While completing my undergraduate degrees in French and Linguistics at Truman State University, I studied abroad at l’Université Catholique de l’Ouest in Angers, France, where I became interested in minority language use and their linguistic variation. I then received my MA in French Linguistics from IU (2023), where I am currently completing my PhD.
My research centers on sociophonetic variation. Using a French music corpus that I created, I’ve examined how genre differences predict the use of dialectal features in Québécois music, akin to social characteristics such as gender, social class, etc. My dissertation focuses on the ways in which one’s beliefs about and attitudes towards language influences the extent to which speakers produce specific variables as well as the extent to which they impact their phonological representation of a given sound. To do so, I conduct three different studies. One on the Northern Cities Shift in Michigan English, another on the palatal lateral in Gascon, and a third on the palatal lateral in Breton. I’m additionally collaborating with Prof. David Tézil at the University of Alabama on rhotic variation in Haitian Creole and substrate effects on Haitian French vowels.
For more information regarding me and my work, please explore my:
Personal website https://kaitlynowenslinguistics.wordpress.com
Academia profile https://indiana.academia.edu/KaitlynOwens
The College of Arts