Department of French and Italian

• Department of Linguistics

• Language contact (Louisiana French, Welsh, Breton)
• Lexicology and lexicography
• Pidgins and creoles
• Minority, regional and endangered languages

Most of my research involves three different settings where an endangered minority language is in intense contact with a socially dominant world language: Louisiana French and English, Welsh and English, and Breton and French. I am especially interested in contact-induced structural and grammatical change, such as the question of how a language’s typological profile with respect to the expression of motion events (Talmy 1985) may be influenced by intense contact with a language of a different profile. I am also interested in the lexicography of minority languages, and currently I am working on an etymological/historical dictionary of Louisiana French. I have recently completed a co-authored book on the comparative structure of Welsh and English as seen through the lens of a translation corpus. At the graduate level I teach courses on language contact, lexicography, the structure of Breton, pidgin and creole linguistics, and Applied French linguistics, and I have occasionally taught Welsh through European Studies. Other interests include French historical linguistics and dialectology

Books

• Comparative Stylistics of Welsh and English: Arddulleg y Gymraeg. With Steve Morris (Swansea, Wales). The University of Wales Press (2018)
• Dictionary of Louisiana French As Spoken in Cajun, Creole and American Indian Communities. Senior editor: Albert Valdman. Associate Editor: Kevin J. Rottet. Assistant Editors: Barry Ancelet, Richard Guidry, Thomas A. Klingler, Amanda Lafleur, Tamara Lindner, Michael Picone, Dominique Ryon. University Press of Mississippi (2009)
• History, Society and Variation: In Honor of Albert Valdman. Creole Language Library volume 28, edited by Clancy Clements, Thomas A. Klingler, Deborah Piston-Hatlen and Kevin J. Rottet. Amsterdam: John Benjamins (2006)
• Language Shift in the Coastal Marshes of Louisiana. Studies in Ethnolinguistics, vol. 8. Rottet, Kevin J. Series editor Glen Gilbert. New York: Peter Lang Publishers (2001)
• Dictionary of Louisiana Creole. Valdman, Albert, Thomas A. Klingler, Margaret M. Marshall, and Kevin J. Rottet.Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press (1998)

