Marisa Brook	Assistant Professor English Language and Literature Saint Mary's University (Canada)

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	About I'm an Assistant Professor cross-appointed to the Department of English Language and Literature and the Program in Linguistics at Saint Mary's University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. My research is in variationist sociolinguistics: it centres on spotting and interpreting the deep mathematical patterns that are inherent in language across regions, between social groups, and over time. I'm primarily interested in causes and mechanisms of language change (especially on the morphosyntactic and discourse-pragmatic levels): how innovations emerge, whether they relate straightforwardly to existing linguistic norms, ways in which new forms can acquire social meanings and/or links to in-group identity, and why it should be that languages change in the first place. Secondary areas of interest include: language and gender and sexuality, computer-mediated communication, raciolinguistics, and onomastics. Previously, I have held short-term faculty positions at Michigan State University (2016-17), the University of Toronto (2018-23), and the University of Essex (2023-24). Throughout, I taught 4-5 classes per year and supervised student research. More details in my CV.
	Personal My brain runs mostly on linguistics and tea. Aside from that, I might be reading, writing, composing music, doing digital art, making things out of fabric and/or yarn, or playing old video games. I've been on the staff of Damn Interesting (which is exactly what it sounds like) since mid-2006. I'm thrilled to be a 2003 alumna of the SHAD program for high-school students. My Erdős number is 4. I believe in knowledge and human rights, and thus stand with those actively engaged in dismantling pseudoscience, discrimination/bias, or (often) both at once. At no level of education is a conventional Western classroom accessible and welcoming in an equitable way. Likewise, linguistics as an academic field still has some way to go. On both fronts, we can and must do better.
	Pronunciation of my first name Prescriptive: /mə'ɹisə/ Descriptive: Considerable variation. Attested alternative variants include /mə'ɹɪsə/ (exemplar effect), /'maɹsijə/ or /maɹ'sijə/ (metathesis), /'maɹʃə/ (metathesis and palatalization), /mə'ɹizə/ (intervocalic voicing), and the impressive /'mɔnjə/ (still unexplained). In other words, the way you pronounced it just now did not faze me (p < 0.01).

Last updated: 8 September 2024 Email: marisa.brookSPAM-BLOCKER@smu.ca Design and content © 2014-2024 Marisa Brook