Christopher V. Odato

Postdoctoral Fellow
Program in Linguistics, Lawrence University
christopher . odato @ lawrence . edu
curriculum vitae

I am a postdoctoral fellow in the Program in Linguistics at Lawrence University. I completed my Ph.D. in Linguistics at the University of Michigan in 2010.

In Fall 2011 I am teaching LING 325: Introduction to Sociolinguistics. Other courses that I teach at Lawrence include LING 355: Child Language Acquisition and LING 120: Language & Discrimination, as well as LING 150: Introduction to Linguistics. Follow the link above for more detailed course descriptions.

My research is primarily in sociolinguistics, including language variation, particularly syntactic variation, language attitudes, and language ideologies. I also have a continuing interest in syntax and in exploring how the analysis of syntactic variation can inform, and be informed by, formal syntactic theory.

Christopher V. Odato

Research

The broader question underlying my current research is: What is the nature of the interaction between the formal linguistic knowledge that comprises the language faculty and cognitive faculties that allow humans to construct and negotiate a social world? Sociolinguists have long known of the correlation of language variation with social variables and that linguistic variables acquire social meaning while other researchers have explored how formal theories can account for how that variation arises in natural language. I am interested in exploring the relationship between this underlying, formal grammatical knowledge and the social meanings that get attached to the surface variation.

This page is still a work in progress; you can expect it to be updated soon. In the meantime you can look over my publications and presentations to get a sense of my research.

Christopher V. Odato

Teaching

The following are courses that I teach at Lawrence, including the descriptions from the course catalog and the terms that they will next be offered. (Syllabi from past courses are provided for informational purposes only; future course offerings will almost certainly differ to some degree from earlier versions of the course.)

LING 120: Language and Discrimination
This course examines language as a potential site of social statement and, sometimes, social conflict, particularly with respect to questions of “race” and ethnicity. We will explore language-based discrimination, beliefs about language and language variation, and ways language is used to construct and reflect social identities and social group boundaries. Spring 2012
This course fulfills the Dimensions of Diversity requirement.
[Winter 2011 syllabus]

LING 325: Introduction to Sociolinguistics
This course presents an introduction to sociolinguistics, a discipline within linguistics concerned with systematic investigation of language in relation to the social world. Topics include language variation and change, social identity and language use, linguistic diversity, and language ideologies. We will also practice methods for collecting and analyzing sociolinguistic data. Fall 2011
[Spring 2011 syllabus] [Fall 2011 syllabus]

LING 355: Child Language Acquisition
Every normally developing human acquires language in early childhood. This course explores how this feat is accomplished. We will examine data on children’s linguistic knowledge at different developmental stages and what types of theories might explain these data. Students will also have the opportunity to analyze real child language data. Winter 2012
[Winter 2012 syllabus]

LING 150: Introduction to Linguistics
Introduction to theory and methods of linguistics: universal properties of human language; phonetic, phonological, morphological, syntactic, and semantic structures and analysis; nature and form of grammar.
This course is taught by several different professors; I will next be teaching it in Spring 2012

Christopher V. Odato

Dissertation

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Children’s Development of Knowledge and Beliefs about English like(s)
Committee: Deborah Keller-Cohen (chair), Robin Queen, Carmel O’Shannessy, Holly Craig

Publications

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Odato, C. V. & Keller-Cohen, D. (2010). Evaluating the speech of older adults: Age, gender, and speech situation. Journal of Language and Social Psychology 28(4), 457-475.

Demuth, K., Machobane, M., Moloi, F. & Odato, C. 2005. Learning animacy hierarchy effects in Sesotho double object applicatives. Language 81(2), 421-447.

Demuth, K., Machobane, M., Moloi, F. & Odato, C. 2002. Rule learning and lexical frequency effects in learning verb-argument structure. Proceedings of the 26th Annual Boston University Conference on Language Development. 142-153.

Papers In Preparation:

Odato, C.V. The development of discourse like in young children’s spontaneous speech.

Odato, C.V. Assembling sociolinguistic competence: Experimentally assessing children’s knowledge of grammatical and social constraints on innovative like.

Conference Presentations

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Assessing competence and performance in children’s acquisition of innovative like. Poster presented at the Annual Meeting of the Linguistic Society of America. Portland, OR. January 7, 2012.

Experimentally assessing Children’s grammatical knowledge and social beliefs about like. Poster presented at the Annual Meeting of the Linguistic Society of America. Pittsburgh, PA. January 8, 2011.

Children’s use of vernacular functions of like in peer conversation. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Linguistic Society of America. Baltimore, MD. January 9, 2010.

Children’s acquisition of the variable like as a discourse marker and discourse particle. Paper presented at NWAV 38. University of Ottawa. October 25, 2009.

(with Deborah Keller-Cohen) Relevance in the eye of the beholder: How, and when, does age matter in evaluating speech? Paper presented at NWAV 37. Houston, TX. November 9, 2008.

(with Deborah Keller-Cohen) Talk too much? Age and speech situation in evaluating others’ speech: Off-target verbosity revisited. Paper presented at the 11th International Conference on Language and Social Psychology. Tucson, AZ. July 18, 2008.

(with Deborah Keller-Cohen) Revisiting off-target verbosity: Speech situation and speaker identity. Poster presented at the Cognitive Aging Conference. Atlanta, GA. April 12, 2008.

(with Deborah Keller-Cohen) The effect of age, gender and context on evaluations of topic and relevance: Some problems for language and cognition. Paper presented at the 2nd Biennial Midwestern Conference on Culture, Language and Cognition. Northwestern University. May 12, 2007.

What if Valley Girls were smart? Mallspeak and college students’ (in)articulateness. Paper presented at the 27th Annual Ethnography and Education Research Forum. University of Pennsylvania. February 24, 2006.

Invited Talks

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Children’s developing knowledge of grammatical and social constraints on innovative like: Evidence for modularity of syntactic and social processing of language variation. Linguistics Department Colloquium. University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. March 2, 2012.

Assembling sociolinguistic competence: Assessing multiple components of children’s developing knowledge of language variation. Human Computer Interaction Institute, Carnegie Mellon University. January 27, 2012.

How does like, like, develop? Examining children’s developing knowledge of the grammatical and social distribution of innovative like. Lawrence University. May 18, 2010.

Young children and like. Invited guest lecture, Linguistics 394: Language and Gender. February 8, 2010.

Relevance in the eye of the beholder: How does age matter in the evaluation of speech? Department of Linguistics colloquium. University of Michigan. March 7, 2008.