Curriculum Vitae
Alicia
Beckford Wassink
Education
1999,
Ph.D., University of Michigan. Sociophonetics. Thesis title:
"A Sociophonetic Analysis of Jamaican Vowels". Co-chairs: Patrice Speeter Beddor, A.
Lesley Milroy. Dissertation
nominated for Horace H. Rackham Distinguished Dissertation Award
1990,
B.A., Communication, Creative Writing (English literature component); Spanish
minor, Houghton College, Houghton, NY.
GPA 3.81 (4.0 scale) summa cum laude
Areas of specialization:
Sociolinguistics (social network theory, phonological variation, language
ideology, language attitudes), Acoustic phonetics (spectral and temporal
characteristics of vowels), Creole linguistics (Jamaican Creole phonetics and
phonology)
Positions Held
2002 Visiting
Research Fellow, University of the West Indies, Mona, Kingston, Jamaica
2002 Affiliate
Professor, Center for Mind, Brain and Learning, University of Washington
Jan 1999- Assistant
Professor, University of Washington, Department of
present: Linguistics
1994-7: Editorial
Assistant, Journal of Phonetics
1994: Research
Assistant, NSF Grant to Dr. P. S. Beddor:
cross-linguistic phonetic study of coarticulation in speakers of English
and Shona, U of Michigan
1994: Research
Assistant, English Language Institute, U of Michigan: study of the influence of
genre-based instruction on the reading strategies of 11 ESL students (Sunny
Hyon, principal investigator)
1990-92: Instructor,
Delaware Valley Literacy Council, Upper Darby, PA: English as a Second Language
(earned ESL certificate)
Articles in Peer-Reviewed
Journals
Wassink, A. B. (under review) ÒA geometric
representation of spectral and temporal vowel features: Quantification of vowel
overlap in three varieties,Ó submitted to Journal of the Acoustical Society
of America, 44ms pages
Wassink,
A. B. and Wassink, D. B. (under review) ÒA geometric method for quantifying
vowel overlap,Ó submitted to Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 44ms pages
Wassink, A. B., Wright, R. A. and Franklin, A. (under
review) ÒIntraspeaker variability in vowel production: an investigation of
motherese, hyperspeech, and Lombard speech in Jamaican speakers,Ó submitted to Journal
of Phonetics, 42 ms pp
Wassink, A. B. and Dyer, J. (2004) ÒLanguage Ideology and the Transmission
of Phonological Change,Ó Journal of English Linguistics, pp1-16
Wassink, A. B. and Curzan, A. (2004) ÒAddressing
Ideologies Around African American English,Ó Journal of English Linguistics,
32(3), pp 171-185
Wassink, A. B. (2001) ÒTheme and Variation in Jamaican
Vowels,Ó Language Variation and Change, 13(2), pp 135-159
Dyer, J. and Wassink, A. B. (2001) ÒTaakinÕ Braad and Talking Broad: the
changing indexicality of phonological variants,Ó Texas Linguistic Forum. Austin, TX: UT Austin, pp288-301
Beckford Wassink, A. (1999) ÒHistoric Low Prestige and
Seeds of Change: Attitudes toward
Jamaican Creole,Ó Language in Society,
28(1), pp57-92
Chapters in Peer-Reviewed Books
Wassink, A. B. (2005) ÒMy Teacher Says...: Linguistic
Competence and the Anglophone Creole Speaking Student.Ó In Denham, K. and Lobeck, A.
(eds.) Language in the Schools:
Integrating linguistic knowledge into K-12 teaching, pp55-70
Wassink, A. B. (under review) ÒGrowing up with Two
ÔBlack languages:Õ Kinship and attitudes
toward Jamaican Creole and African-American EnglishÓ In Lanehart, S. (ed.) Women
of color in linguistic research
(working title). 32 ms pp.
