Cecelia Cutler

Cecelia Cutler is Professor of Linguistics at the City University of New York (Lehman College and the CUNY Graduate Center). Her research focuses on the intersection of language and identity, and how individuals project and construct identity in interaction. Her recent work explores linguistic style choices and orthography as a metapragmatic practice in digital spaces.

Currently, she is working on a collaborative NSF-funded corpus-building project on language variation in New York City (with Christina Tortora, Michael Newman, Beatrice Santorini, and Bill Haddican). Her recent published work includes two co-edited volumes: Language Contact in Africa and the African diaspora in the Americas (2017) with Philipp Angermeyer and Zvjezdana Vrzić, and Multilingual youth practices in Computer Mediated Communication (2018), (with Unn Røyneland). She has two forthcoming co-edited volumes: Digital orality: vernacular writing in online spaces (with Soubeika Bahri and May Ahmar, Palgrave) and Language Activism: The Role of Scholars in Linguistic Reform and Social Change (with Zvjezdana Vrzić  and Unn Røyneland, Cambridge University Press).

Awards and Grants

• 2016 National Science Foundation “Collaborative Research: A Corpus of New York City English: Aligned and Parsed.” (With Christina Tortora, Michael Newman, Beatrice Santorini, and Bill Haddican). (Individual award: $180,533; Total award: $740,608). Fall 2016-Fall 2020. http://grantome.com/grant/NSF/BCS-1630377
• 2014 CUNY Collaborative Incentive Research Grant (CIRG) Program (With Christina Tortora, Michael Newman, and Bill Haddican). “Corpus of New York City English.” ($29,976).
• 2020 PSC CUNY, Cycle 51. $5,717.20. Writing dialects online.
• 2015 PSC CUNY, Cycle 46 PSC-CUNY Research Award ($3,480). Choosing Spanish: discursive projections of language and identity among Mexican-American youth
• 2010 PSC CUNY, Round 41. Award # 63217-00 41 ($5,293). Teachers’ Attitudes towards the use of Languages Other than English in the Classroom.
• 2009 PSC-CUNY, Round 40, Award # PSC-CUNY Award # 60010-39 40. ($2,680). For completing book proposal for a textbook on sociolinguistics for educators.
• 2008 PSC-CUNY, Round 39, Award # 61338-00 39, ($2,425). Completion of journal article about language and identity construction on reality television (The White Rapper Show).

Professional Affiliations and Memberships

• International Pragmatics Association
• New York State TESOL
• Linguistic Society of America

Courses Taught

• LING 79600: Analyzing Discourse Data
• LING 79500: Sociolinguistics of Computer Mediated Communication
• LING 79300: Language and Identity
• LING 76100: Sociolinguistics

Publications

Selected Journal Articles

• Haddican, B., Newman, M. Cutler, C., Tortora, C.  (forthcoming 2021). Aspects of change in New York City English short-a. Language Variation and Change.
• Cutler, C. (2019) Metapragmatic comments and orthographic performances on YouTube. Special Issue on World Englishes and Digital Communication, Jamie Shinhee Lee (editor). World Englishes, 39(1): 36-53.
• Taylor, S. & Cutler, C. (eds.) (2016). Showcasing the translingual SL/FL classroom: strategies, practices, and beliefs Special Issue, Canadian Modern Language Review 72(4): 389-580.
• Cutler, C. (2015). White Hip-hoppers. Language and Linguistics Compass, 9, 229–242.
• Guy, G. & C. Cutler (2011). Speech Style and Authenticity: Quantitative Evidence for the Performance of Identity.  Language Variation and Change, 23(1), 139-162.

Selected Book Chapters

• Cutler, C. (2018). “Pink chess gring gous”: discursive and orthographic resistance among bilingual Chicano rap fans on YouTube. In Cutler, C. and Røyneland, U. (eds.) Multilingual Youth Language in Computer Mediated Communication (CMC). Cambridge University Press.
• Angermeyer, P., Cutler, C., Vrzic, Z. (eds.) (2017). Introduction. In Cutler, Vrzic, & Angermeyer (eds.). Language Contact in Africa and the African Diaspora in the Americas. John Benjamins. 1-19.
• Cutler, C. (2016). Ets jast ma booooooooooooo”: the social meanings of Scottish accents in contemporary animated children’s films. In Lauren Squires (ed.), Attitudes to Varieties of English: A Global Perspective. Topics in English Linguistics. De Gruyter Mouton. 69-98.