Walt Wolfram
William C. Friday Distinguished Professor of English
Tompkins 208
919/515-4151 (office)
walt_wolfram at ncsu dot edu
Education
B.A., Wheaton College, 1963
M.A., Ph.D., Hartford Seminary Foundation, 1966, 1969
back to topResearch Interests
Language variation, Ethnic dialects of American English, African American English, Dialect recesssion, Dialect awareness and education, Dialect and the public interest
Bio
Walt Wolfram is William C. Friday Distinguished University Professor at North Carolina State University, where he also directs the North Carolina Language and Life Project. He has pioneered research on social and ethnic dialects since the 1960s and published more than 20 books and over 300 articles. Over the last two decades, he and his students have conducted more than 2,500 sociolinguistic interviews with residents of North Carolina and beyond. Current research supported by National Science Foundation grants have included the longitudinal development of African American English during the first 17 years and the emergence Hispanicized English in the Southeastern US. Professor Wolfram is particularly interested in the application of sociolinguistic information for public audiences, including the production of a number of television documentaries, the construction of museum exhibits, and the development of an innovative social studies dialect awareness curricula endorsed by the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction. He has received numerous awards, including the Caldwell Humanities Laureate from the NC Humanities Council, the Holladay Medal at NC State, and the Linguistics, Language and the Public Award from the Linguistic Society of America, as well as the NC State Alumni Association Research Award, the Graduate Professor Award, and the Extension and Engagement Award. He has also served as President of the Linguistic Society of America, the American Dialect Society, and the Southeastern Conference on Linguistics.
Download Recent Publications and Presentations
Below, download selected recent/forthcoming publications and presentations:
Presentations and Webinars
Articles
Integrating Language Variation into TESOL: Challenges from English Globalization
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Coming of age in African American English: A longitudinal Study
Download [ 
102KB ]
Fieldwork Methods in Language Variation
Download [ 48KB ]
Interview with Walt Wolfram
Download [ 47KB ]
Operationalizing Linguistic Gratuity from Principle to Practice
Download [ 47KB ]
Sociolinguistic Folklore in the Study of African American English
Download [ 64KB ]
Recent Publications
Selected
BOOKS
Wolfram, Walt, and Natalie Schilling-Estes. 2006. American English: Dialects and Variation. Second edition. Cambridge/Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Pp. 452
Wolfram, Walt, and Erik R. Thomas. 2002. The Development of African American English. Malden/Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Pp. 237
Wolfram, Walt, Clare Dannenberg, Stanley Knick, and Linda Oxendine. 2002. Fine in the World: Lumbee Language in Time and Place. Raleigh: NC State Humanity Extension Program/Publications. Pp. 93
ARTICLES
Forthcoming
Wolfram, Walt (with Janneke Van Hofwegen, Mary Kohn, Jennifer Renn) Forthcoming. Trajectories of development in AAE: The first 17 years. In Sonja L. Lanehart (ed.), Proceedings of the Conference on African American Language in Popular Culture: Intersections among Language, Education, Music, Media, and Sports
Wolfram, Walt, forthcoming. Language awareness in community perspective: Obligations and opportunity. In Robert Bayley, Richard Cameron, and Ceil Lucas (eds.), Handbook of Sociolinguistics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Wolfram, Walt (in press). Changing misconceptions about dialect diversity: The role of public education. CAL Digest. Washington, DC: Center for Applied Linguistics.
Wolfram, Walt (with John R. Rickford). Formal instruction in oral language (as a second dialect) National Research Council Workshop on Language Development. California: National Academy of Science.
Wolfram, Walt. forthcoming. The supra-regional development of African American Vernacular English. In Arthur K. Spears, James de Jongh, Carole M. Berotte Joseph (eds.), Language and African Diaspora Culture
Wolfram, Walt. forthcoming. LAVIS: A review and critique. In Michael D. Picone and Catherine Evans Davies (eds.), Language Variety in the South: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press.
Wolfram, Walt. forthcoming. Sociolinguistic engagement in community perspective. In Michael D. Picone and Catherine Evans Davies (eds.), Language Variety in the South: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press
Wolfram, Walt. forthcoming. Studying vernacular dialects. In Marianna Di Paolo and Arthur K. Spears (eds.), Increasing Language Diversity in Linguistic Courses: Practical Approaches and Materials.Columbus: Ohio State University Press.
