Jim Michnowicz

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Bio

Dr. Jim Michnowicz is Professor of Hispanic linguistics at NC State University. He received his Ph.D. in Hispanic Linguistics at Penn State University in 2006, with a focus on language contact, variation and sociolinguistics. He has been on faculty at NC State since 2006, where he teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in Hispanic linguistics. In 2018, he received the College of Humanities & Social Sciences Outstanding Teaching Award, and was inducted into the Academy of Outstanding Teachers at NC State in 2019.

His research focuses on language contact with Spanish, both in Yucatan, Mexico and in North Carolina, and his publications examine a range of phonetic and morphosyntactic features in order to better understand the linguistic outcomes of different contexts of language and dialect contact. Other research interests include language shift and maintenance, along with systems of address forms in the Spanish-speaking world.

As of fall 2019, he also serves as the Director of Graduate Programs in the Department of Foreign Languages & Literatures.

Office Hours

• Tue: 9:00 a.m. – 10:00 a.m.
• Wed: 11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.

Projects

Research Publications

Books

• Selected proceedings of the 5th Workshop on Spanish Sociolinguistics, Jim Michnowicz & Robin Dodsworth (Eds). 2011. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project. Reviewed on LinguistList here.

Peer-reviewed articles/chapters

• Michnowicz, Jim. In press. “Apparently real changes: Revisiting final (-m) inYucatan Spanish. To appear in M. Díaz-Campos (Ed.), Handbook of variationist approaches to Spanish. London: Routledge.
• Michnowicz, Jim & Lucía Planchón. In press. “Sheísmo in Montevideo Spanish: Not (yet) identical to Buenos Aires”. To appear in S. Sessarego & J. Colomina-Almiñana (Eds.). Variation and Evolution: Aspects of Language Contact andContrast across the Spanish-Speaking World. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
• Michnowicz, Jim & Alex Hyler. 2020. “The changing accent of Yucatan Spanish”. In R. Rao (Ed.). Spanish phonetics and phonology in contact: Studies from Africa, the Americas, and Spain. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 36-62.
• Ronquest, Rebecca, Jim Michnowicz, Eric Wilbanks & Claudia Cortés. 2020.“Examining the (mini-)variable swarm in the Spanish of the Southeast”. In A. Morales-Front, M. Ferreira, R. Leow & C. Sanz (Eds.). Hispanic linguistics: Current issues and new directions. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 303-325.
• Michnowicz, Jim & Alex Hyler. 2020. “The acento pujado in Yucatan Spanish: prosodic rhythm and the search for the yucateco accent”. In L. Ortiz, R. Guzzardo Tamargo & M. González Rivera (Eds.). Hispanic Contact Linguistics: Theoretical, Methodological and Empirical Perspectives. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 115-136.
• Michnowicz, Jim & Vannessa Quintana Sarria. 2020. “A new look at forms of address in the Spanish of Cali, Colombia”. Hispanic Studies Review, 4(2). 121-139.
• Trawick, Sonya & Jim Michnowicz. 2019. “Glottal Insertion before Vowel-Initial Words in the Spanish of Asunción, Paraguay”. In G. Thomson & S. Alvord (Eds.). Contact, community and connections: Current approaches to Spanish in multilingual populations. Wilmington, DE: Vernon Press. 147-171.
• Michnowicz, Jim, Alex Hyler, James Shepherd & Sonya Trawick. 2018. “Spanish in North Carolina: English-origin loanwords in a newly forming Hispanic community”. In J. Reaser, E. Wilbanks, W. Wolfram & K. Wojcik (Eds.). Language Diversity in the New South. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press. 289-305.
• Michnowicz, Jim, J. Scott Despain & Rebecca Gorham. 2016. “The changing system of Costa Rican pronouns of address: tuteo, voseo, and ustedeo”. In S. Rivera-Mills and M.I. Moyna (Eds.). Forms of address in the Spanish of the Americas. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 243-265.
• Michnowicz, Jim & Laura Kagan. 2016. “On glottal stops in Yucatan Spanish”. In S. Sessarego & F. Tejedo (Eds.). Spanish language and sociolinguistic analysis. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 219-239.
• Michnowicz, Jim. 2015. “Maya-Spanish contact in Yucatan, Mexico: Context and sociolinguistic implications”. In S. Sessarego and M. González Rivera (Eds.). New Perspectives on Hispanic Contact Linguistics in the Americas. Madrid: Iberoamericana/Vervuert. 21-42.
• Barnes, Hilary & Michnowicz, Jim. 2015. “Broad focus declaratives in Veneto- Spanish bilinguals: Peak alignment and language contact”. Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics, 8(1). 35-57.
• Michnowicz, Jim. 2015. “Subject pronoun expression in Yucatan Spanish”. In A. Carvalho, R. Orozco, and N. Shin (Eds.). Subject Pronoun Expression in Spanish: A Cross-dialectal perspective. Washington: Georgetown University Press. 103-121.
• Michnowicz, Jim & Carpenter, Lindsey. 2013. “Voiceless stop aspiration in Yucatan Spanish: a sociolinguistic analysis”. Spanish in Context 10:3. 410-437.
• Michnowicz, Jim & Barnes, Hilary. 2013. “A sociolinguistic analysis of pre-nuclear peak alignment in Yucatan Spanish”. In C. Howe, S.E. Blackwell & M. Lubbers Quesada (Eds.). Selected proceedings of the 15th Hispanic Linguistics Symposium. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project. 221-235.
• Barnes, Hilary & Michnowicz, Jim. 2013. “Peak alignment in bilingual Chipilo Spanish”. In A. M. Carvalho & S. Beudrie (Eds.).  Selected proceedings of the 6thWorkshop on Spanish Sociolinguistics. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project. 109-122.
• Michnowicz, Jim. 2012. “Thestandardization of Yucatan Spanish: Family case studies in Izamal and Mérida”. In K. Geeslin and M. Díaz-Campos (Eds.). Selected proceedings of the Hispanic Linguistics Symposium 2010. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project. 102-115.
• Michnowicz, Jim. 2011. “Dialect standardization in Merida, Yucatan: The case of /bdg/”. Revista Internacional de Lingüística Iberoamericana 18. 191-212.
• Bishop, Kelley & Michnowicz, Jim. 2010. “Forms of address in Chilean Spanish”. Hispania 93.3, 2010. 413-429.
• Michnowicz, Jim & Place, Soraya. 2010. “Perceptions of secondperson singular pronoun use in San Salvador, El Salvador”. Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics 3.2. 353-377.
• Michnowicz, Jim. 2009. “Intervocalic voiced stops in Yucatan Spanish: a case of contact induced language change?” in M. Lacorte & J. Leeman (Eds.).  Español en Estados Unidos y en otros contextos de contacto: Sociolingüística, ideología y pedagogía. Madrid: Iberoamericana. 67-84.
• Michnowicz, Jim. 2008. “Final nasal variation in Merida, Yucatan”. Spanish in Context 5.2. 278–303.
• Michnowicz, Jim. 2007. “El habla de Yucatám: final –m in a dialect in contact” in J. Holmquist et al. (Ed.). Selected proceedings of The Third Workshop on Spanish Sociolinguistics (WSS3). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project. 38-43.
• Michnowicz, Jim. 2006. “Final –m in Yucatan Spanish: A Rapid and Anonymous Survey” in J.P. Montreuil (Ed.). New Perspectives on Romance Linguistics. Vol. 2: Phonetics, phonology, and dialectology: selected papers from the 35th Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages (LSRL). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 155-166.

