Sharese King

Sharese King is the Neubauer Family Assistant Professor of Linguistics at the University of Chicago who received her PhD in 2018 from Stanford University. Her previous research has drawn on phonetic, ethnographic, and experimental techniques to explore how African Americans' speech is constructed and racialized and the implications for racialized voices within the judicial system in the United States. King is an expert on various topics in the study of African American Language including race and place, identity, and linguistic bias. King's work has been published in venues such as American Speech, the Journal of Sociolinguistics, Language, and Nature.

Selected Articles/Chapters:

• Hoffman, V., Kalluri, P.R., Jurafsky, D., King, S. (2024). AI generates covertly racist decisions about people based on their dialect. Nature.

• Dunbar, A., King, S. Vaughn, C. (2024). Dialect on Trial: An Experimental Examination of Raciolinguistics and Character Judgments. Race and Justice. 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/21533687241258772

• Calder, J. & King, S. (2022). Whose gendered voices matter: Race and Gender in the Articulation of /s/ in Bakersfield, California? Journal of Sociolinguistics. 00, 1– 20.

• King, S. (2021). Rethinking race and place: The role of persona in sound change reversal. Journal of Sociolinguistics. 2021; 25: 159– 178

• King, S. (2020). From African American Vernacular English to African American Language: Rethinking Race and Language in the Study of African Americans’ Speech. Annual Review Linguistics: Vol. 6.

• Rickford, J. R. & King. S. (2016). "Language and linguistics on trial: Hearing Rachel Jeantel (and other vernacular speakers) in the Courtroom and Beyond." Language, 92(4), 948-988.

Race, Ethnicity, and Language (LING 23650/LING 33650) - Autumn 2024

This course explores definitions of race and ethnicity, asking how both are socially constructed through structures and institutions, as well as interpersonally. Further, we explore what linguistics can tell us about race and how language is used to racialize to individuals.

Seminar on Chicagoland Language Project (LING 51350) - Spring 2021- Spring 2025

In this seminar we explore the relationship between race and place, honing in on the question of how race dynamics have affected linguistic variation in the Chicago landscape for African American speakers. We examine sociohistorical texts on the migration of African Americans to Chicago, while constructing a sample on which to perform an analysis of one to two linguistic features. This analysis will form the basis of a project that we can potentially use to submit as coauthors for a presentation or paper.

Language in Society (LING 26002) - Spring 2020 - Spring 2021

This course is an introduction to sociolinguistics, the study of language in its social context. We will look at variation at all levels of language and how this variation constructs and is constructed by identity and culture, including relationships between language and social class, language and gender, and language and ethnicity. We will also discuss language attitudes and ideologies, as well as some of the educational, political, and social repercussions of language variation and standardization.