Very briefly noted. In my e-mail today, Update No. 608 from the Linguistic Society of America, announcing the slate of candidates for its upcoming elections, with one nominee for vice-president / president-elect: the sociolinguist and creolist Tracey Weldon (University of South Carolina). A great pleasure for me, since TW’s time as a graduate student at Ohio State (culminating in her PhD in 1998) was my final time at Ohio State (I moved permanently from Columbus in 1998). A photo of TW in mid-speech:
A shot from the documentary Talking Black in America (2017), since expanded to a 5-part series
TW has a BA in English and French from Furman University in 1991 and that OSU PhD in Linguistics, with the dissertation Exploring the AAVE-Gullah connection: A comparative study of copula variability (with Donald Winford as her adviser).
Of her publications, I pick her excellent Cambridge Univ. Press book Middle Class African American English. And note that she’s also an experienced academic administrator. Meanwhile, she’s managed to succeed as an African American in what I think of, jokingly but pointedly, as Historically White Colleges and Universities of the American South (Furman, in Greenville SC, has a black student population of about 7.3% and the University of South Carolina has about 10.1% — in a state whose population is about 24.4% black). But she could no doubt explain all this better than I do, forcefully and passionately, but calmly, in, yes, her level-voiced middle-class AAE.
In any case, TW’s career has advanced quickly on all fronts, and now (only 27 years from her PhD) she’s about to become the vice-president and president-elect of the LSA. Too fast, you say? Well, there’s at least one precedent in recent decades, someone who advanced from a PhD in 1965 to the LSA presidency in 1992, also 27 years: me.
I am sorry, once again, that I can no longer get to LSA meetings.
September 10, 2025 at 12:21 pm |
Oh my goodness, Arnold! Thank you so much for this amazing recognition! I am speechless! It will be an honor to follow in your footsteps and to represent OSU in this way. Thank you for your mentorship and training! It has served me well in my career!
September 10, 2025 at 1:04 pm |
Tracey, you’ve been a star from way back, and I’m all happy to see you get the recognition you deserve. You know, you shine on me, add luster to my reputation. Now, on a more serious note, the presidency of the LSA is a hugely more difficult job now than it was when I was coming up; so know that I’ll do what I can to be helpful to you. Meanwhile, you and Heidi should carve out a chunk of time for the two of you to talk, easily and without too much planning, now.