Albert Ray Lang Professor Emerita
108 Margaret Jacks Hall
Department of Linguistics
Stanford University
Stanford CA 94305-2150
Phone: (650) 725-1564
Fax: (650)723-5666
Email: eckert@stanford.edu



Visit the Ivanfest
Sociolinguistics at Stanford
Voices of California
my bionic back

The goal of my research is to understand the social meaning of linguistic variation. In order to do this, I pursue my sociolinguistic work in the context of in-depth ethnographic fieldwork, focusing on the relation between variation, linguistic style, social identity and social practice.

Gender has been the big misunderstood in studies of sociolinguistic variation - in spite of the fact that some of the most exciting intellectual developments over the past decades have been in theories of gender and sexuality ... so I have spent a good deal of time working on language and gender as well.

Since adolescents and preadolescents are the movers and shakers in linguistic change, I concentrate on this age group, and much of my research takes place in schools. The institutional research site has made me think a good deal about learning and education, but particularly about the construction of adolescence in American society.