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Meet Dr. Katie Carmichael
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Dr. Katie Carmichael is an associate professor in the Department of English. Her interests center on sociolinguistic variation and change, especially considering how identity factors intersect with these processes. Her 2025 book, “Language and Place,” examines the role of place identity in sociolinguistic variation, providing a concise introduction to the ways linguists and those from other fields theorize about language and place. Much of Dr. Carmichael’s work centers on linguistic practices within Louisiana – New Orleans English, Cajun English, and Louisiana French.
Within the Language Sciences program at VT, Dr. Carmichael teaches ENGL 1514 ‘Language & Society’, ENGL/RLCL/SOC 3144 ‘Language & Ethnicity in the US’, and ENGL 4084 ‘Research in the Language Sciences’ (the capstone class). She won the 2024 University Award for Excellence in Teaching. Dr. Carmichael also frequently mentors undergraduate researchers in the VT Speech Lab, via paid positions or for course credit. These students have gone on to careers in linguistics, speech language pathology, elementary education, law, and public health.
Labs: The Speech Lab
Corpora: Cajun English Corpus, Louisiana French Corpus, New Orleans English: Chalmatian Corpus
Publications
Publications
Carmichael, Katie & Paul E. Reed. (2025). Language and Place. Cambridge Elements in Sociolinguistics: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009380874
Dinkin, Aaron & Katie Carmichael. (2024). When PALMs are in your THOUGHTs, you head South: New Orleans Low-Back Vowels and Diffusion from New York City. American Speech 99(4): 385-409. https://doi.org/10.1215/00031283-10867174
Carmichael, Katie. (2024). Yats No More: Intergenerational Change and the Development of the ‘New’ New Orleans Vowel System. In Joseph A. Stanley, Margaret E. L. Renwick, & Monica Nesbitt (eds), Movement, Economy, Orientation: Twentieth Century Shifts in North American Language (Publication of the American Dialect Society 109) Duke University Press: Durham, N.C. 62–87. https://doi.org/10.1215/00031283-11587931.
Carmichael, Katie. (2023). Locating place in variationist sociolinguistics: Making the case for ethnographically informed multidimensional place orientation metrics. Journal of Linguistic Geography 11(2): 65-77. https://doi.org/10.1017/jlg.2023.2.
Gudmestad, Aarnes & Katie Carmichael. (2022). A variationist analysis of first-person-singular subject expression in Louisiana French. Language Variation and Change 34(1): 53-77. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0954394521000235.
Carmichael, Katie. (2020). (æ)fter the storm: An examination of the short-a system in Greater New Orleans. Language Variation and Change 32(1): 107-131. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0954394520000022.
Carmichael, Katie. (2017). Displacement and local linguistic practices: R-lessness in post-Katrina Greater New Orleans. Journal of Sociolinguistics 21(5): 696-719. https://doi.org/10.1111/josl.12253.
Carmichael, Katie and Nathalie Dajko. (2016). Ain’t dere no more: New Orleans language and local nostalgia in Vic & Nat’ly Comics. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 26(3): 234-258. https://doi.org/10.1111/jola.12128.
Learn more about Dr. Carmichael's research
Learn more about Dr. Carmichael's research
Carmichael, Katie. (2025). New Orleans English. In Kingsley Bolton (ed), The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of World Englishes. Wiley-Blackwell. 2698-2710. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781119518297
Carmichael, Katie. (2019). Cajun English: A linguistic and cultural profile. In Nathalie Dajko & Shana Walton (eds), Language in Louisiana: Community and Culture. University Press of Mississippi: Jackson, MS. 159-172.
Carmichael, Katie & Annette D’Onofrio. (2023). “Our Southern is different than Southern Southern”: Geographic perceptions of Southern and Northern US English dialect features in New Orleans English. University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics (Selected papers from NWAV 50) 29(2). 31-40.
Carmichael, Katie. (2017). Stylistic variation and dialect contraction: The case of /ʒ/ and /h/ in Louisiana French. Fleur de Ling: Tulane University Working Papers, Sociolinguistics 3(1). 72-89.
Contact Me
Contact Me
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