Research

My primary research interests are sociolinguistic, with emphasis put on how regional varieties are used to perform identity. My current research involves both quantitative sociophonetic analyses as well as qualitative discourse analytic work.

You can find information on my current research projects, recent and upcoming conference presentations, and publications.

Publications

Peer reviewed

Hardison, T. (In revision). Speaking between worlds: Gay men's linguistic navigation across rural and urban Southern U.S. spaces.

Hardison, T. and Jon Forrest. (In Progress). TRAP-Retraction as stancetaking at the intersection of Southernness and queerness.

Hardison, T. and Sara Epps. (In progress). "No hate to this creator": The pragmatics of influencer facework and politeness strategies on TikTok.

As contributing editor

Sikhonde, L.V. (2025). Vus’ Ulwazi: Cultivating IsiZulu Language and Culture. (T. B. Hardison, Ed.) UGA Publishing and Prints.

Presentations

Invited

Hardison, T. 2026. “Language Ideologies, Identity, and Classroom Discourse”. Talk given to the Classroom Discourse Analysis course, University of Georgia.

Hardison, T. 2024. “Introduction to Lavender Linguistics”. Lecture given to the Undergraduate Linguistics Club Athens, Georgia.

Hardison, T., Sara Epps, and Ivy Scarlett. 2023. “Clueless and Classroom Discourse Analysis”. Talk given to the Classroom Discourse Analysis course, University of Georgia.

Hardison, T. and Meg Fletcher. 2023. “Dialect Variation in the Southern U.S.” Lecture given to the Universidade Federal de Alfenas, Brazil.

Conferences

Hardison, T. and Jon Forrest. 2026. “Queer speech of the rural South: Bricolage and the negotiation of competing” identities. Paper presented at the 93rd Southeastern Conference on Linguistics (SECOL 93), Georgia State University.

Hardison, T. 2025. “Speaking between worlds: Gay men’s linguistic navigation across rural and urban Southern spaces”. Paper presented at the 9th Linguistics Conference at UGA (LCUGA 9), University of Georgia.

Hardison, T. 2025. “Speaking between worlds: Gay men’s linguistic navigation across rural and urban Southern U.S. spaces”. Paper presented at the 31st Lavender Languages and Linguistics Conference (Lavlang 31), Manchester Metropolitan University.

Hardison, T. and Jon Forrest. 2025. “‘I’ll Bust Out the Southern Accent’: A Mixed-Methods Analysis of Gay Men’s Navigation of Rural and Urban Southern U.S. Spaces”. Paper presented at the 53rd New Ways of Analyzing Variation Conference (NWAV 53), University of Michigan.

Hardison, T. 2024. “Linguistic performance of identity among gay men in rural and urban Southern spaces”. Paper presented at the Language Variety in the South 5 (LAVIS 5) / 91st Southeastern Conference on Linguistics (SECOL 91), University of Georgia.

Current Projects

Dissertation: Southern American English and Sorority Life in the U.S. South (title likely to change)

My dissertation looks to investigate linguistic variation across NPC sororities on the university campus. My approach is ethnographic, as I seek to investigate the ways in which language, tradition, and identity are central to the lives of sorority girls on campus. The dissertation centers around both qualitative thematic and quantitative sociophonetic analyses.

#RushTok Research Group

The RushTok research group is a cross-university, interdisciplinary group looking at sorority rush and sorority life on social media, specifically TikTok. My goal is to investigate the ways in which language, specifically Southern varieties of English, is employed across posts and users, as well as how it combines with non-linguistic factors, such as attire, in order to construct identity and maintian in-group/out-group divisions.

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