Beyond pathologized speech
This research treats deaf speech not as a list of clinical deviations but as socially organized variation. I study how oralist histories, cochlear implants and hearing aids, communicative settings, and relationships with hearing interlocutors shape what speakers do—and what listeners believe they hear.
Across acoustic analysis, interviews, and ethnographic work, my projects examine read-aloud performance, topic-based style shifting, affective vowel quality, linguistic entrepreneurship, and the experience of being mistaken for a foreigner. Together, they argue for deaf speakers as sociolinguistic agents rather than passive outcomes of technology.