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

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.
  • fc 2025. *Bechler, Connor. Automatic Analysis of Audio Diary Speech Duration and Relative Speech Volume. Paper to be presented at American Dialect Society annual meeting, January 9–12.
  • 2024. *Barnhardt, Adam. Patterns of social meanings indexed to Low-Back-Merger Shifted vowels in Michigan. Paper to be presented at New Ways of Analyzing Variation 52, Miami, November 7-9.
  • 2024. *Shepherd, Jessica, **Drake Howard, and Betsy Sneller. Pronunciation in the [mɪɾən]: Post-tonic /t/ flapping in Michigan: a non-white male-led change. Paper to be presented at New Ways of Analyzing Variation 52, Miami, November 7-9.
  • 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. *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.