Articles

• “Making one’s way in Welsh: Language contact and constructional change.” In Constructions in Contact 2. Language change, multilingual practices, and additional language acquisition, ed. by Boas, Hans C. & Steffen Höder [CAL 30], Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 233-65. (2021)
• “Directional Idioms in English and Welsh: A Usage-Based Perspective on Language Contact.” Journal of Language Contact 13 (3): 563-611. (2021)
• “Complex prepositions in Breton.” In Fagard, Benjamin, José Pinto de Lima, Dejan Stošić, & Elena Smirnova (eds.), Complex Adpositions in European Languages: A Micro-Typological Approach to Complex Nominal Relators. Berlin: De Gruyter. Vol. 65 in the series Empirical Approaches to Language Typology (EALT). 195-231. (2020)
• “L’anglicisme lexical dans la lexicographie du français louisianais”. In Edith Szlezák & Klara Stephanie Szlezák (eds.), 2019. Sprach-und Kultur-kontaktphänomene in der Romania - Phénomènes de contact linguistique et culturel dans la Romania: Festschrift für Ingrid Neumann-Holzschuh zum 65. Geburtstag. Berlin: Erich Schmidt Verlag, pp. 185-204. (2019)
• “Translation and contact languages: The case of motion events.” Babel (Revue Internationale de la Traduction / International Journal of Translation) 63 (4) : 523-555. (2017)
• “Une étude de cas sur les résultats des programmes d’immersion française en Louisiane.” With Jennifer Betters. In La jeune francophonie américaine: Langue et culture chez les jeunes d’héritage francophone aux Etats-Unis, ed. by Joseph Price. Paris: L’Harmattan, pp. 81-114. (2017)
• “La préposition échouée en français louisianais et en français acadien: perspectives comparées.” In Neumann-Holzschuh, Ingrid / Bagola, Beatrice (eds.), L‘Amérique francophone-Carrefour culturel et linguistique. Actes du 10ème Colloque international “Francais du Canada - Francais de France” (Trèves, 19 - 21 juin 2014), Frankfurt-am-Main. (Peter Lang) (série Canadiana), pp. 265-80. (2016)
• “Les verbes à particule d’origine anglaise en français louisianais.” In Calvo, Rigual, Laura Minverini & André Thibault (eds.). (2016). Actes du XXVIIe Congrès international de linguistique et de philologie romanes (Nancy, 15-20 juillet 2013). Section 11 : Linguistique de contact. Nancy : ATILF, pp. 207-215. (2016)
• “Neology, competing authenticities and the lexicography of regional languages: The case of Breton.” Dictionaries 35: 208-247. (2014)
• “Conjunctive pronouns in Modern Welsh: A preliminary corpus-based study.” In K. Jaskuła (ed.) Formal and Historical Approaches to Celtic Languages, special issue of Lublin Studies in Celtic Languages volume 7: 233-253. Lublin: Wydawnictwo KUL. (2011)
• “Le conditionnel passé en français louisianais.” In France Martineau and Terry Nadasdi (eds.), Le français en contact. Presses de l’Université Laval, 299-330. (2011)
• “Language contact in Welsh and Breton: The case of reflexive and reciprocal verbs” IULC Working Papers 9: New Perspectives on Language Contact and Contact-Induced Language Change. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Linguistics Club, edited by Clements, J. Clancy, Solon, Megan Elizabeth, Siegel, Jason F. and Steiner, B. Devan, pp. 61-82.(2010)
• “Tag questions in Welsh.” Co-authored with Rex Sprouse. Diachronica 25 (1): 20-53. (2008)
• “Women in the Welsh Workplace: Linguistic Trends in Feminization as Reflected in Contemporary Journalism.” IUWPL7: Gender in Language: Classic Questions, New Contexts, edited by Jason F. Siegel, Traci C. Nagle, Amandine Lorente-Lapole, and Julie Auger, pp. 115-133. Bloomington, IN: IULC Publications. (2008)
• “Interrogative Pronouns in Louisiana Creole and the Multiple Genesis Hypothesis.” In History, Society and Variation: In Honor of Albert Valdman. Creole Language Library volume 28, edited by Clancy Clements, Thomas A. Klingler, Deborah Piston-Hatlen and Kevin J. Rottet. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. (2006)
• “évolution différente de deux traits de contact interdialectal en français louisianais: les cas de quoi et j’avons.” In Papen, R. et G. Chevalier (eds.). “Les variétés de français en Amérique du Nord. évolution, innovation et description.” Joint issue of the Revue canadienne de linguistique appliquée / Canadian Journal of Applied Linguistics, vol. 9,2, and of the Revue de l’Université de Moncton, vol. 37,2: 173-192. (2006)
• “Attestation et disparition du type j’avons en Louisiane.” In Patrice Brasseur and Anita Falkert (eds.), Français d’Amérique: approches morphosyntaxiques, Paris: L’Harmattan. (2005)
• “Variation et étiolement en français cadien.” Le français en Amérique du Nord, edited by Albert Valdman, Julie Auger, and Deborah Piston-Hatlen. Quebec: Presses de l’Université Laval, 243-260 (2005)
• “Vers un dictionnaire du français de Louisiane.” Coauthored with Albert Valdman. Etudes francophones 21: 60-78 (2006)
• “Phrasal verbs and English influence in Welsh.” Word 56.1: 39-70. (2005)
• “Inanimate interrogatives and settlement patterns in Francophone Louisiana.” Journal of French Language Studies 14.2 : 169-188 (2004)
• “The Calquing of Phrasal Verbs in Language Contact.” In Julie Auger and Andrea Word-Allbritton (eds.), The CVC of Sociolinguistics: Contact, Variation, and Culture. Working Papers in Linguistics, Vol. 2. Bloomington, Indiana: IULC,109-126 (2000)
• “A structural sketch of the Cajun French Spoken in Lafourche and Terrebonne Parishes.” Co-authored with Robert Papen. In Albert Valdman (ed.), French and Creole in Louisiana. New York: Plenum, 71-108 (1997)

• Structure of Breton
• Contrastive Structure of French and English
• Advanced French Grammar
• French Phonetics and Pronunciation
• French Conversation
• Structure and Development of French
• Introduction to Applied French Linguistics
• Endangered Languages and Revitalization
• Lexicology and Lexicography
• Bilingualism and Language Contact
• Pidgin and Creole Linguistics
• Beginning Welsh I and II

• Trustees Teaching Award (2013)
• Book of the Year Award for The Dictionary of Louisiana French As Spoken in Cajun, Creole and American Indiana Communities (Senior editor: Albert Valdman; Associate Editor: Kevin Rottet), the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities (2011)
• College Arts & Humanities Institute (CAHI) Travel and Research Grant for the sabbatical project “Collaborative Research on a Corpus os Spoken Welsh” (awarded 2009 for spring 2010)