Sali A. Tagliamonte is a Canadian linguist. Her main area of research is the field of language variation and change.

Education

Tagliamonte received a

Bachelor of Arts A Bachelor of Arts (abbreviated B.A., BA, A.B. or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is the holder of a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the liberal arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts deg ...

in Linguistics from

York University York University (), also known as YorkU or simply YU), is a public university, public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is Canada's third-largest university, and it has approximately 53,500 students, 7,000 faculty and staff, ...

in 1981, and a

Master of Arts A Master of Arts ( or ''Artium Magister''; abbreviated MA or AM) is the holder of a master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The degree is usually contrasted with that of Master of Science. Those admitted to the degree have ...

in 1983 and a Ph.D. in 1991 in Linguistics from

University of Ottawa The University of Ottawa (), often referred to as uOttawa or U of O, is a Official bilingualism in Canada, bilingual public research university in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. The main campus is located on directly to the northeast of Downtown Ot ...

. Her graduate thesis, supervised by Shana Poplack, looked at past temporal reference structures in Samaná English.

Career

Tagliamonte has been a professor at the

University of Toronto The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public university, public research university whose main campus is located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park (Toronto), Queen's Park in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It was founded by ...

since 2001, where she currently serves as Chair of the Department of Linguistics. Tagliamonte is also an Honorary Visiting Professor in the Department of Language and Linguistic Science at the University of York. She currently holds the title of

Canada Research Chair Canada Research Chair (CRC) is a title given to certain Canadian university research professors by the Canada Research Chairs Program. Program goals The Canada Research Chair program was established in 2000 as a part of the Government of Canada ...

in Language Variation and Change. Tagliamonte held a number of professional positions before joining the faculty of the University of Toronto. From 1995 to 2002 she held the position of adjunct professor at the Linguistics Department at University of Ottawa. She was a lecturer at the

University of York The University of York (abbreviated as or ''York'' for Post-nominal letters, post-nominals) is a public Collegiate university, collegiate research university in York, England. Established in 1963, the university has expanded to more than thir ...

on two occasions, in 1995 and 2000 and held a position of Visiting Assistant Professor there in 2001 until she became a professor at the University of Toronto. Tagliamonte's widely-cited research has focused on varieties of English. In particular, her work has focused on Ontario English, including projects related to speech communities looking at various communities in

Toronto Toronto ( , locally pronounced or ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, most populous city in Canada. It is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario. With a p ...

, North Bay, South Porcupine,

Kirkland Lake Kirkland Lake is a town and municipality in Timiskaming District, Ontario, Timiskaming District of Northeastern Ontario. The 2021 population, according to Statistics Canada, was 7,750. The community name was based on a nearby lake which in turn ...

, Haliburton, Almonte,

Wilno Vilnius ( , ) is the capital of and List of cities in Lithuania#Cities, largest city in Lithuania and the List of cities in the Baltic states by population, most-populous city in the Baltic states. The city's estimated January 2025 population w ...

Kapuskasing Kapuskasing ( ) is a town on the Kapuskasing River in the Cochrane District of Northern Ontario, Canada, approximately east of Hearst, Ontario, Hearst and northwest of Timmins, Ontario, Timmins. The town was known as MacPherson until 1917. ...

and

Barry's Bay Barry's Bay is a community in the township of Madawaska Valley, Ontario, Canada, located two hours west of Ottawa on the shores of Kamaniskeg Lake, with a 2021 population of 1,084. History The Algonquin people named the area Kuaenash Ne-ishi ...

. She also collaborated with Jennifer Smith (sociolinguist)

FRSE Fellowship of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (FRSE) is an award granted to individuals that the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Scotland's national academy of science and Literature, letters, judged to be "eminently distinguished in their subject". ...

on dialects in Scotland and North America. Tagliamonte has also worked on internet and youth language. She is a co-creator of a variable rule program, ''Goldvarb''.

Honors

Tagliamonte was a Killam Research Fellow from 2013-2015 and has been a Fellow of the

Royal Society of Canada The Royal Society of Canada (RSC; , SRC), also known as the Academies of Arts, Humanities, and Sciences of Canada (French: ''Académies des arts, des lettres et des sciences du Canada''), is the senior national, bilingual council of distinguishe ...

since 2013. She was a media expert for the

Linguistic Society of America The Linguistic Society of America (LSA) is a learned society for the field of linguistics. Founded in New York City in 1924, the LSA works to promote the scientific study of language. The society publishes three scholarly journals: ''Language'', ...

in 2013. She was an associate editor of ''Language'' from 2007-2010. In 2017, Tagliamonte was inducted as a

Fellow A fellow is a title and form of address for distinguished, learned, or skilled individuals in academia, medicine, research, and industry. The exact meaning of the term differs in each field. In learned society, learned or professional society, p ...

of the

Selected publications

* Shana Poplack and Sali A. Tagliamonte. (1989) There’s no tense like the present: Verbal ''-s'' inflection in early Black English. ''Language Variation and Change'' 1.1: 47-84. * Sali A. Tagliamonte. (1998) ''Was/were'' variation across the generations: View from the city of York. ''Language Variation and Change''. 10:2: 153-191. * Sali A. Tagliamonte and Rachel Hudson. (1999). ''Be like'' et al. beyond America: The quotative system in British and Canadian youth. ''Journal of Sociolinguistics''. 3:2: 147-172. * Sali A. Tagliamonte and Shana Poplack. (2001) ''African American English in the diaspora: Tense and aspect''. Oxford: Blackwell. * Sali A. Tagliamonte. (2001) ''Come/came'' variation in English dialects. ''American Speech''. 76.1: 42-61. * Sali A. Tagliamonte and Chris Roberts. (2005) So weird; so cool; so innovative: The use of intensifiers in the television series Friends. ''American Speech''. 80.3: 280-300 * Sali A. Tagliamonte. (2006) ''Analysing Sociolinguistic Variation''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. * Sali A. Tagliamonte. (2012) ''Variationist Sociolinguistics: Change, Observation, Interpretation''. Wiley-Blackwell Publishers. * Sali A. Tagliamonte. (2013) ''Roots of English: Exploring the History of Dialects''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. *Sali A. Tagliamonte. (2016) ''Teen Talk: The Language of Adolescents.'' Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Tagliamonte, Sali Linguists from Canada York University alumni University of Ottawa alumni Academic staff of the University of Toronto Fellows of the Royal Society of Canada Canadian women linguists Canadian women academics Sociolinguists Living people Year of birth missing (living people) Fellows of the Linguistic Society of America