Mentors: *Jack Rechsteiner, Betsy Sneller.
2023. **Sebree, Zach. Demographic coding in MI Diaries. Poster presentation at Michigan State University Undergraduate Research and Arts Forum (UURAF), April 14. Mentors: Suzanne Wagner and *Jack Rechsteiner.
2023. **Kelbley, Newt. “Tell me.” Vs “Could you tell me?”: Obligatory Force in Diary Prompts. Poster presentation at Michigan State University Undergraduate Research and Arts Forum (UURAF), April 14. Mentors: Suzanne Wagner and *Yongqing Ye.
2023. **Zackerman, Caroline. How to Speak Michigander: Evaluating Speakers’ Self-Perception of Their Accent. Poster presentation at Michigan State University Undergraduate Research and Arts Forum (UURAF), April 14. Mentor: Betsy Sneller.
2022. **Vredevelt, Anna. How publishing voices affects sharing: Analysis of interaction between researchers and diarist participation. Poster presentation at Mid-Michigan Symposium for Undergraduate Research Experiences (Mid-SURE), July 27. Mentors: Betsy Sneller and Suzanne Wagner.
2022. **Garner, Abigail “Jayce”. A case study of an audio diarist’s speech formality over time. Poster presentation at Mid-Michigan Symposium for Undergraduate Research Experiences (Mid-SURE), July 27. Mentors: Betsy Sneller, Suzanne Wagner, *Jack Rechsteiner.
2022. **Jessner, Olivia. Synthesizing signoffs: An exploration of gender’s effect on valediction. Poster presentation at Mid-Michigan Symposium for Undergraduate Research Experiences (Mid-SURE), July 27. Mentors: *Jack Rechsteiner and Betsy Sneller.
2022. **Deptula, Hailey. Celebrations in the mitten state: Potential lexical differences within regions at a state level. Poster presentation at Mid-Michigan Symposium for Undergraduate Research Experiences (Mid-SURE), July 27. Mentors: Betsy Sneller and *Adam Barnhardt.
2022. **Marquardt, Olivia. Caught in the pandemic: The rates of the cot-caught merger in Michigan speakers from the COVID-19 pandemic. Poster presentation at Mid-Michigan Symposium for Undergraduate Research Experiences (Mid-SURE), July 27. Mentors: Betsy Sneller and *Adam Barnhardt.
2022. **Behnke, Alexis. Goin’ through changes: The formality of speech patterns when discussing the COVID-19 pandemic. Poster presentation at the 16th annual Cornell Undergraduate Linguistics Conference (CULC), April 22-24.
2022. **Behnke, Alexis. Goin’ through changes: The formality of speech patterns when discussing the COVID-19 pandemic. Poster presentation at Michigan State University Undergraduate Research and Arts Forum (UURAF), April 8. Mentor: Betsy Sneller.
2021. **Furkioti, Alexis and **Jack Rechsteiner. MI Diaries: The development of a research project as a brand. Poster presentation at Michigan State University Undergraduate Research and Arts Forum (UURAF), April 15-19. Winner: Communication Arts and Sciences, poster section 2. Mentors: Betsy Sneller and Suzanne Wagner.
2021. **Moore, Lindsay. Engagement and retention in a longitudinal study during the pandemic: The MI Diaries story. Presentation at Michigan State University Undergraduate Research and Arts Forum (UURAF), April 15-19. Mentor: *Yongqing Ye.