About me
Hi! I'm Emma (she/her). I am a fifth year PhD Candidate in the Department of Linguistics at Northwestern University.
My primary interests are in sociolinguistics and sociophonetics— I want to know how we convey and interpret identity and social meaning through language, particularly through the sounds and signs of language. Some areas in sociolinguistics I am particularly interested in include the race and place intersection, language ideologies, speakerhood, Asian American communities' linguistic practices, and mixed race individuals' speech.
In 2024 I completed my Qualifying Project, a case study investigating contextual variation in a mixed Asian and white Chicagoan's production of vowels associated with Chicagoan place identity and pan-Asian American ethnic identity. I passed my Prospectus in Fall 2025. My dissertation investigates how minoritized community members orient to local identity and produce regional dialect features through one community, Chicago Japanese Americans' identities and production of the Chicago-associated Northern Cities vowel shift features. My advisor and committee chair is Dr. Annette D'Onofrio. My committee members are Dr. Ann Bradlow and Dr. Lauren Hall-Lew.
In my free time I enjoy knitting, spinning (yarn), baking, exploring national parks, and other gerunds.
Research projects
My Qualifying Project was a case study on a mixed Asian and white Chicagoan and investigated their production of the TRAP vowel across two interviews and three self-recorded conversations.
I am currently conducting my dissertation research, which investigates social and linguistic variation among Chicagoland Japanese Americans. In this interdisciplinary project, I draw on Asian American studies research on Midwestern Asian American communities and identities, oral histories, and linguistic anthropological research on Asian Americans' language. I use mixed methods including participant observation (ethnographic-like community observation), semistructured sociolinguistic interviews, acoustic analysis of vowel formants, and thematic analysis. Through my interviews, I am collecting oral histories which will be added to the Japanese American Service Committee (JASC) Legacy Center Oral History Collection.
During Spring 2025, I was a Research Assistant for the Chicagoland Language Project, which investigates language and life in the Chicagoland area.
I am a member of Sociogroup and Phonatics. I also participate in or frequently visit Experimental Meaning Group, The SEAL Lab, and LingMechLab.
Contact Me
You can email me at ekwilkinson[at]u[dot]northwestern[dot]edu