research interests

selected publications
2007. When and Where We Enter: Social Context and Desire in Women’s Discourse. Journal of Gender and Language Vol. 1.1:119-129.

2006. Getting Off of Black Women’s Back: Love Her or Leave Her Alone. Du Bois Review, 3.2:1-18. (With Dionne Bennett)

2004. “Speech Community” in A Companion to Linguistic Anthropology. S. Duranti (ed.) Oxford: Basil Blackwell.

2004. “I’m every woman”: Black women’s (dis)placement in women’s language study” In Mary Bucholtz (ed.) Robin Tolmach Lakoff, Language and Woman's Place: Text and Commentaries, 2nd ed. Oxford University Press.

2003. Signifying Laughter and the Subtleties of Loud-Talking: Memory and Meaning in African American Women’s Discourse In Marcia Farr, (Ed.). Ethnolinguistic Chicago: Language and Literacy In Chicago’s Neighborhoods. Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Pub. (Pages 51-76)

2001. “Ain’t Nothin’ But A G Thang”: Grammar, Variation and Language Ideology in Hip Hop Identity” In Sonja Lanehart Ed. African American Vernacular English. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins (Pages 185-207).

topics
Urban Speech Communities
* Identity
* Migration
* Interaction
* Language use
* Discourse styles
* Urban youth language
* Verbal performance
* Hiphop culture
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The African Diaspora
Continuity and innovation in language and communication styles of peoples of African descent residing in the Americas and throughout the African Diaspora
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Language, culture and identity
How language both constitutes and works in the construction of gender, national and other group identities, especially in urban areas
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Discourse strategies
* Intentionality and responsibility in discourse
* Construction of gender in discourse and narrative style
* Language socialization
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Verbal performance
In urban African Diaspora speech communities with special emphasis on African American toasts, signifying and hiphop
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Hiphop language and culture
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Language and education
Language policy and planning regarding social class varieties and African American English in the US, literacy instruction, language education policy and programs for bilingual creole language speakers