My current research interests can be broadly classified as the sociolinguistics of LGBT+, internet, and Gen-Z language usage and the morphosyntax of case, tense, aspect, and modality. I have two current projects: one on familiarity with LGBT+ slang and another on the intersection of split ergativity and differential object marking.

LGBT+ Slang Study

My primary project at the moment is a study on familiarity of LGBT+ slang across age groups.

The first phase of the project was an online survey asking participants to rate their familiarity with, try to define, and state if and where they have seen/heard a set of twelve slang terms. The provided definitions were matched with available online/dictionary definitions to determine familiarity (cf. Morgan 2017). This part is complete, with 397 responses being included for analysis. Preliminarily, there does seem to be a statistically significant difference in self-rated familiarity for younger participants, but the same relation did not hold for the definition matching. More analysis will be done to determine limitations in the data and potential bias in the sample based on demographic information.

The current phase of the project is conducting brief interviews with survey respondents to get a more in-depth understanding of people’s perspectives on LGBT+ slang and how younger groups may use it. Given the origin of much of LGBT+ slang in Black English and the substantial lack of Black-identifying respondents, additional participants that identify as Black members of the LGBT+ community are also being recruited in order to supplement the original survey group.

The project is estimated to be completed by May of 2025.

Split Ergativity and Differential Object Marking

A planned project of mine is to investigate the intersection of split ergativity and differential object marking and the conditions that each phenomenon occurs in cross-linguistically. Currently, this project is in the literature review stage and more updates will be provided soon. I expect to release a paper on this topic some time in 2026.