November 8, 2002
Paul Schmidt, Chair, New Appointments Committee
Department of English
University Plaza
Georgia State University
Atlanta, GA 30303-3083
Dear Search Committee:
My scholarship is in the fields of sociolinguistics and cultural studies, including the analysis of
electronic discourse communities in pedagogical contexts. My extensive experience teaching a range
of interdisciplinary writing courses as well as my administrative experience building a Technical
Comunications program may well suit the Director of the Center for Writing and Research position
you have posted on the MLA job list this year.
My dissertation, titled Mill Villagers and Farmers: Economics and Dialect Shift in a Small
Southern Town, reports on my own sociolinguistic study of dialect change in Griffin, Georgia, a
textile mill town about 40 miles south of Atlanta. Drawing both from established research which
verifies diversity in early American Englishes in the South, and from original fieldwork with 36
subjects, I demonstrate that generational dialect changes are attributable to shifts in socioeconomic
structure. In a region where the lower class is internally diverse according to complex intersections of
occupation, heritage and race, analyses based on traditional social class constructs are inadequate. A
more thorough approach focuses on the consensus-based microlevel of social network ties that exist
within a conflict-based macrolevel of social class. Textile mill villages in Griffin, Georgia,
instantiated the reproduction of institutional practices in day-to-day interactions. The resultant
network was dense and multiplex and existed in stark contrast to the loose ties becoming typical of
the small farmer in the agriculturally depressed mid-20th century. Although farmers were often forced
to give up farming, the mill village’s paternal structure seemed to more harshly subvert the enduring
post-bellum goal of personal autonomy and independence. Meanwhile, the linguistic ecology became
an active site of competition and selection: phonological shibboleths to distinct communities in the
South were renegotiated; nonstandard grammatical constructions were both abandoned and adopted;
some older, declining features revived. Weak-tie innovators spreading change were the children of
farmers who had contact with the children of mill workers. Negotiating dialects as linguistic capital,
these select pioneers interacted in a newly consolidated high school and thereby settled a perceptual
frontier through friendships, common workplaces and marriages.
Since September 2000, I have taught writing and designed courses as a Fellow in the
Freshman Writing Program at Georgia Tech. The 1101 and 1102 courses in this program are
interdisciplinary and cultural studies-based with a strong emphasis on composition. During my
fellowship at Georgia Tech, I have had the opportunity to combine my expertise in sociolinguistics
with electronic pedagogy. For example, my course “Introduction to Cultural Studies: Self and ‘Other’
in Ethnographic Representations of the American South” combines humanities computing with
ethnographic methods to introduce students to cultural studies while improving their writing and
research skills. Primarily, students reach traditional goals, such as clear writing and oral presentation
skills, valuative research, and critical interpretation of information. And students simultaneously
achieve theoretical goals—recovering culture at its “roots”, decentering literary and academic
discourse, revealing the fragmentary nature of authorship, privileging collaboration and nontraditional texts, researching artifacts within historical and cultural contexts, and studying the
reflexive nature of language and society. My constant pedagogical goal is to invoke in my students a
wider awareness of ‘language’ and ‘text’; ultimately I work to equip them with solid skills of analysis
and employable literacy.
My current research project, “‘Talk’ and Writing in Online Communities: An Investigation of
Linguistic Ecologies in Electronic Settings,” stems from my experiences in the electronic classroom.
Students produce texts in computer environments that range from asynchronous ‘bulletin board’
applications, to interactive web sites, to synchronous ‘real-time’ chat rooms. In and out of the
classroom, these texts provide building blocks that are useful for collaborative work, research
projects, and essay drafting. However, the virtual environments where students work also become
speech communities in which individual and group identities are negotiated through linguistic means.
As an observer-participant, I act in the role of instructor while simultaneously conducting an
ethnographic study of these environments. This work-in-progress will result both in tested cases of
online assignments and in a contribution to a book proposal tentatively titled Cultural Studies of
Science and Technology (editors Auslander & Colatrella).
