Naomi S. Baron (born September 27, 1946,

New York, NY New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

) is a

linguist Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Linguis ...

and professor emerita of linguistics at the Department of World Languages and Cultures at

American University The American University (AU or American) is a private federally chartered research university in Washington, D.C. Its main campus spans 90 acres (36 ha) on Ward Circle, mostly in the Spring Valley neighborhood of Northwest D.C. AU was charte ...

Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

Education and career

Baron earned a

B.A. Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four years ...

in 1968 in English and American Literature at

Brandeis University , mottoeng = "Truth even unto its innermost parts" , established = , type = Private research university , accreditation = NECHE , president = Ronald D. Liebowitz , pro ...

, and, in 1973, a PhD in Linguistics at

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

. Her dissertation is titled, "The Evolution of English Periphrastic Causatives: Contributions to a general theory of linguistic variation and change." She taught at

Brown University Brown University is a private research university in Providence, Rhode Island. Brown is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, founded in 1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providenc ...

, the

Rhode Island School of Design The Rhode Island School of Design (RISD , pronounced "Riz-D") is a private art and design school in Providence, Rhode Island. The school was founded as a coeducational institution in 1877 by Helen Adelia Rowe Metcalf, who sought to increase the ...

Emory University Emory University is a private research university in Atlanta, Georgia. Founded in 1836 as "Emory College" by the Methodist Episcopal Church and named in honor of Methodist bishop John Emory, Emory is the second-oldest private institution of ...

, and

Southwestern University Southwestern University (Southwestern or SU) is a private liberal arts college in Georgetown, Texas. Formed in 1873 from a revival of collegiate charters granted in 1840, Southwestern is the oldest college or university in Texas. Southwestern o ...

before coming to American University, where she held a position from 1987 until her retirement.

Research interests

Her areas of research and interest include

computer-mediated communication Computer-mediated communication (CMC) is defined as any human communication that occurs through the use of two or more electronic devices. While the term has traditionally referred to those communications that occur via computer-mediated formats ...

, writing and technology, language in social context, language acquisition and the history of English. She is also interested in language use in the computer age,

instant messaging Instant messaging (IM) technology is a type of online chat allowing real-time text transmission over the Internet or another computer network. Messages are typically transmitted between two or more parties, when each user inputs text and trigge ...

text messaging Text messaging, or texting, is the act of composing and sending electronic messages, typically consisting of alphabetic and numeric characters, between two or more users of mobile devices, desktops/laptops, or another type of compatible compute ...

mobile phone A mobile phone, cellular phone, cell phone, cellphone, handphone, hand phone or pocket phone, sometimes shortened to simply mobile, cell, or just phone, is a portable telephone that can make and receive calls over a radio frequency link whil ...

practices, cross-cultural research on mobile phones,

Human multitasking Human multitasking is the concept that one can split their attention on more than one task or activity at the same time, such as speaking on the phone while driving a car. Multitasking can result in time wasted due to human context switching an ...

behavior, and

Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin M ...

online social interaction usage by American college students. She has published a number of books on these topics.

Honors and awards

She was a

Guggenheim Fellow Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...

Fulbright Fellow The Fulbright Program, including the Fulbright–Hays Program, is one of several United States Cultural Exchange Programs with the goal of improving intercultural relations, cultural diplomacy, and intercultural competence between the people of ...

, and president of the

Semiotic Society of America The Semiotic Society of America is an interdisciplinary professional association serving scholars from many disciplines with common interests in semiotics, the study of signs and sign-systems. It was founded in 1975 and includes members from the Un ...

. Her book, ''Always On: Language in an Online and Mobile World'', which was published in 2008, won the

English-Speaking Union The English-Speaking Union (ESU) is an international educational membership organistation. Founded by the journalist Sir Evelyn Wrench in 1918, it aims to bring together and empower people of different languages and cultures, by building skill ...

’s HRH The

Duke of Edinburgh Duke of Edinburgh, named after the city of Edinburgh in Scotland, was a substantive title that has been created three times since 1726 for members of the British royal family. It does not include any territorial landholdings and does not produc ...

ESU English Language Book Award for 2008."Awards Ceremony at Buckingham Palace"
ESU, November 12, 2008.

Selected works

Books

* Baron, Naomi S., ''Words onscreen. The fate of reading in a digital world'', Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2015. * Baron, Naomi S.
''Always on : language in an online and mobile world''
Oxford; New York : Oxford University Press, 2008. * Baron, Naomi S., ''Alphabet to E-mail: How Written English Evolved and Where It's Heading'', London; New York : Routledge, 2000. * Baron, Naomi S., ''Growing up with language : how children learn to talk'', Reading, Mass. : Addison-Wesley Pub. Co., 1992. * Baron, Naomi S., ''Pigeon-birds and rhyming words : the role of parents in language learning'', Englewood Cliffs, N.J. : Prentice Hall, 1990. * Baron, Naomi S., ''Computer languages : a guide for the perplexed'', Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor Press/Doubleday, 1986. * Baron, Naomi S., ''Speech, writing, and sign : a functional view of linguistic representation'', Bloomington : Indiana University Press, 1980. * Baron, Naomi S., ''Language acquisition and historical change'', Amsterdam; New York : North Holland Pub. Co.; New York : distributors for the US and Canada, Elsevier North-Holland, 1977.

References

External links

* at American University {{DEFAULTSORT:Baron, Naomi Living people Linguists from the United States American media critics Analytic philosophers Generative linguistics Developmental psycholinguists American University faculty and staff American phonologists Syntacticians American semioticians Brandeis University alumni Stanford University alumni Women linguists American women non-fiction writers 1946 births Fulbright alumni American women academics