Suzanne Evans Wagner
(She/Her)
wagnersu@msu.edu
(517) 355-9739
B401 Wells Hall
619 Red Cedar Rd
East Lansing, MI 48824
wagnersu.msu.domains
suzanne-evans-wagner-20b7a37/
FacultyLinguistics, Languages, and CulturesSecond Language Studies
Associate Professor
Linguistics
Biography
Ph.D., Linguistics, University of Pennsylvania
Suzanne Evans Wagner conducts research on the social motivations of language variation and language change. She is primarily interested in post-adolescent sociolinguistic modification at all levels of the grammar, and in how change over the individual lifespan interacts with language change at the community level. Some of her work has investigated ongoing sound change in the Lansing, Michigan area. More recently, she has been collaborating with her Linguistics colleague and MSU Sociolinguistics Lab co-director Dr. Betsy Sneller on the MI Diaries project, investigating language change across the entire state. Dr. Wagner’s work has been published in Language Variation and Change, Language in Society, American Speech and Language and Linguistics Compass, among other venues. With Isabelle Buchstaller, she is series editor of Routledge Studies in Language Change, and a co-editor of Panel Studies of Variation and Change.
Projects
MI Diaries
The MI Diaries (‘Michigan Diaries’) project has been collecting informal self-recorded audio ‘diaries’ from children, youth, and adults in Michigan since 2020. Participants receive a weekly email, tailored for their age group, with thoughtful, funny, or story-eliciting questions they can respond to if they wish, such as What are you grateful for this week?, Was there ever a time when you got really lost somewhere?, and Would you rather have three arms or three legs? The growing collection of audio and transcripts contribute to research in the MSU Sociolinguistics Lab and to an eventual public archive at the Library of Michigan.
Media Mentions
Spartan Strong: Audio diary collection brings relief, therapy to those impacted by MSU shooting
ABC 7 News – WXYZ Detroit
April 9, 2023
Courses
LIN 471 Sociolinguistics
Introduction to the social motivations for language variation and language change.
LIN 871 Advanced Sociolinguistics
Language variation and language change in synchronic and diachronic perspective.
LIN 401 Introduction to Linguistics
How human language is structured, how it varies and changes, how it is acquired by children and by second language learners, and how it is processed in the mind. Covers phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics and pragmatics.
