My research explores how language reflects and constructs identity, belonging, and power.
Working primarily through ethnographic and sociolinguistic methods, I study how language ideology and communicative practices influence cultural expression and educational experience. Drawing from linguistic and cultural anthropology, my work examines how people use language to negotiate history, place, and self—especially where local identity and global discourse intersect. My central focus is on understanding how language practices facilitate identity, belonging, and cultural continuity.
Research Interests
Language, Equity, and Pedagogy
· Linguicism, language-based discrimination, and linguistic equity
· Managing complexity in ESL/EMI and developing adaptive teaching practices
· Metalinguistic and metacognitive awareness in learning
Sociolinguistics and Language Ideologies
· Metapragmatic awareness in interaction
· Language attitudes and their social consequences
· Ideologies of authenticity and representation in Cajun language and media
Anthropology of Language, Communication, and Belonging
· Ethnography of communication and multimodal embodied interaction
· Contemporary Cajun language practices, belonging, and cultural continuity
Current Projects
Grammar Freedom Fighters: A Multimodal Class Project to Shift Language Bias on Campus — Forthcoming; co-authored textbook chapter on linguicism and equitable language practices in university contexts.
Putting on the Poo-Yai: A Critical Discourse Analysis of Cajun Authentication Practices — Manuscript submitted to American Speech; co-authored a critical discourse analysis of Cajun authentication practices and representations of Cajunness across digital and popular media in contemporary cultural markets, with Dr. Nichole Stanford.
Resonant Belongings: Embodied Communication and the Limits of Cultural Continuity in Acadian Communities — Doctoral research proposal investigating whether embodied communicative practices—prosody, gesture, rhythm, and bodily alignment in dance halls and equivalent communal spaces—produce recognizable resonances across historically linked Acadian communities in Louisiana, New Brunswick, and western France, or whether continuity fails to hold across distinct social formations.
La Poussiere: Rhythms of Identity, Belonging, and Cultural Continuity in a Cajun Dance Hall — A conference paper based on an ethnographic study of a Cajun dance hall, examining how belonging is enacted through embodied participation, multimodal communication, and intergenerational continuity.
· Tulane Linguistics Conference (T-CoL), 2026
· Global Souths Conference, 2026
Managing Complexity in ESL Classrooms: Rethinking Bloom’s Taxonomy and Higher-Order Thinking — Conference presentation and workshop investigating the relationship between cognitive frameworks and communicative language teaching in multilingual learning environments.
· LaTESOL Conference, 2025