At present, I am Technical Communications Coordinator in the department’s new business
writing program, a position I was selected for based both on my record in the department and my
corporate experience. Working closely with the Associate Chair, Director of Communications, and
Electronic Pedagogy Coordinator, I manage four newly appointed instructors and have designed a
curriculum that serves over seven schools across campus. In conjunction with the Office of
Assessment, I am currently developing a focused assessment rubric that will culminate in a report to
garner additional funding.
Thank you for considering me for the Assistant Professor of English opening at Georgia
State. You can reach me most easily by cell phone (404-452-2352) or email
(lisa.mcnair@lcc.gatech.edu).
Sincerely,
Lisa McNair
Marion L. Brittain Fellow & Technical Communications Coordinator
School of Literature, Communications and Culture
Georgia Institute of Technology
Atlanta, GA 30332
404-894-1023
November 8, 2002
Dr. Bethany Sinnott, Chair
Department of English
Catawba College
2300 W. Innes Street
Salisbury, NC 28144
Dear Search Committee:
My scholarship is in the fields of sociolinguistics and cultural studies, including the analysis of
electronic discourse communities in pedagogical contexts. My extensive experience teaching a range
of interdisciplinary writing courses as well as my administrative experience building a Technical
Comunications program may well suit the Director of Rhetoric & Composition position you have
posted on the MLA job list this year.
My dissertation, titled Mill Villagers and Farmers: Economics and Dialect Shift in a Small
Southern Town, reports on my own sociolinguistic study of dialect change in Griffin, Georgia, a
textile mill town about 40 miles south of Atlanta. Drawing both from established research which
verifies diversity in early American Englishes in the South, and from original fieldwork with 36
subjects, I demonstrate that generational dialect changes are attributable to shifts in socioeconomic
structure. In a region where the lower class is internally diverse according to complex intersections of
occupation, heritage and race, analyses based on traditional social class constructs are inadequate. A
more thorough approach focuses on the consensus-based microlevel of social network ties that exist
within a conflict-based macrolevel of social class. Textile mill villages in Griffin, Georgia,
instantiated the reproduction of institutional practices in day-to-day interactions. The resultant
network was dense and multiplex and existed in stark contrast to the loose ties becoming typical of
the small farmer in the agriculturally depressed mid-20th century. Although farmers were often forced
to give up farming, the mill village’s paternal structure seemed to more harshly subvert the enduring
post-bellum goal of personal autonomy and independence. Meanwhile, the linguistic ecology became
an active site of competition and selection: phonological shibboleths to distinct communities in the
South were renegotiated; nonstandard grammatical constructions were both abandoned and adopted;
some older, declining features revived. Weak-tie innovators spreading change were the children of
farmers who had contact with the children of mill workers. Negotiating dialects as linguistic capital,
these select pioneers interacted in a newly consolidated high school and thereby settled a perceptual
frontier through friendships, common workplaces and marriages.
Since September 2000, I have taught writing and designed courses as a Fellow in the
Freshman Writing Program at Georgia Tech. The 1101 and 1102 courses in this program are
interdisciplinary and cultural studies-based with a strong emphasis on composition. During my
fellowship at Georgia Tech, I have had the opportunity to combine my expertise in sociolinguistics
with electronic pedagogy. For example, my course “Introduction to Cultural Studies: Self and ‘Other’
in Ethnographic Representations of the American South” combines humanities computing with
ethnographic methods to introduce students to cultural studies while improving their writing and
research skills. Primarily, students reach traditional goals, such as clear writing and oral presentation
skills, valuative research, and critical interpretation of information. And students simultaneously
achieve theoretical goals—recovering culture at its “roots”, decentering literary and academic
discourse, revealing the fragmentary nature of authorship, privileging collaboration and nontraditional texts, researching artifacts within historical and cultural contexts, and studying the
reflexive nature of language and society. My constant pedagogical goal is to invoke in my students a
wider awareness of ‘language’ and ‘text’; ultimately I work to equip them with solid skills of analysis
and employable literacy.