Funded Research

• The emergence and analysis of large bilingual speech communities (with Rebecca Ronquest and Robin Dodsworth)
  •  $4000 from the CHASS Faculty Research and Development Program (FRDP)
• A pilot study of Spanish in Raleigh-Durham (with Rebecca Ronquest)
  • $4000 from the CHASS  Faculty Research and Development Program (FRPD)

Presentations

Recent presentations:

• Michnowicz, Jim. “Real-time changes in Yucatan Spanish: the case of prosodic rhythm and final -m”. Presentation at the Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics (HLL) Virtual Colloquium. June 2020 (not peer reviewed).
• Michnowicz, Jim. “Spanish in the Southeast: Insights and future directions”. Invited plenary address at the Workshop on Spanish Sociolinguistics, University of Georgia/Georgia Tech, Atlanta, GA. April 2020 – postponed due to Covid-19.
• Michnowicz, Jim. “Language contact in a newly forming community: Spanish in the Southeast”. Invited talk at the University of Mary Washington, Fredericksburg, VA. October 2019.
• Bove, Kate & Jim Michnowicz. “Según dicen: Conjecture in a language contact situation”. Poster accepted at the 10 th International Workshop on Spanish Sociolinguistics (WSS) hosted by Georgia Tech and the University of Georgia, Atlanta, GA. April 2020 – postponed due to Covid-19.
• Michnowicz, Jim, Rebecca Ronquest, Bailey Ambrister, Hannah Bain, Nick Chisholm & Rebecca Greene “Attitudes toward inclusive language in NC Spanish”. Presentation at the Spanish Linguistics in North Carolina (SLINKI) conference 2020 at Appalachian State University, Boone, NC. February 2020.
• Michnowicz, Jim, Rebecca Ronquest, Sarah Chetty, Stephanie Oliver & María Rodríguez. “Extending the Variable Swarm in the Spanish of the Southeast”. Presentation at the Spanish Linguistics in North Carolina (SLINKI) conference 2019 at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC. February 2019.
• Lucía Planchón & Jim Michnowicz. “A tale of two cities: palatal (de)voicing in Montevideo vs. Buenos Aires Spanish. Presentation at the Spanish Linguistics in North Carolina (SLINKI) conference 2019 at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC. February 2019.
• Michnowicz, Jim & Lucía Planchón. “Sheismo in Uruguayan Spanish: Not (yet) identical to Buenos Aires”. Presentation at the Hispanic Linguistics Symposium (HLS) 2018 at the University of Texas – Austin, Austin, TX. October 2018.
• Michnowicz, Jim & Vannessa Quintana Sarria. “Attitudes toward forms of address in the Spanish of Cali, Colombia”. Presentation at the Hispanic Linguistics Symposium (HLS) 2018 at the University of Texas – Austin, Austin, TX. October 2018.
• Michnowicz, Jim. “Convergence, Change and New Dialect Formation: The Past, Present and Future of Yucatan Spanish”. Presentation at the Spanish Linguistics in North Carolina (SLINKI) conference 2018 at Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, NC. February 2018.
• Ronquest, Rebecca, Jim Michnowicz, Eric Wilbanks & Claudia Cortés. “A Multi-variable Analysis of Spanish in the Southeast”. Poster presentation at the Spanish Linguistics in North Carolina (SLINKI) conference 2018 at Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, NC. February 2018.

Groups

• Faculty
• Spanish