Carmen Fought, PhD
Professor of Linguistics

Research Interests:

• Phonology, bilingual language acquisition, sociolinguistics

Recent Courses:

• Race, Ethnicity, and the Politics of Teaching (LGCS82/SOC82)
• Language and Gender (LGCS110)
• Language and Society (LGCS112)
• Bilingualism (LGCS115)
• Language and Ethnicity (LGCS116)
• Topics in Sociolinguistics: Language, Ethnicity, and the Media (LGCS166)

Selected Publications and Public Commentary:

• Reviewed Television Dialogue: The Sitcom Friends vs. Natural Conversation by P. Quaglio, in Linguistics and Education, vol. 22, no.3 (September 2011).
• “Language as a Representation of Mexican American Identity,” English Today, vol. 26, no. 3 (September 2010).
• Reviewed Homegirls: Language and Cultural Practice among Latina Youth Gangs by Norma Mendoza-Denton, in Language in Society, vol.38, no. 2 (April 2009).
• Quoted in "Celebrity Accents: It's All Very Tongue-in-Chic," USA Today (January 28, 2008).
• Language and Ethnicity: Key Topics in Sociolinguistics. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006.
• “Talkin’ with Mi Gente (Chicano English),” in Walt Wofran and Ben Ward, eds., American Voices: How Dialects Differ from Coast to Coast. Maden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2006.
• Interviewed on “Senate Vote Reignites Debate Over English Language,” by Gwenn Ifill on PBS Newshour, May 23, 2006.
• Sociolinguistic Variation: Critical Reflections. Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2004.
• “Sonority and Climate in a World Sample of Languages: Findings and Prospects,” Cross-Cultural Research, vol.38, no.1. With John G. Fought, Robert L. Munroe, and Erin M. Good.
• Chicano English in Context. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003.
• “California Students’ Perceptions of, You Know, Regions and Dialects?” in Daniel Long and Dennis R. Preston, eds., Handbook of Perceptiual Dialectology, volume 2. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2002.
• “Rhythmicity or Sonority: Response to Ember and Ember's ‘Cross-Language Predictors of Consonant-Vowel Syllables’,” American Anthropologist, vol.102, no.4 (December 2000). With Robert L Munroe and John Fought.
• “A Majority Sound Change in a Minority Community: /u/-fronting in Chicano English,” Journal of Sociolinguistics, vol.3, no.1 (February 1999).

Conferences and Invited Talks:

• Plenary Speaker, 40th Linguistic Association of the Southwest, South Padre Island, TX, September 30, 2011.
• Speaker, VOX California: Cultural Meanings of Linguistic Diversity workshop, University of California Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA, April 3-4, 2009.
• Invited speaker, Linguistics Program, California State University, Northridge, Northridge, CA, April 2008.
• "I'd Better Schedule an MRI: The Linguistic Construction of 'White' Ethnicity," paper presented at the New Ways of Analyzing Variation conference, Philadelphia, PA, October 2007.