Betsy Sneller
Assistant Professor of Linguistics | Michigan State University
East Lansing, MI, UNITED STATES
Betsy Sneller’s primary research interest is in language variation and change.
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Biography
Betsy Sneller’s primary research interest is in language variation and change. Her dissertation work focused on the way that dramatic structural sound change (i.e., phonological change) is represented and produced by individual speakers during the change. As a postdoctoral scholar at Georgetown University, 2018-2020, she used experimental methods to investigate the way that children acquire sociolinguistic and phonological variation. Dr. Sneller is co-director of the MSU Sociolinguistics Lab and the PI of the MI Diaries Project.
Industry Expertise (1)
Education/Learning
Areas of Expertise (4)
Language Change
Language Variation
Phonological Change
Sociolinguistics
Accomplishments (3)
MSU University Undergraduate Research and Arts Forum, Best Poster Award (professional)
2021
MSU CAL Undergraduate Research Initiative Award (professional)
2020
University of Pennsylvania IDEAL Council Awardf or University Structural Improvements in Diversity and Inclusion (professional)
2018
Education (3)
University of Pennsylvania: Ph.D., Linguistics 2018
University of Essex: M.A., Sociolinguistics 2012
Calvin College: B.A., English Literature, Linguistics 2010
Links (3)
News (1)
Help! My Kids Are Developing Philadelphia Accents
Philadelphia Magazine online
2022-02-02
I ASK BETSY SNELLER, an assistant professor of linguistics at Michigan State University who has studied the Philadelphia accent as well as how children pick up on it and other regional accents, if this transmission vector makes sense. She confirms that school is where most accent work happens for young kids, though most of the research has been done on in-person school. “What we often find is that kids sound like their parents until they go to school,” Sneller tells me. “Then all the kids come into kindergarten sounding different, and by the end of the year, they more or less sound the same.” Usually, kids pick up sounds from other students, with teachers playing less of a role. But last year wasn’t usual. “Zoom school throws a wrench in things,” Sneller says.
Journal Articles (5)
Sociolinguistic prompts in the 21st century: Uniting past approaches and current directions
Language and Linguistics Compass2023 As technology (particularly smartphone and computer technology) has advanced, sociolinguistic methodology has likewise adapted to include remote data collection. Remote methods range from approximating the traditional sociolinguistic interview via synchronous video conferencing to developing new methods for asynchronous self‐recording (Boyd et al., 2015; Leeman et al., 2020). In this paper, we take a close look at the question prompts sent to participants in an asynchronous, remote self‐recording project (“MI Diaries”). We discuss how some of the techniques initially developed for obtaining a range of styles in a traditional in‐person sociolinguistic interview can be fruitfully adapted to a remote context.
The effects of topic and part of speech on nonbinary speakers’ use of (ING)
University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics2023 This paper investigates the variable usage of (ING) by nonbinary speakers across conversation topics, specifically asking whether nonbinary speakers shift their rates of (ING) variation when discussing the salient topic of gender. 8 nonbinary speakers (4 AFAB and 4 AMAB, ranging from 21 to 27 years old) participated in sociolinguistic interviews conducted by a nonbinary researcher who was familiar with each interview participant. A modular interview guide was developed based on Labov’s Q-GEN-II modules with modifications made to specifically obtain participant narratives on their experiences with gender identity and expression in addition to traditional narratives. The results of the study find that despite a markedly more deliberative style during gender topics, participants do not shift rates of (ING) across topics.
Sample size matters in calculating Pillai scores
The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America2023 Since their introduction to sociolinguistics by Hay, Warren, and Drager [(2006). J. Phon. (Modell. Sociophon. Var.) 34(4), 458–484], Pillai scores have become a standard metric for quantifying vowel overlap. However, there is no established threshold value for determining whether two vowels are merged, leading to conflicting ad hoc measures. Furthermore, as a parametric measure, Pillai scores are sensitive to sample size. In this paper, we use generated data from a simulated pair of underlyingly merged vowels to demonstrate (1) larger sample sizes yield reliably more accurate Pillai scores, (2) unequal group sizes across the two vowel classes are irrelevant in the calculation of Pillai scores, and (3) it takes many more data than many sociolinguistic studies typically analyze to return a reliably low Pillai score for underlyingly merged data.
COVID-era sociolinguistics: introduction to the special issue
Linguistics Vanguard2022 In the 18 months that have passed since COVID-19 was declared a global pandemic, linguists around the world have had to grapple with the practical and ethical issues that arose from trying to collect data in a safe and remote way while participants are experiencing an acute disaster. The current collection presents insights from a number of sociolinguistic research projects that were either initiated in response to the pandemic or that adjusted their research methods mid-trajectory. A concluding discussion article underscores that the honest reflections and concrete suggestions in this collection will remain relevant beyond the COVID-19 pandemic. They will be of value to any (socio)linguist who is navigating the ethics of fieldwork in uncertain or traumatic contexts, who is recruiting and retaining participants via remote means, or who is figuring out how to rapidly change their data collection methods.
MI Diaries: ethical and practical challenges
Linguistics Vanguard2022 The Michigan Diaries (MI Diaries) project was developed from late March to early April of 2020, in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. MI Diaries is a longitudinal sociolinguistic project, collecting “audio diaries” from participants throughout the pandemic and beyond. As a research project designed to obtain personal narratives from a time of deep anxiety and pain, and during a time where face-to-face data collection was not feasible, MI Diaries was confronted from the outset with a substantial set of both ethical and practical considerations. In this paper, we describe some of these challenges, and our false starts and eventual solutions in response. Throughout, we highlight decisions and methods that may be applicable for future researchers conducting remote fieldwork, navigating a speech community during a disaster, or both.