Wolfram, Walt. Foreword to Speaking of Alabama. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press.
Wolfram, Walt. The dynamic development of socioethnic varieties of English in North America. In Dani Schreier and Marianna Hundt (eds.), English as a Contact Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Wolfram, Walt. forthcoming. African American Speech in Southern Appalachia. In Nancy Hayward and Amy Clark (eds.), Appalachian Englishes. University of Kentucky Press.
Wolfram, Walt, Mary Kohn, and Erin Callahan-Price. forthcoming. Southern-bred Hispanic English: An emerging variety.Cascadilla
2010
Wolfram, Walt. 2010. The African American English canon in sociolinguistics. In Michael Adams and Anne Curzan (eds.), Contours of English and English Language Studies. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Wolfram, Walt. 2010. Field methods. In Ruth Wodak, Barbara Johnstone, and Paul Kerswill (eds.), Handbook on Sociolinguistics. Sage Publications. 296-312.
Wolfram, Walt. 2010. Epilogue to Valuable Voices: Understanding English Language Variation in American Schools. New York: Columbia University Press. 151-52.
Wolfram, Walt. 2010. Collaborative issues in language variation documentaries. Language and Linguistic Compass. 4(9):293-303.
Wolfram, Walt. 2010. Celebrating Linguistic Diversity. Wheaton Alumni Magazine Spring, p. 51.
Van Hofwegen, Janneke, and Walt Wolfram. 2010. Coming of age in African American English: A longitudinal study. Journal of Sociolinguistics 14:27-52.
2009
Wolfram, Walt. 2009. African American English and the Public Interest. In Jo Anne Kleifgen and George Bond, eds. The Languages of African and the Diaspora: Educating for Language Awareness. Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters. 249-69.
Adger, Carolyn, Walt Wolfram, and Donna Christian. Dialects in Schools and Communities, Second edition. Mahweh: Erlbaum. (forthcoming)
Wolfram, Walt. 2009 Caldwell Award Acceptance Speech. North Carolina Conversations: A Publication of the North Carolina Humanities Council (Winter 2009): 4-5.
Wolfram, Walt. 2009. Dialect awareness, cultural literacy, and the public interest. In Marcia Farr, Lisya Seloni, and Juyoung Song, eds. Ethnolinguistic Diversity and Education: Language, Literacy, and Culture. New York/London: Routledge. 129-49.
Kendall, Tyler and Walt Wolfram. 2009. Local and external language standards in African American English. Journal of English Linguistics 37:5-30.
2008
Wolfram, Walt. 2008. Language diversity and the public Interest. In Kendall King, Natalie Schilling-Estes, Jia Jackie Lou, and Barbara Soukup (eds.), Sustaining Linguistic Diversity: Endangered and Minority Language and Language Varieties. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press. 187-202.
Wolfram, Walt. 2008. Diffusion. In Patrick C. Hogan (ed.), Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language Sciences. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Wolfram, Walt. 2008. When islands lose dialects: The case of the Ocracoke Brogue. Shima: The International Journal for Research on Island Cultures. 2:1-13.
Wolfram, Walt. 2008. American English since 1865. In Harulo Momma and Michael Matto, eds., Blackwell Companion to the History of the English Language. Malden/Oxford. Blackwell. 254-73.
Wolfram, Walt, Jeffrey Reaser, and Charlotte Vaughn. Operationalizing linguistic gratuity: from principle to practice. Linguistic and Language Compass 3.1109-34.
Wolfram, Walt, and Natalie Schilling-Estes. 2008. An interview with Walt Wolfram. Journal of English Linguistics 36:254-71.
2007
Wolfram, Walt. Ethnic varieties. In Carmen Llamas, Louise Mullany, Peter Stockwell (eds.), The Routledge Companion to Sociolinguistics. Routledge. 77-83.
Wolfram, Walt. 2007. African American English. In Braj B. Kachru, Yamuna Kachru, & Cecil L. Nelson (eds.), Handbook of World Englishes. Malden/Oxford: Blackwell. 328-45.
Wolfram, Walt. 2007. The North Carolina Language and Life Project. In Michael Montgomery and Ellen Johnson. (eds.). Language, in The Encyclopedia of Southern Culture. Oxford: University of Mississippi Press. 159-61.
