Biography

"I don't want to talk grammar.
I want to talk like a lady."
Eliza Doolittle in G.B. Shaw's Pgymalion

Unlike Eliza, I enjoy discussing all aspects of language, including grammar.   As a sociolinguist, how sociological factors (such as social class, gender, culture, religion, etc.) affect language forms and use is at the core of my professional and research interests.

The love of languages in general and English in particular budded when I was a reader in the English department at Southwestern Adventist Junior College and has remained in blossom-- through my BA in English and Chemistry (Union College), MA in English (Andrews University), and PhD in Linguistics (Georgetown University).

I joined the Andrews English department in 1971. While teaching literature and composition courses and directing the Composition Program, I also became interested in the teaching of English as a second language. After spearheading the establishment of AU-ELI (now CIEP), an intensive English language program, I became director for its first ten years.

Not surprisingly, most of the courses I currently teach are language related. They include Modern English Grammar, Linguistics, Language and Culture, Seminar in Sociolinguistics.

My sociolinguistic research on language attitudes, phatic and cross cultural communication, and my professional presentations have taken me to Costa Rica, Mexico, Hong Kong, Peoples Republic of China, Finland, Russia, and Czechoslovakia.

As my friends will attest I even do sociolinguistic analyses for fun, but I also enjoy gardening, flower arranging, sewing baby quilts, reading and visiting native American enclaves, including those in Alaska.

Current Research or Professional Activities

Analyzing Finnish attitudes toward phatic communion over a 20 year period. Working on an article for JAE on rank and tenure in SDA higher ed, and working with diversity faculty research group on presentation for 07 NCA Higher Learning Commission Conference.