Leah M. Dudley

I am a graduate student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. I graduated from the University of Georgia, where I earned a B.A. in Linguistics and a Certificate in Digital Humanities. My concentration within the field is primarily in sociolinguistics, phonetics, and DH applications of my research. You can find my contact info in my CV if you want to get in touch.

M.A. Linguistics

2020 - 2022 · University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

B.A. Linguistics, Certificate Digital Humanities

2016 - 2020 · University of Georgia

Honors: Magna Cum Laude, Undergraduate Research Distinction

Analyzing Dialectal Differences In Relation to Geography in the American South

Fall 2019 · Senior Thesis

Focused on the effect of physiography on speech patterns in the Southern United States through corpora DASS, LAMSAS, and LAGS. Presented at UGA’s DIGI Colloquium series.

She's So Bossy: The Impact of Gender on Lexical Usage

Fall 2019 · Capstone Project

Created a final presentation displaying the skills I had learned in my corpus analysis course. Presentation utilized corpus research on how certain words were covertly gendered in order to denigrate women. Presented at the UGA Linguistics Final Project Poster Conference.

Analyzing LAMSAS: Charting Regional Dialects in the Middle and South Atlantic States

Spring 2019 · Research Assistantship

Utilized LAMSAS to track the impact of region on lexical and phonetic variation. Presented at the UGA CURO Symposium.

Accent Accommodation in American Students Studying in the UK

Fall 2018 · Research Course

Focused on if American exchange students converged or diverged their speech patterns when interacting with British students via phonetic data collection. Presented at LCUGA6. To be presented at Rice’s CLIC Conference.

Communicative Methods and Impact of Learning English in Refugee Communities

Summer 2018 · Summer Fellowship

Focused on English utilization, mistakes in L2 acquisition, non-verbal communication, code switching, and social pressure of learning English in refugee communities in the Southern United States. Presented at the UGA CURO Symposium, the Georgia Undergraduate Research Conference, and the Berkeley Undergraduate Linguistics Symposium. Awarded Best Paper in Arts, Humanities, and Media.

Linguistics

Sociolinguistics.

Phonetics/Phonology.

Dialect (specifically in the Southern US).

Second language acquisition.

English usage in ethnic minority communities.

S'gaw and Pwo Karen.

Italian.

Digital Humanities

Quantitative methods in humanities.

Visualizing humanities data.

Full Tuition Remission and Stipend

Awarded by UNC Chapel Hill’s linguistics department.

Magna Cum Laude Graduation Honors

Awarded by UGA upon my undergraduate graduation.

Best Paper - Arts, Humanities, Media

Awarded by UGA Center for Undergraduate Research for ‘Communicative Methods and Impact of Learning English in Refugee Communities’.

CURO Summer Fellowship

Awarded by UGA Center for Undergraduate research to conduct 300+ hours of independent research.

CURO Research Assistantship

Awarded by UGA Center for Undergraduate research to conduct a semester of independent research.

UGA Foundation Incentive Scholarship

Awarded by the UGA Office of Global Engagement for the UGA at Oxford study abroad program.

HOPE Scholarship

Awarded by the state of Georgia for academic promise while studying at an in-state university.

• In my free time I enjoy making pottery, working out, being outdoors, listening to podcasts, and reading up on non-linguistic interests (currently anything horror or true crime).
• Outside of linguistics I have spent most of my time in college focused on volunteering for and working with refugees. Though I do not have a degree to show for it, I have learned a lot about non-American cultures, the difficult process of securing refugee status, and life post-resettlement in a new country.