Wassink, A. B. and Curzan, A. (2004, eds.) ÒAfrican
American English: Research Directions and Current Educational Questions
(1998-present), Journal of English Linguistics, 129 pp
Wassink, A. B. (2003) review of Meade, R. R. Acquisition
of Jamaican Phonology, Journal of
Pidgin and Creole Languages, 19(4),
pp177-187
Wassink, A. B. and Galvin, L. (2004) ÒFinding a Place
in Seattle: dialect contact and change in Irish-English in the American Pacific
Northwest, submitted to Journal of Sociolinguistics, 45 ms pp
Reprinted Work
Beckford Wassink, A. (in press) ÒHistoric Low Prestige
and Seeds of Change: Attitudes
toward Jamaican Creole,Ó Language in Society, 28(1) (1999),. Reprinted in Academic Writing: An
Introduction, Calgary, ON: Broadview
Press.
Media Coverage of Research
2005: KUOW
radio—feature on Pacific Northwest dialect project, host Marcie Silman,
May 26
2005: Seattle
Post-Intelligencer article, ÒGot a Northwest dialect? ItÕs creaky,Ó Tom
Paulson, Friday, May 20—feature on Pacific Northwest dialect project and
Acoustical Society poster presented in Vancouver BC
2003: Charles
Osgood Show, Sunday January 5—Interviewed at the Linguistic Society of
America regarding research in Pidgin and creole linguistics, Dialectology
2001: KBCS
radio—feature on the Center for Mind, Brain, and Learning project,
Intraspeaker variability in vowel production
Conference Presentations
2005: Ingle,
J. K., Wright, R. A., & Wassink, A. B. ÒPacific Northwest vowels: A Seattle neighborhood dialect study,Ó
presented at the annual meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, Vancouver
BC, May
2005: Franklin,
Amber, Stoel-Gammon, C. &
Wassink, A. B. ÒQuantification of
2-D and 3-D vowel overlap in children 21 to 33 monthsÓ presented at the annual
meeting of the American Speech-Hearing Association, Philadelphia, October.
2004: Carmichael,
L., Wright, R. W. and Wassink, A. B. ÒDesigning a Corpus of Interspeaker
VariabilityÓ presented at the annual meeting of the Acoustical Society of
America, October.
2004: Wassink,
A. B. and Galvin, L. ÒFinding a Place in Seattle: dialect
contact and change in Irish-English in America,Ó presented at the annual
meeting of New Ways of Analyzing Variation in English 33, Ann Arbor, MI, Sept.
30-Oct. 3.
2003: Wassink,
A. B., Wright, R. A., Galvin, L., M., Franklin, A. D. ÒIntraspeaker variability
in vowel production: an investigation of motherese, hyperspeech, and Lombard
speech in Jamaican speakersÓ, presented at the 8th International
Congress of the Phonetic Sciences, Barcelona, Spain, August.
2003: Wassink,
A. B. ÒAn Analytic Geometric Method for Quantifying Spectral and Temporal
Overlap in Vowel SystemsÓ presented at the 25th meeting of the
Linguistic Society of America, January, Atlanta, GA.
2003: Wassink,
A. B. ÒVarieties of English in America: the Creole pieces of the puzzleÒ
presented at the American Dialect Society, January, Atlanta, GA.
2001: with
J. Dyer, ÒTaakinÕ Broad and Talking Broad: changing indexicality of phonetic
variants in two contact situationsÓ, Symposium About Language and
Society-Austin (SALSA-9), April, 2001, Austin
2000: "The
vowel inventories of Jamaican Speakers", Annual meeting of the Society for
Pidgin and Creole Languages, Chicago
1999: Hagiwara,
R., Wright, R., Wassink, A., Hargus, S., and Sterling, I. "An interactive
Atlas of English vowels: design considerations" poster presented at the Acoustical Society of America,
October, 1999
1998: ÒInteracting
spectral and temporal properties in Jamaican English and Jamaican Creole vowel
productionÓ poster presented at the 135th annual meeting of the Acoustical
Society of America, June, 1998, Seattle.
1998: ÒCharacterizing
phonetic variation between Jamaican English and Creole vowelsÓ presented at the Linguistic Society of America annual
meeting, January 8-11, 1998, New York.