My current research project, “‘Talk’ and Writing in Online Communities: An Investigation of
Linguistic Ecologies in Electronic Settings,” stems from my experiences in the electronic classroom.
Students produce texts in computer environments that range from asynchronous ‘bulletin board’
applications, to interactive web sites, to synchronous ‘real-time’ chat rooms. In and out of the
classroom, these texts provide building blocks that are useful for collaborative work, research
projects, and essay drafting. However, the virtual environments where students work also become
speech communities in which individual and group identities are negotiated through linguistic means.
As an observer-participant, I act in the role of instructor while simultaneously conducting an
ethnographic study of these environments. This work-in-progress will result both in tested cases of
online assignments and in a contribution to a book proposal tentatively titled Cultural Studies of
Science and Technology (editors Auslander & Colatrella).
At present, I am Technical Communications Coordinator in the department’s new business
writing program, a position I was selected for based both on my record in the department and my
corporate experience. Working closely with the Associate Chair, Director of Communications, and
Electronic Pedagogy Coordinator, I manage four newly appointed instructors and have designed a
curriculum that serves over seven schools across campus. In conjunction with the Office of
Assessment, I am currently developing a focused assessment rubric that will culminate in a report to
garner additional funding.
Thank you for considering me for the Assistant Professor of English opening in your
department at Catawba College. You can reach me most easily by cell phone (404-452-2352) or email
(lisa.mcnair@lcc.gatech.edu).
Sincerely,
Lisa McNair
Marion L. Brittain Fellow & Technical Communications Coordinator
School of Literature, Communications and Culture
Georgia Institute of Technology
Atlanta, GA 30332
404-894-1023
November 8, 2002
Dr. Andrew Wiget, Chair
Personnel Committee
Department of English
MSC 3-E
New Mexico State University
Box 30001
Las Cruces, NM 88003
Dear Search Committee:
My scholarship is in the fields of sociolinguistics and cultural studies, including the analysis of
electronic discourse communities in pedagogical contexts. My extensive experience teaching a range
of interdisciplinary writing courses as well as my administrative experience building a Technical
Comunications program may well suit the Writing Center Director position you have posted on the
MLA job list this year.
My dissertation, titled Mill Villagers and Farmers: Economics and Dialect Shift in a Small
Southern Town, reports on my own sociolinguistic study of dialect change in Griffin, Georgia, a
textile mill town about 40 miles south of Atlanta. Drawing both from established research which
verifies diversity in early American Englishes in the South, and from original fieldwork with 36
subjects, I demonstrate that generational dialect changes are attributable to shifts in socioeconomic
structure. In a region where the lower class is internally diverse according to complex intersections of
occupation, heritage and race, analyses based on traditional social class constructs are inadequate. A
more thorough approach focuses on the consensus-based microlevel of social network ties that exist
within a conflict-based macrolevel of social class. Textile mill villages in Griffin, Georgia,
instantiated the reproduction of institutional practices in day-to-day interactions. The resultant
network was dense and multiplex and existed in stark contrast to the loose ties becoming typical of
the small farmer in the agriculturally depressed mid-20th century. Although farmers were often forced
to give up farming, the mill village’s paternal structure seemed to more harshly subvert the enduring
post-bellum goal of personal autonomy and independence. Meanwhile, the linguistic ecology became
an active site of competition and selection: phonological shibboleths to distinct communities in the
South were renegotiated; nonstandard grammatical constructions were both abandoned and adopted;
some older, declining features revived. Weak-tie innovators spreading change were the children of
farmers who had contact with the children of mill workers. Negotiating dialects as linguistic capital,
these select pioneers interacted in a newly consolidated high school and thereby settled a perceptual
frontier through friendships, common workplaces and marriages.
