Language and Place: Communities and Corpora

About the lecture: How does place shape the way we speak, and how can language help us understand the communities that create and sustain it? This talk explores the relationship between language, place, and identity through the study of African American Language in Washington, DC. Drawing on research examining phonological variation and narrative discourse, I consider how speakers use language to construct local identities, express connections to community, and negotiate the changing social and cultural landscape of the nation’s capital.

The talk also considers the role of linguistic corpora in documenting and understanding language as it is used in real communities. By bringing together quantitative patterns of linguistic variation with speakers’ narratives and lived experiences, this work demonstrates how corpora can illuminate not only how language varies, but also what that variation means to the people and places where it occurs.

About the presenter: Dr. Minnie Quartey is a linguist, educator, and scholar whose work explores the intersections of language, identity, culture, and place, with a particular focus on African American Language (AAL). She holds a PhD in Linguistics from Georgetown University.

Her 2023 dissertation, “When I Was Coming Up, It Was Called the Chocolate City: Phonological Variation, Narrative Discourse, and Identity Construction among Speakers of African American Language in Washington, DC,” examines how language and storytelling shape identity and connection to place among AAL speakers in Washington, DC.

Quartey is passionate about making linguistics accessible and challenging deficit-based perceptions of African American Language. Her work bridges scholarship, education, and community, using language as a lens for understanding identity, history, culture, and social change.