MEET OUR 2025-2026 COHORT
Egypt Seldon (Major in Korean and Asian Studies) – Working under the guidance of Dr. Kyung-Eun Yoon, I am examining how Korean–English hybridized neologisms survive and become institutionally recognized over time. My project focuses on Englishized words in Korean that combine English elements with Korean and Sino-Korean morphemes, exploring why some of these newly coined terms persist in use while others fade. Through this research, I aim to show that Korean–English hybridized neologisms are not accidental or deficient forms, but predictable outcomes of language contact that contribute meaningfully to Global Englishes and English as a Lingua Franca.
Sarah Uebersax (Major in Applied Linguistics) – Working with Dr. Omar Ka, I will be conducting a manual acoustic analysis of British modern rock music, focusing on rhoticity in singers’ accent shifts. Data shows that singers across decades alternate their accent between American and British English features. Researchers believe this may be due to a stylistic choice or cultural influence. I will take an articulatory perspective to see if these shifts can be explained by ‘singability’ – singers may prefer sounds with higher sonority to facilitate vocal production. My analysis will include a comparison of British and American singing accents to determine if there is evidence of postvocalic /r/-dropping in both American and British sung language. This topic connects sociophonetics to music and contributes to broader discussions of language contact in sociolinguistics.