1996: ÒGuarded
Pride: The social complexity and
gender-grading of attitudes toward Jamaican CreoleÓ presented at the New Ways of Analyzing Variation (NWAV25)
annual meeting, October 17-20, Las Vegas.
1995: ÒÔMy
Teacher Says...Õ: Attitudes of
Jamaican students toward Jamaican CreoleÓ presented at the New Ways of Analyzing
Variation (NWAV24) annual meeting, October 12-15, Philadelphia. Also presented at the Center for
Afro-American and African Studies (CAAS), University of Michigan, October 30,
1995.
Invited Lectures
2005: ÒModeling
the tense~lax distinction in three varieties: perspectives on vowel volumesÓ University of Michigan,
Department of Linguistics colloquium series, April 7.
2002: ÒThe
long and short of vowel distribution overlapÓ University of Washington
Linguistics Colloquium, November 11.
2002: ÒLanguage
ideology and phonological changeÓ, Simon Fraser University Linguistics
Colloquium, October 16.
2002: ÒThe
changing indexicality of phonological variants in two language context
situationsÓ, presented at ÒA Day in Sociolinguistics,Ó University of the West Indies,
May 7.
2002: ÒUnderstanding
variation in Jamaican vowel systemsÓ, the University of the West Indies, April
25. Guest lecture for seminar
(Lecturer A. Irvine)
2002: ÒVariability
in language production and perception:
a cross-linguistic investigation of motherese, hyperspeech, and Lombard
SpeechÓ, the University of the West Indies, April 12.
2001: ÒTaakin
braad and talking broad: the
changing indexicality of phonological variants in two language contact
situationsÓ, Linguistics Colloquium, University of Washington, Nov. 16
2000: "Language,
Culture and Misinterpreted Linguistic Cues", University of Washington,
Bothell, Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences, April, 2000; October, 2000
1999: "Culture
and the Context of Colonization: the role of language attitudes in language
demise or development", University of Washington, Language and
Rhetoric/Language Use and Acquisition Colloquium series, December, 1999.
1999: "Language,
Culture and Misinterpreted Linguistic Cues", University of Washington,
Bothell, Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences
1999: "Pidgins
and Creoles: their sounds and
structures", University of Washington, Seattle, LING 200. July 1999. Talk given again in August, 1999.
1998: ÒA
Tale of Two Tongues: Jamaican
English and Jamaican CreoleÓ, Center for the Education of Women, Ann Arbor,
Michigan, February, 1998.
1997: ÒAn
Acoustic Phonetic Analysis of Jamaican VowelsÓ, University of the West
Indies--Mona, Kingston, Jamaica, May, 1997.
1997: "Why
Do Non-standard Languages Persist?:
Covert and overt attitudes toward Jamaican Creole", University of
Washington, Seattle, February, 1997.
1996: ÒIntercultural
Communication CompetenceÓ, William Tyndale College, Farmington Hills,
Michigan. COM 401-1:
Cross-cultural communication, September, 1996.
1994: ÒPidgins,
Creoles, and Ôthe New EnglishesÕÓ, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan,
July, 1994.
1993-1998: Introductory lecture on Pidgins and Creoles, Linguistics
211, University of Michigan.
