We’re excited to introduce everyone to Carly Dickerson, who is joining us as a post-doctoral associate this semester. She will also be associated with the Language and Social Justice Initiative of the Language Engagement Project .
We collected some information from her and added it below, please continue reading to know our newest member better. Welcome to the department, Carly!
Hello! My name is Carly Dickerson and I am a new postdoc associate at Rutgers in the Linguistics department and with the Language and Social Justice Initiative of the Language Engagement Project. I recently received my PhD from Ohio State. Before that, I got my BA from McGill University in Montreal, and my MA from York University in Toronto. However, I’m a Jersey girl – born and raised – so I am very excited to be back in my home state!
I am a sociolinguist (variationist, 3rd wave), with a focus on language & gender, heritage speakers, and the Albanian language. My dissertation examined the sociolinguistic knowledge that US-based heritage speakers of Albanian have acquired about their heritage language. I’ve also worked on how notions of gender (and specifically masculinity) are constructed, perceived, and performed in Albania.
In the fall I will be teaching a grad course on field methods, specifically from a sociolinguistics perspective and aimed at developing skills for working with communities of speakers. However, I am very excited to learn about all of the other kinds of research that you are all at work on and finding ways to connect our diverse methodologies and interests.
I will be living in Somerset with my husband, Zef, and our many houseplants that we acquired over the course of the past two years. In whatever free time I can find, I love to cook and bake, watch dark Scandinavian detective series on Netflix, garden, and knit (another hobby acquired during quarantine).
I look forward to meeting all of you soon!