Besting the Sociolinguistic Interview: New Elicitation Methodology for Rare Elliptical Constructions in African American English

This talk presents a new methodology for eliciting speech production data that allows for the study of rare syntactic constructions. While personal judgments and Likert scale ratings can sometimes misrepresent the range of true native speaker acceptability for certain constructions, the current method proves useful for confirming acceptability with production.

Tracy Conner is an interdisciplinary linguist who combines theories and methodologies from formal and socio-linguistics as well as sociology and psychology to address issues of linguistic injustice and inequity. As an experimental syntactician, Conner studies the syntax and morphosyntax of African-American English and ellipsis phenomena.

For Zoom registration, go to: https://linguistics.princeton.edu/event/2942/