Thomas Purnell
Position title: Professor
Email: tcpurnell@wisc.edu
Address:
6109 Helen C. White Hall

Degrees and Institutions
- PhD Linguistics, University of Delaware, 1998 (“Principles and Parameters of Phonological Rules: Evidence from Tone Languages”)
- MA English (Linguistics), George Mason University, 1992
- BA English, California State University, Los Angeles, 1986
Teaching
Eng 314: Structure of English
Eng 316: English Language Variation in the U.S.
Eng 319: Language, Race, and Identity
Eng 414: Global Spread of English
Eng 416: English in Society
Eng 709: Advanced English Phonology
Eng 905: Seminar – Grammatical and Phonological Patterns in Global Englishes
Ling 510: Phonological Theories
Selected Publications
Edited Volumes
- Wisconsin Talk: Linguistic Diversity in the Badger State. (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 2013). (editor, with Eric Raimy & Joseph Salmons)
- “Accommodative tendencies in multidialect communication” Journal of English Linguistics 38/3 (2010). (guest editor with Malcah Yaeger-Dror,)
- “Accommodation to the locally dominant norm: Variationist analyses” American Speech 85/3 (2010). (guest editor with Malcah Yaeger-Dror, )
Articles and chapters
- “The History of English in the United States.” In The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of World Englishes (John Wiley, 2024).
- “Midwestern American Englishes.” In The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of World Englishes (John Wiley, 2024).
- “Old English Vowels: Diachrony, privitivity and phonological representations.” Language 95/4 (2019): e447-e473. (with Eric Raimy & Joseph Salmons)
- “Greeting and Response: Predicting Participation from the Call Opening.” Journal of Survey Statistics and Methodology 6/1 (2018): 122–148. (with Nora Cate Schaeffer, Bo Hee Min, Dana Garbarski & Jennifer Dykema)
- “Rule-Based Phonology: Background, principles and assumptions.” In The Routledge Handbook of Phonological Theory (Routledge, 2017): 135-166.
- “‘Subliminal accent’: Reactions to the rise of Wisconsin English.” Journal of Linguistic Geography 4/1 (2016): 15-30. (with Danielle Schuld, Joe Salmons, and Eric Raimy)
- “Upper Midwestern English.” In Listening to the Past (Cambridge, 2016): 298-324. (with Eric Raimy & Joseph Salmons)
- “Distinctive features, levels of representation and historical phonology.” In The Handbook of Historical Phonology (Oxford, 2015): 522-544. (with Eric Raimy)
- “Hearing the American language change: The state of DARE recordings.” American Speech 88/3 (2013): 275-301.
- “Making linguistics matter: Building on the public’s interest in language.” Linguistic Compass 7/7 (2013): 398-407. (with Eric Raimy & Joseph Salmons)
- “Dialect recordings from the Hanley Collection, 1931-1937.” American Speech 87/4 (2012): 511-513 (audio article).
- “Teaching, researching and doing outreach on Wisconsin Englishes.” American Speech 87/3 (2012): 369-370 (audio article). (with Eric Raimy & Joseph Salmons)
- “Phonetic detail in the perception of ethnic varieties of US English.” In A Reader in Sociophonetics (Mouton de Gruyter, 2010): 289-326.
- “Contact and the development of American English.” In Handbook of Language Contact (Blackwell, 2010/2020): 454-477 (with Joseph Salmons).
- “The vowel phonology of urban Southeastern Wisconsin.” In AAE speakers and their participation in local sound changes: A comparative study. Publication of the American Dialect Society 94 (Duke, 2010): 191-217.
- “Convergence and contact in Milwaukee: Evidence from select African American and white vowel space features.” Journal of Language and Social Psychology 28/4 (2009): 408-427.
- “Phonetic influence on phonological operations.” In Contemporary Views on Architecture and Representations in Phonological Theory (MIT, 2009): 337-354.
- “Defining dialect, perceiving dialect and new dialect formation: Sarah Palin’s speech.” Journal of English Linguistics 37/4 (2009): 331-355. (with Eric Raimy & Joseph Salmons)
- “Pre-velar raising and phonetic conditioning: Role of labial and anterior tongue gestures.” American Speech 83/4 (2008): 373-402.
- “Structured heterogeneity and change in laryngeal phonetics: Upper Midwestern final obstruents.” Journal of English Linguistics 33/4 (2005): 307-338. (with Dilara Tepeli, Jennifer Mercer & Joe Salmons)
- “German substrate effects in Wisconsin English: Evidence for final fortition.” American Speech 80/2 (2005): 135-164. (with Dilara Tepeli & Joe Salmons)
- “Perceptual and phonetic experiments on American English dialect identification.” Journal of Language and Social Psychology 18/1 (1999): 10-30. (with John Baugh & Bill Idsardi)
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Salmons (Co-editor), J., E. Raimy (Co-editor), and T. Purnell (Co-editor). Wisconsin Talk: Linguistic Diversity in the Badger State.