Contributors' Column

Erik R. Thomas, associate professor of English at North Carolina State University and member of the American Speech editorial advisory board, recently published An Acoustic Analysis of Vowel Variation in New World English (PADS 85, Durham, N.C.: Duke Univ. Press, 2001) and The Development of African American English (with Walt Wolfram; Malden, Mass.: Blackwell, 2002).

Barbara Johnstone is professor of rhetoric and linguistics at Carnegie Mellon University and member of the American Speech editorial advisory board. She is part of an interdisciplinary team exploring Pittsburgh Speech and Society. She has previously written about connections between language, individual identity, and place in Indiana and in Texas.

Neeta Bhasin, a doctoral student in rhetoric at Carnegie Mellon University, is currently studying the "cultural politics" of Indian immigrants in the United States as they are worked out every day, in face-to-face interactions.

Denise Wittkofski, a native of Pittsburgh, holds an M.A. in rhetoric from Carnegie Mellon University and is a communications consultant for Pittsburgh-area businesses.

Bryan Gick, assistant professor of linguistics and director of the Interdisciplinary Speech Research Laboratory at the University of British Columbia, is coeditor/translator of The Oneida Creation Story (with Floyd G. Lounsbury, Lincoln: Univ. of Nebraska Press, 2000) and author of articles in numerous journals of phonetics and phonology.

Donna Starks, senior lecturer in the Department of Applied Language Studies and Linguistics at the University of Auckland, studies short- and long-term accommodation in second-dialect acquisition and on language maintenance and shift in New Zealand Pasifika communities.

Donn Bayard, associate professor in the Anthropology Department at the University of Otago, researches language behavior and language attitudes as they relate to ethnic stereotypes and national identity in contemporary New Zealand society. He is also coordinator of the Evaluating English Accents WorldWide Project.

Robert S. Wachal, professor emeritus of linguistics at the University of Iowa and former member of the American Speech editorial advisory board, is author of Abbreviations Dictionary: A Practical Compilation of Today's Acronyms and Abbreviations (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1999) and is a frequent reviewer of books for American Speech.