Wolfram, Walt. 2007. The Outer Banks. In Michael Montgomery (ed.). Language, in The Encyclopedia of Southern Culture. Oxford: University of Mississippi Press. 104-5.
Wolfram, Walt. 2007. Sociolinguistic myths in the study of African American English. Linguistic and Language Compass 2: 292-313.
2006
Wolfram, Walt. 2006. Variation in language: overview. In Keith Brown (chief ed.), Encyclopedia of Languages and Linguistics II. Oxford: Elsevier, 333-40. Download article [ 136KB]
2004
Wolfram, Walt, and Natalie Schilling-Estes. 2004. Remnant dialects in the Coastal United States. In Raymond Hickey (ed.), The Legacy of Colonial English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 172-202. Download article [ 601KB]
Wolfram, Walt. 2004. The grammar of urban African American Vernacular English. In Bernd Kortmann and Edgar Schneider (eds.), Handbook of Varieties of English: Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. 111-132. Download article [ 392KB]
_____. 2004. The grammar of rural and ethnic varieties in the Southeast. In Bernd Kortmann and Edgar Schneider (eds.), Handbook of Varieties of English: Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. 74-94. Download article [ 414KB]
Complete CV
Download CV [ 
204KB ]
Courses
ENG 525: Variety of English
ENG 523: Language Variation Research Seminar
ENG 210: Introduction to Language and Lingusitics
Specific seminars of language and ethnicity
Course Syllabi
See the courses page for sample syllabi from courses in years past.
Interests
NC State football and basketball, yo-yoing, babysitting young 'uns
Creative Works
Exhibit:
Celebrating Muzel Bryant. An Exhibit at the Museum of the Ocracoke Preservation Society.
Ocracoke, NC. March-November 2008 (co-curator with Charlotte Vaughn)
Executive Producer, Spanish Voices. Raleigh, NC: North Carolina Language and Life Project
Co-Producer of CD (with the Ocracoke Preservation Society, Jeff Reaser, Paula Dickerson),
Ocracoke Still Speaks (A CD production of 35-40 oral narratives from Ocracoke. NC: North
Carolina Language and Life Project
Executive Producer, The Carolina Brogue. Raleigh, NC: North Carolina Language and Life
Project.
External Grants
Co-Principal Investigator, Archiving, Analyzing, and Presenting Sociolinguistic Data: An
Integrated Repository. NEH. $345,858. (pending)
Principal Investigator, Frank Porter Graham, "The Longitudinal Development of African
American English and Educational Achievement." National Science Foundation, Frank Porter
Graham subcontract 5/01/09-4/31/13. $447,492.
Co-Principal Investigator. "Voices of North Carolina in the Classroom: School/University
Professional Development Initiative to Enhance Middle School Teachers' Language and
Literacy Instruction." NC Quest. $268,837.
Principal Investigator. "Dialect Loss and Innovation: Documentaries and Outreach Program."
National Science Foundation Informal Science Education Program. 7/07-12/08. ESI-0652343.
$74,696.
Co-Principal Investigator (with Erik Thomas). Old and New Ethnic Dialect Development in the
American South." National Science Foundation. 03/01/06-2/28/09. $223,604.
Principal Investigator. "A Longitudinal Study of African American Literate Language through
Adolescence." National Science Foundation, Frank Porter Graham subcontract. 05/01/06-
08/31/09. $105,908.
Awards and Honors
The Linguistic Society of America biennial Award "Linguistics, Language, and the Public"
2010. Presented at the Annual Meeting of the Linguistic Society of America, January 9, 2010.
Baltimore, MD.
The John Tyler Caldwell Award for the Humanities, (the NC Humanities Council Humanities
Laureate is the highest honor, given for a lifetime of contributions to the humanities), 2008-09
Selected
Linguistic Society of America Fellow (inducted in inaugural class of Fellows, 2006)
Honorary member, Golden Key International Honour Society, North Carolina State Chapter, 2003
NC State Alumni Outstanding Research Award, 1995-96
College of Humanities and Social Sciences (CHASS) Distinguished Research Award 1995-96
CHASS Alumni Distinguished Graduate Professorship Award, NCSU 1994-95
919/515-4151 | 
walt_wolfram at ncsu dot edu