Graduate research topics:
The following are topics that have surfaced in my work and that I would be happy to supervise. The list only includes the most pressing issues and is far from complete, but serves as pointers and possible suggestions for students. You will get an idea of my research interests from my publications and the topics listed below. In general, an empirical part is necessary (data) and most welcome when working with me.
Key areas are: sociolinguistics, sociohistorical English, Canadian English, English in North America, language and dialect contact, historical linguisitcs.
* Extend the Corpus of Early Ontario English to the 1920s and conduct a morphosyntactic study linking the real-time studies on historical CanE with the apparent-time studies. This is an exciting topic that would provide a valuable contribution by a Ph.D. student to new-dialect formation, historical Cane and the study of CanE in general. See Dollinger (2008) for a model. Ph.D. topic.
* BC English 1960s until today. Retrieve sociolinguistic surveys from the 1960s (from BC archives) and conduct a present-day survey of the same variables (in addition to new ones) to chart change in BC English from 1960 to the present day. See Polson (1969), a Ph.D thesis, for the 1960s study. M.A./Ph.D. topics
* Use the Corpus of Early Ontario Engish, pre-Confederation section for a study of grammatical variables (the expansion of the progessive in 19th-century Canada, preposition stranding...). M.A. topic.
* Change in present-day Engish in Canada. Conduct sociolinguistic interviews in Canada, record, transcribe and code the data and trace changes in the communities. See Chambers (2009), Labov (2001) and Labov (2004) for some ideas. Ph.D. topic.
* Dictionary of Canadianisms on Historical Principles. Trace semantic change historically in Canada when compared to World Englishes. See Dollinger and Brinton (2008) for some ideas. M.A../Ph.D. topics
* Dictionary of Canadianisms on Historical Principles. Computing in the Humanities: improve the interface of the Bank of CanE and Dictionary Editing Tool. Experiment with the digitization of legacy data. M.A. thesis.
* Sociohistorical change in CanE. Use the Bank of Canadian English to trace changes in CanE. M.A./Ph.D. topics
* Sound change in Canadian English: revolving around the Canadian Shift, Canadian Raising and some phonemic incidences. Only for students who are familiar with acoustic phonetics. (LING 316 and 317 at UBC). Ph.D topic.
* Frist Nations English: Collect data and describe a feature of the English as spoken by a First Nation in Canada. Ph.D. topic.
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