Since September 2000, I have taught writing and designed courses as a Fellow in the
Freshman Writing Program at Georgia Tech. The 1101 and 1102 courses in this program are
interdisciplinary and cultural studies-based with a strong emphasis on composition. During my
fellowship at Georgia Tech, I have had the opportunity to combine my expertise in sociolinguistics
with electronic pedagogy. For example, my course “Introduction to Cultural Studies: Self and ‘Other’
in Ethnographic Representations of the American South” combines humanities computing with
ethnographic methods to introduce students to cultural studies while improving their writing and
research skills. Primarily, students reach traditional goals, such as clear writing and oral presentation
skills, valuative research, and critical interpretation of information. And students simultaneously
achieve theoretical goals—recovering culture at its “roots”, decentering literary and academic
discourse, revealing the fragmentary nature of authorship, privileging collaboration and nontraditional texts, researching artifacts within historical and cultural contexts, and studying the
reflexive nature of language and society. My constant pedagogical goal is to invoke in my students a
wider awareness of ‘language’ and ‘text’; ultimately I work to equip them with solid skills of analysis
and employable literacy.
My current research project, “‘Talk’ and Writing in Online Communities: An Investigation of
Linguistic Ecologies in Electronic Settings,” stems from my experiences in the electronic classroom.
Students produce texts in computer environments that range from asynchronous ‘bulletin board’
applications, to interactive web sites, to synchronous ‘real-time’ chat rooms. In and out of the
classroom, these texts provide building blocks that are useful for collaborative work, research
projects, and essay drafting. However, the virtual environments where students work also become
speech communities in which individual and group identities are negotiated through linguistic means.
As an observer-participant, I act in the role of instructor while simultaneously conducting an
ethnographic study of these environments. This work-in-progress will result both in tested cases of
online assignments and in a contribution to a book proposal tentatively titled Cultural Studies of
Science and Technology (editors Auslander & Colatrella).
At present, I am Technical Communications Coordinator in the department’s new business
writing program, a position I was selected for based both on my record in the department and my
corporate experience. Working closely with the Associate Chair, Director of Communications, and
Electronic Pedagogy Coordinator, I manage four newly appointed instructors and have designed a
curriculum that serves over seven schools across campus. In conjunction with the Office of
Assessment, I am currently developing a focused assessment rubric that will culminate in a report to
garner additional funding.
Thank you for considering me for the Assistant Professor of English opening in your
department at New Mexico State University. You can reach me most easily by cell phone (404-4522352) or email (lisa.mcnair@lcc.gatech.edu).
Sincerely,
Lisa McNair
Marion L. Brittain Fellow & Technical Communications Coordinator
School of Literature, Communications and Culture
Georgia Institute of Technology
Atlanta, GA 30332
404-894-1023
November 8, 2002
Chair, Writing Search
Department of English
1900 Belmont Boulevard
Nashville, TN 37212
Dear Search Committee:
My scholarship is in the fields of sociolinguistics and cultural studies, including the analysis of
electronic discourse communities in pedagogical contexts. My extensive experience teaching a range
of interdisciplinary writing courses in a new media-infused curriculum may well suit the Rhetoric and
Composition position you have posted on the MLA job list this year.
My dissertation, titled Mill Villagers and Farmers: Economics and Dialect Shift in a Small
Southern Town, reports on my own sociolinguistic study of dialect change in Griffin, Georgia, a
textile mill town about 40 miles south of Atlanta. Drawing both from established research which
verifies diversity in early American Englishes in the South, and from original fieldwork with 36
subjects, I demonstrate that generational dialect changes are attributable to shifts in socioeconomic
structure. In a region where the lower class is internally diverse according to complex intersections of
occupation, heritage and race, analyses based on traditional social class constructs are inadequate. A
more thorough approach focuses on the consensus-based microlevel of social network ties that exist
within a conflict-based macrolevel of social class. Textile mill villages in Griffin, Georgia,
instantiated the reproduction of institutional practices in day-to-day interactions. The resultant
network was dense and multiplex and existed in stark contrast to the loose ties becoming typical of
the small farmer in the agriculturally depressed mid-20th century. Although farmers were often forced
to give up farming, the mill village’s paternal structure seemed to more harshly subvert the enduring
post-bellum goal of personal autonomy and independence. Meanwhile, the linguistic ecology became
an active site of competition and selection: phonological shibboleths to distinct communities in the
South were renegotiated; nonstandard grammatical constructions were both abandoned and adopted;
some older, declining features revived. Weak-tie innovators spreading change were the children of
farmers who had contact with the children of mill workers. Negotiating dialects as linguistic capital,
these select pioneers interacted in a newly consolidated high school and thereby settled a perceptual
frontier through friendships, common workplaces and marriages.
