A guiding motivation in my career as a linguist is the use of research for the public good. This takes many forms, but the connection among all of them is to use empirically validated scientific study of language not just for the advancement of theoretical knowledge and for an academic career, but for the betterment of all. I am committed to the highest standards of justice, and believe that armed with factual linguistic information, clearly explained, we can better arrive at just and equitable outcomes.

Some of the forms this takes are:

Public Outreach and teaching

Aside from my blog and YouTube channel, I regularly teach. This takes the form of guest lectures at the undergraduate and graduate level (past lectures have been at Yale, Columbia, Stanford, NYU, CUNY, UMass Amherst, Gettysburg College, North Carolina State University, and others). This also takes the form of residencies and guest appointments (including upcoming at Truman State University). This also takes the form of lectures for the general public and invited talks, not at universities.

I am currently writing two books: one on the history of African American English and its impact on American culture more broadly (working title: More than Slang: How African American Speech is Celebrated, Stigmatized, Imitated, and Misunderstood), and one synthesizing the leadership and inclusion work I do with CulturePoint (working title: High Performance DEI: A No-nonsense Approach to Leadership and Inclusion).

Expert witness services

I regularly work as an expert witness, using both my expert knowledge of “nonstandard” dialects and my extensive training in instrumental acoustic phonetics in pursuit of justice. For more on that, please see my page on expert witness services, here.

Training for language professionals

I provide training for language professionals, including court reporters and transcription professionals, in conjunction with CulturePoint, LLC. This generally takes the form of introducing participants to the relevant facts from psycholinguistics and neurolinguistics, before providing hands-on training to develop tools and skills to better navigate understanding and accurately transcribing nonstandard or unexpected accents.

Cross-cultural training 

I have extensive experience with cross-cultural communication. Most recently, for the past two years, I taught a recurring week-long cross-cultural communication component of a class for Foreign Area Officers (FAOs) and FMS professionals at Defense Security Cooperation University (DSCU), in conjunction with the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) where I hold an intermittent appointment in the Center for Executive Education.

Mentorship

I believe that mentorship, especially informal cross-dyad mentorship, is important. To that end, I always make time to answer questions from undergraduate and grad students of linguistics who reach out to me, providing both training in linguistics (where relevant) and guidance regarding organizational structure and the “hidden curriculum” in academia. 

Academic publishing

Finally, my academic publishing often has direct applications beyond the merely theoretical. My coauthored work on court reporter mistranscription of African American English had an impact on court reporting professionals and has resulted in more scrutiny toward the text of depositions and previous witness statements, as well as renewed interest in professional training among some Court Reporters Associations (e.g., NYSCRA, TNCRA). My work on the “N-words” in AAE has directly led to an out of court settlement for a wrongly terminated employee. My work on camouflage constructions and miscomprehension — including work on negation with “eem,” the use of “talmbout” as a verb of quotation, and the development of the intensifier “dennamug” are of theoretical interest to linguists, but practical interest to AAE speakers and non-speakers who come into contact with AAE, including in judicial and educational domains.