Ça m'ap fé | Current projects
My monograph, under contract with Cambridge University Press, examines processes of language change in Louisiana Creole from its genesis in the plantation society, during its time as a vernacular, to its endangerment and, now, its ongoing revival. The analysis draws on a corpus of Louisiana Creole which includes field data, social media data, and historical texts.
I'm continuing to write up and publish research (see my Publications). Most of my work-in-progress concentrates on answering sociolinguistic questions with quantitative and formalist analyses of language data, from small fieldwork corpora to large social-media corpora. Especially interesting to me at the moment are language variation and change, contact and the intersection of generative linguistics, sociolinguistic theory and data analysis.
Cécile Smetana and I are collaborating on a long-term artistic-academic portrait of Creole-speaking Louisiana, working at the interstices of documentary linguistics and documentary photography. Our project is supported by the National Atchafalaya Heritage Area, West Baton Rouge Museum, Leica, NUNU Arts and Culture Collective, New Orleans Foundation for Francophone Cultures, and the Conseil pour le développement du français en Louisiane (Codofil).