Since September 2000, I have taught writing and designed courses as a Fellow in the
Freshman Writing Program at Georgia Tech. The 1101 and 1102 courses in this program are
interdisciplinary and cultural studies-based with a strong emphasis on composition. During my
fellowship at Georgia Tech, I have had the opportunity to combine my expertise in sociolinguistics
with electronic pedagogy. For example, my course “Introduction to Cultural Studies: Self and ‘Other’
in Ethnographic Representations of the American South” combines humanities computing with
ethnographic methods to introduce students to cultural studies while improving their writing and
research skills. Primarily, students reach traditional goals, such as clear writing and oral presentation
skills, valuative research, and critical interpretation of information. And students simultaneously
achieve theoretical goals—recovering culture at its “roots”, decentering literary and academic
discourse, revealing the fragmentary nature of authorship, privileging collaboration and nontraditional texts, researching artifacts within historical and cultural contexts, and studying the
reflexive nature of language and society. My constant pedagogical goal is to invoke in my students a
wider awareness of ‘language’ and ‘text’; ultimately I work to equip them with solid skills of analysis
and employable literacy.
My current research project, “‘Talk’ and Writing in Online Communities: An Investigation of
Linguistic Ecologies in Electronic Settings,” stems from my experiences in the electronic classroom.
Students produce texts in computer environments that range from asynchronous ‘bulletin board’
applications, to interactive web sites, to synchronous ‘real-time’ chat rooms. In and out of the
classroom, these texts provide building blocks that are useful for collaborative work, research
projects, and essay drafting. However, the virtual environments where students work also become
speech communities in which individual and group identities are negotiated through linguistic means.
As an observer-participant, I act in the role of instructor while simultaneously conducting an
ethnographic study of these environments. This work-in-progress will result both in tested cases of
online assignments and in a contribution to a book proposal tentatively titled Cultural Studies of
Science and Technology (editors Auslander & Colatrella).
At present, I am Technical Communications Coordinator in the department’s new business
writing program, a position I was selected for based both on my record in the department and my
corporate experience. Working closely with the Associate Chair, Director of Communications, and
Electronic Pedagogy Coordinator, I manage four newly appointed instructors and have designed a
curriculum that serves over seven schools across campus. In conjunction with the Office of
Assessment, I am currently developing a focused assessment rubric that will culminate in a report to
garner additional funding.
Thank you for considering me for the Assistant Professor opening in your department at
Belmont University. You can reach me most easily by cell phone (404-452-2352) or email
(lisa.mcnair@lcc.gatech.edu).
Sincerely,
Lisa McNair
Marion L. Brittain Fellow & Technical Communications Coordinator
School of Literature, Communications and Culture
Georgia Institute of Technology
Atlanta, GA 30332
404-894-1023
November 8, 2002
Professors Janice Walker and Jeff Todd, Co-Chairs
Search Committee #45570
Department of Writing and Linguistics
Georgia Southern University
P.O. Box 8026
Statesboro,GA 30460-8036
Dear Search Committee:
My scholarship is in the fields of sociolinguistics and cultural studies, including the analysis of
electronic discourse communities in pedagogical contexts. My extensive experience teaching a range
of interdisciplinary writing courses as well as my administrative experience building a Technical
Comunications program may well suit the Assistant Professor of Writing and Linguistics position you
have posted on the MLA job list this year.
