Learning about language in Southwest Virginia

Why SWVA?

Well, we’re language researchers based at Virginia Tech, a land grant university in SWVA*, so it makes a lot of sense to us to center our research in the area. But SWVA is also at the edge of a lot of important sociocultural and physical boundaries, which seem to culminate in a lot of linguistic boundaries too!

*Our team has lots of debates about where the border of SWVA is and if it even includes places like Blacksburg and Roanoke, but we believe that’s part of the cool story of language here.

This is a great question, because there are so many ways you can go about studying language, from the types of questions you ask to the methods you use. And we’re just getting started! Click through to learn about our current projects!

What do we study, specifically?

Undergraduate members of the SWVAL team presenting preliminary findings at the Southeastern Conference on Linguistics in 2023.

What can we do for you?

We know why studying language in SWVA is cool from a scientific perspective, but we think there might be ways it’s beneficial to other folks too.

If you or your organization want to talk more about how we can work together on language-related topics, we’d love to talk more. Start off by emailing Dr. Abby Walker at ajwalker@vt.edu