NC State Linguistics


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Erik Thomas

Erik Thomas

Associate Professor
Tompkins 203
919/513-7385 (office)
ethomas at social dot chass dot ncsu dotedu

Education

Ph.D., University of Texas at Austin, Linguistics, 1995

M.A., Texas A&M University, English, 1989

A.B., Duke University, Botany, 1988


Research Interests

Sociophonetics, Vowel quality, Prosody, Ethnic variation, Speech perception, Geographical variation, Sound change


Bio

Erik Thomas was born in December of 1965 in Columbus, Ohio, and grew up in Johnstown, Ohio. He received a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Botany at Duke University in 1988, a Master of Arts Degree in English at Texas A&M University in 1989, and a Ph.D. in Linguistics at the University of Texas at Austin in 1995. He has been a faculty member in the linguistics concentration of the English Department at North Carolina State University since 1995. He and his wife Barbara Hunter have two children, Spencer and Jane.


Recent Publications

Selected
BOOKS

Thomas, Erik R. 2001a. An Acoustic Analysis of Vowel Variation in New World English. Publication of the American Dialect Society 85. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

Wolfram, Walt, and Erik R. Thomas. 2002. The Development of African American English. Language in Society 31. Oxford, UK/ Malden, MA: Blackwell.

ARTICLES

Thomas, Erik R. Forthcoming a. “Phonetic Properties of Linguistic Profiling in American English.” In John Baugh (ed.), Linguistic Profiling and Linguistic Human Rights.

Thomas, Erik R. Forthcoming b. “R in Southern Speech.” Encyclopedia of Southern Culture. 2nd ed. Oxford, MS: University of Mississippi Press.

Thomas, Erik R. Forthcoming c. “Sociophonetics.” In Robert Bayley and Ceil Lucas (eds.), Sociolinguistic Variation: Theories, Methods, and Analysis. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Thomas, Erik R. 2006. “Evidence from Ohio on the Evolution of /æ/.” In Language Variation and Change in the American Midland: A New Look at “Heartland” English, ed. Thomas E. Murray and Beth Lee Simon. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. 69-89.

Thomas, Erik R. 2005a. “Cues Used for Distinguishing African American and European American Voices.” Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 117:2458.

Thomas, Erik R. 2005b. “Rural White Southern Accents.” In Varieties of English: The Americas/Caribbean, ed. Edgar W. Schneider. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

Thomas, Erik R. Forthcoming 2005c. “Vowel Shifts and Vowel Mergers.” In Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, 2nd ed., ed. Keith Brown. Oxford, U.K.: Elsevier.


Complete CV

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Courses

ENG 210: Introduction to Language and Linguistics
ENG 324: Modern English
ENG 325: Spoken and Written Traditions of American English Dialects
ENG 326: History of English
ENG 524: Introduction to Linguistics
ENG 525: Variety in Language
ENG 528: Language Change Research Seminar

Course Syllabi

See the courses page for sample syllabi from courses in years past.


Interests

Birding


Awards and Honors

Selected

Co-PI, National Science Foundation Grant BCS 0542139, "Old and New Ethnic

Dialect Configuration in the American South"

National Science Foundation Grant BCS-0213941, "Socio-Phonetic Cues Differentiating African American and European American Voices" 2002-04

Awards for Beginning Academics, National Science Foundation, 1998-99

Faculty Research and Professional Development Grant, North Carolina State University, 1996-97