My dissertation, titled Mill Villagers and Farmers: Economics and Dialect Shift in a Small
Southern Town, reports on my own sociolinguistic study of dialect change in Griffin, Georgia, a
textile mill town about 40 miles south of Atlanta. Drawing both from established research which
verifies diversity in early American Englishes in the South, and from original fieldwork with 36
subjects, I demonstrate that generational dialect changes are attributable to shifts in socioeconomic
structure. In a region where the lower class is internally diverse according to complex intersections of
occupation, heritage and race, analyses based on traditional social class constructs are inadequate. A
more thorough approach focuses on the consensus-based microlevel of social network ties that exist
within a conflict-based macrolevel of social class. Textile mill villages in Griffin, Georgia,
instantiated the reproduction of institutional practices in day-to-day interactions. The resultant
network was dense and multiplex and existed in stark contrast to the loose ties becoming typical of
the small farmer in the agriculturally depressed mid-20th century. Although farmers were often forced
to give up farming, the mill village’s paternal structure seemed to more harshly subvert the enduring
post-bellum goal of personal autonomy and independence. Meanwhile, the linguistic ecology became
an active site of competition and selection: phonological shibboleths to distinct communities in the
South were renegotiated; nonstandard grammatical constructions were both abandoned and adopted;
some older, declining features revived. Weak-tie innovators spreading change were the children of
farmers who had contact with the children of mill workers. Negotiating dialects as linguistic capital,
these select pioneers interacted in a newly consolidated high school and thereby settled a perceptual
frontier through friendships, common workplaces and marriages.
Since September 2000, I have taught writing and designed courses as a Fellow in the
Freshman Writing Program at Georgia Tech. The 1101 and 1102 courses in this program are
interdisciplinary and cultural studies-based with a strong emphasis on composition. During my
fellowship at Georgia Tech, I have had the opportunity to combine my expertise in sociolinguistics
with electronic pedagogy. For example, my course “Introduction to Cultural Studies: Self and ‘Other’
in Ethnographic Representations of the American South” combines humanities computing with
ethnographic methods to introduce students to cultural studies while improving their writing and
research skills. Primarily, students reach traditional goals, such as clear writing and oral presentation
skills, valuative research, and critical interpretation of information. And students simultaneously
achieve theoretical goals—recovering culture at its “roots”, decentering literary and academic
discourse, revealing the fragmentary nature of authorship, privileging collaboration and nontraditional texts, researching artifacts within historical and cultural contexts, and studying the
reflexive nature of language and society. My constant pedagogical goal is to invoke in my students a
wider awareness of ‘language’ and ‘text’; ultimately I work to equip them with solid skills of analysis
and employable literacy.
My current research project, “‘Talk’ and Writing in Online Communities: An Investigation of
Linguistic Ecologies in Electronic Settings,” stems from my experiences in the electronic classroom.
Students produce texts in computer environments that range from asynchronous ‘bulletin board’
applications, to interactive web sites, to synchronous ‘real-time’ chat rooms. In and out of the
classroom, these texts provide building blocks that are useful for collaborative work, research
projects, and essay drafting. However, the virtual environments where students work also become
speech communities in which individual and group identities are negotiated through linguistic means.
As an observer-participant, I act in the role of instructor while simultaneously conducting an
ethnographic study of these environments. This work-in-progress will result both in tested cases of
online assignments and in a contribution to a book proposal tentatively titled Cultural Studies of
Science and Technology (editors Auslander & Colatrella).
At present, I am Technical Communications Coordinator in the department’s new business
writing program, a position I was selected for based both on my record in the department and my
corporate experience. Working closely with the Associate Chair, Director of Communications, and
Electronic Pedagogy Coordinator, I manage four newly appointed instructors and have designed a
curriculum that serves over seven schools across campus. In conjunction with the Office of
Assessment, I am currently developing a focused assessment rubric that will culminate in a report to
garner additional funding.
Thank you for considering me for the Assistant Professor of Writing and Linguistics opening
in your department at Georgia Southern University. You can reach me most easily by cell phone
(404-452-2352) or email (lisa.mcnair@lcc.gatech.edu).
Sincerely,
Lisa McNair
Marion L. Brittain Fellow & Technical Communications Coordinator
School of Literature, Communications and Culture
Georgia Institute of Technology
Atlanta, GA 30332
404-894-1023