The links below lead to abstracts of papers from the 2011 edition of my course, Language and Societies, posted at the course blog of the same name. The authors are junior scholars at Wayne State University, including both undergraduate and graduate students. Comments and questions are extremely welcome, especially at the critical juncture over the next week, when the authors will be making final revisions to their papers.
Marius Sidau
A Linguistic Approach to the Authorship of the Book of Mormon
Brent Collins III
An investigation of contributing factors that lead to social fragmentation between Black-Americans, Africans, Caribbeans and West Indians
Jean Calkins
African American Vernacular English in the Classroom
Jacqui
The cultural and linguistic relevance of naming practices
Isra El-beshir
Women’s Language and its Legal Implications
Ashley Phifer
Eskimo or Inuit: What ethnonym do museums use in displaying art and material culture?
Lauren Schleicher
Physicians’ use of persuasive techniques as a verbal tool to increase colorectal cancer screening adherence
Jennifer Meyer
The Antonine Plague: A Linguistic Analysis
Molly Hilton
Thick: Social Censorship in an Empathetic Online Community
Daniel Harrison
From sauvage to salvage: a quantitative analysis of European-Algonkian vocabularies from contact to the mid-19th century
E.J. Stone
The Power of Rumor: Blood Libel in the Modern World
Amy C. Krull
From Grits to Corn Chips: An Invention of Tradition
Zein Kalaj
The historical, linguistic, and social stigma of leadership titles
Sofía Syntaxx
Live by the drum: exploring linguistic expressions of pan-Indian ethnic identity in contemporary indigenous music
Rachel Doyle
Gesture: An Integral Component of Language Acquisition and Learning
Krystal Athena Hubbard
Rice and Gullah: Linguistic Resistance and Economic Growth on Antebellum South Carolina Rice Plantations
Summar Saad
The Changing Linguistics of the Organic Food Market
Yasmin Habib
Code-switching among Arab-American speakers
Glossographia 