Doctoral Student Public Humanities Fellow
Doctoral Student, Department of Linguistics, Graduate School of Arts & Science
Cara Shousterman is a PhD candidate in the Department of Linguistics. She began her linguistic studies with a BA from McGill University in Montreal, Quebec. Her research interests are centered around variation and change in American English, and the ways in which language interacts with ethnicity. Her dissertation “Speaking English in Spanish Harlem: Language Change in Puerto Rican English” is a sociolinguistic study of New York-born Puerto Ricans affiliated with a neighborhood community center in East Harlem, New York. This study explores how community change is reflected in language, both in terms of discursive content as well as the structure of the language itself. Her work has appeared in English Today and the Journal of English Linguistics. Cara’s dissertation research has been supported by the GSAS Dean’s Dissertation Fellowship and the National Science Foundation.