Courses Taught
Sociolinguistics
I, LING 432/ANTH 464
Sociolinguistics II, LING 434/LING 580
Advanced Sociolinguistics, LING 532/LING
580
Areal Linguistics: Pidgin and Creole
Languages, LING455
Introduction to Linguistic Phonetics,
LING450
Advanced Linguistic Phonetics, LING 554
Bilingualism (Independent Study), LING
699
Introduction to Linguistic Thought, LING
200
Language in Context, LING 480
Grants
2003 Royalty
Research Fund
2002 Center
for Mind, Brain and Learning (now Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences)
2002 Junior
Faculty Development Grant
2000 Curriculum
Development Grant
Awards
2001 Faculty
Mentor Award, Ronald E. McNair Program, University of Washington
2000 Faculty
Fellows Undergraduate Research Assistantship Award
1999 Allen
Endowment Award
Thesis Committee Supervision and
Membership (completed work precedes a listing of ongoing committee memberships)
PhD committees chaired:
Waltmunson,
Jeremy, (defended 2005), Department of Linguistics, University of Washington
Bohnenkamp,
Zachary, Department of Linguistics, University of Washington
Olson,
Darik, Department of Linguistics, University of Washington
Stevenson, Jeffrey, Department of
Linguistics, University of Washington
PhD committees:
Carmichael, Lesley (defended 2005),
Department of Linguistics, University of Washington
Huang, Chia-Hui (defended 2003),
Department of Linguistics, University of Washington
Russi, Cinzia (defended 2003),
Department of Linguistics, University of Washington
Schwartz, Geoffrey (defended 2000),
Slavic Languages and Literature, University of Washington
Shirai, Setsuko (defended 2004),
Department of Linguistics, University of Washington
Webster, Gabriel (defended 2002),
Department of Linguistics, University of Washington
Witteborn, Saskia (defended 2005),
Department of Speech Communication, University of Washington
Baron, Akesha, Department of
Anthropology, University of Washington
Basta, Hidy, Department of English,
University of Washington
Gray, Audra, School of Education,
University of Washington
McLeod, Andrea, Department of Speech and
Hearing Sciences, University of Washington
MA committees chaired:
Galvin, Lisa (completed 2004),
Department of Linguistics, University of Washington
Munson, Jeremy, (completed 2001) Department of Linguistics, University
of Washington
Olson, Darik (completed 2004),
Department of Linguistics, University of Washington
Wen, Chih-Chi (completed 2003),
Department of Linguistics, University of Washington
Barrett, Benjamin, Department of
Linguistics, University of Washington
Scanlon,
Michael, Department of
Linguistics, University of Washington
MA committees:
Franklin, Amber, Department of Speech
and Hearing Sciences, University of Washington
McLeod, Andrea, Department of Speech and
Hearing Sciences, University of Washington
Undergraduate Honors Theses:
Jerry Cheng Liu (completed 2001), Department of
Linguistics, University of Washington
Alice
Lemieux, Department of Linguistics, University of Washington
McNair Program Advising:
Laronal, KapiÕolani
(BA completed, 2002) University of Washington
Roberts, Christina (completed, 2001), University of
Washington
Academic Recognitions
1997: Mary
Malcolmson Raphael Fellowship
1997: Rackham
Predoctoral Fellowship
1996: Thomas
M. Iden Scholarship
1992-7: Rackham
Merit Fellowship
1986-90:
National Merit Scholarship
Service
Committee work:
2005:
Committee for Ethnic Diversity in Linguistics (CEDL), Linguistic Society
of America
Conferences, workshops, in-service teaching:
2003, 2005:
Breath of Life Workshop (roles: docent, co-organizer with Alice Taff,
University of Alaska, Fairbanks), University of Washington—week-long
workshops offered to registrants from First Nations communities in the US
West. Registrants come to campus,
learn about the holdings of the UW Libraries pertaining to First Nations
languages, music and culture, and complete small-scale projects that help with
advancement of their professional or personal research or teaching
2004:
Language/Culture/Power Colloquium Series (role: co-organizer, with Laada
Bilaniuk, Department of Anthropology, University of Washington—series of talks
investigating the interrelationships of language, social change, identity and
power. Speakers invited from both
within and outside the UW community
1999-2005 (participant each year): World Languages Day, University of
Washington—provide guest lecture to area high school students on the
subject of African-American English: Origins, Structure, and the Ebonics
controversy
1999-2005:
Sociolinguistics Brown Bag Discussion Group (role:
organizer)—Interdisciplinary discussion group around issues pertaining to
sociolinguistics
Reviewer – Peer-reviewed journals:
Journal of Phonetics, Phonology, Journal of Pidgin and
Creole Languages, Journal of English Linguistics
Abstract Reviewer – Academic conferences:
New Ways of Analyzing Variation, Western Conference on
Linguistics (WECOL)
Professional Memberships
Acoustical Society of America
Linguistic Society of America
Society for Pidgin and Creole
Linguistics
Committee of Linguists of African
Descent
rev Jul-05