Bios

I am a postdoctoral scholar in the Center for the Humanities in an Urban Environment at Florida International University.

My primary research interests lie in language variation and change stemming from situations of ethnic contact in the US. I study the variation related to social identities, institutional ideologies, and the hegemonic structure of race.

I have conducted research on a number of topics including historical variation in African American Language morphosyntax, English prosodic rhythm comparisons between South Florida ethnicities, and the relationship between the language, ethnicity, and social identity of pre-teens.

Dr. Sonia Kang holds the Canada Research Chair in Identity, Diversity, and Inclusion, and is an Associate Professor of Organizational Behaviour and Human Resource Management at the University of Toronto, where she is also a Faculty Research Fellow at the Rotman School of Management’s Institute for Gender and the Economy (GATE) and Chief Scientist, Organizations in the Behavioural Economics in Action Research Centre at Rotman (BEAR). Sonia is also the University of Toronto Mississauga’s Special Advisor on Anti-Racism and Equity. Sonia earned a PhD in Social Psychology from the University of Toronto and completed a SSHRC Post-Doctoral Fellowship at Northwestern University.

Ian Dhanoolal was born and raised in Trinidad and Tobago. He is a researcher, educator, activist, interpreter, translator, and small business person. He has carried out groundbreaking research on Caribbean sign languages and deaf communities, including projects in Trinidad and Tobago, Grenada, St Vincent, Guyana, the Cayman Islands, Honduras, and Colombia.

He has taught Trinidad and Tobago Sign Language and American Sign Language for over 15 years, and has worked as a tutor at the University of the West Indies, St Augustine Campus since 2015, where he teaches sign language and Deaf culture. He was the first Deaf Interpreter to work live on National Television, and continues to interpret the National Budget and Budget Debate, as well as contributing to the interpreting to the national news on TV6.

He was one of the founders, and current acting president of the Deaf Empowerment and Advancement Foundation, and one of the first Deaf board members of the Trinidad and Tobago Association for the Hearing Impaired. In 2019 he won the LCCF Edward Miner Gallaudet Award, presented to a deaf or hearing leader from any place in the world who is working to promote the well-being of deaf people worldwide.

Nathan Sanders is an Assistant Professor, Teaching Stream, in the Department of Linguistics at the University of Toronto. He earned his PhD in 2003 from the University of California, Santa Cruz, with a dissertation on derivational opacity in Polish. He works on the phonetics and phonology of signed and spoken languages, historical phonology, linguistic typology, and innovative and inclusive pedagogy in linguistics. He has published articles in Language, Sign Language & Linguistics, Natural History, and Journal for Research and Practice in College Teaching. He co-edited the book Language Invention in Linguistics Pedagogy (2020, Oxford University Press), and he is one of the rotating hosts of the linguistics podcast Word to the Whys.

Vijay Ramjattan is a researcher and adult language educator, who currently works at the University of Toronto’s International Foundation Program. His research interests pertain to the intersections of language, race, and work, and he is currently exploring accent as a site of racialized workplace learning. Vijay received his PhD in Adult Education and Community Development from the University of Toronto and is a member of the Language, Culture and Justice Hub at Brandeis University.

Lex Konnelly is a PhD Candidate in Linguistics and Sexual Diversity Studies at the University of Toronto. Their research is situated in the interrelated areas of sociocultural linguistics, variationist sociolinguistics, and linguistic anthropology, with an emphasis on linguistic innovation in transgender, non-binary, and gender-diverse communities of practice. Their doctoral research explores the role of language in gender-affirming healthcare access.

Lisa Schlegl is a PhD student in Linguistics at the University of Toronto. Her collaborative research thus far has included variationist analysis, phonetic experimentation, and sociocultural linguistic work on topics such as mock speech, place identity, stance analysis methodology, Multicultural Toronto English, and direction-giving. Her upcoming dissertation will focus on the linguistic features of religious conversion narratives that are used in identity construction by Muslim women in Canada.

Haili Su is a fourth-year linguistics and statistics student at the University of Toronto, St. George Campus. They are also a co-president of the Society of Linguistics Undergraduate Students which represents all the linguistics undergraduate students at UTSG.