Matthew Gordon
Matthew Gordon
PhD 1997, University of Michigan
Linguistics and the structure, dialects, and history of the English Language
Matthew Gordon teaches courses in linguistics and the structure, dialects, and history of the English Language. His research interests include sociolinguistics, American dialectology, and language change. Currently he is engaged in research examining linguistic variation in Missouri. He authored a monograph titled Small-Town Values, Big-City Vowels: A Study of the Northern Cities Shift in Michigan (2001, Duke University Press) which examines the diffusion of sound changes to rural communities. He is also the author of Labov: A Guide for the Perplexed (2013, Continuum), which reviews the scholarly contributions of the sociolinguist, William Labov, and co-author with Christopher Strelluf of The Origins of Missouri English: A Historical Sociophonetic Analysis (2023, Lexington), which explores how Missourians spoke over a century ago.
Strelluf, Christopher and Matthew J. Gordon. (2023) The Origins of Missouri English: A Historical Sociophonetic Analysis. Lexington Books.
Metz, M., Gordon, M. J., Petrone, R. A., Kuby, C. R., & Hampton, M. A. (2022). Missouri Teachers’ Beliefs about Language and Literacies Teaching. Missouri Language and Literacies Center White Paper.
Gordon, Matthew J. (2019). Language variation and change in rural communities. Annual Review of Linguistics 5:435-453.
Gordon, Matthew J. (2018). Structural dialectology. In Boberg, C. et al. (eds.) Handbook of Dialectology. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 73-87.
Gordon, Matthew J. (2017). William Labov. Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Linguistics. Oxford Univ. Press
Gordon, Matthew J. and Christopher Strelluf. (2017). Evidence of American regional dialects in early recordings. In Hickey, R. (ed.) Listening to the Past. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 199-231.
Gordon, Matthew J. and Christopher Strelluf. (2016). Working the early shift: Older Inland Northern speech and the beginnings of the Northern Cities Shift. Journal of Linguistic Geography 4.1: 31-46.
Gordon, Matthew J. (2015). Exploring chain shifts, mergers, and near-mergers as changes in progress. In Honeybone, P. and J. Salmons (eds.) Oxford Handbook of Historical Phonology. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 173-190.
Gordon, Matthew J. (2014). William Labov. Oxford Bibliographies.
Gordon, Matthew J. (2013) Labov: A Guide for the Perplexed. London: Continuum.
Gordon, Matthew J. (2012). English in the United States. In Hickey, R. (ed.) Areal Features of the Anglophone World. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 109-132.
Gordon, Matthew J. (2011). Theoretical and methodological issues in the study of chain shifts. Language and Linguistics Compass. 5.11: 784-794.
Majors, Tivoli and Matthew J. Gordon. (2008). "The [+spread] of the Northern Cities Shift." University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics 14: Online at http://repository.upenn.edu/pwpl/vol14/iss2/14/.
Gordon, Matthew J. "The investigation of diachronic variety in language: Traditions and recent developments." History of the Language Sciences Vol. 3. Eds. S. Auroux, E.F.K. Koerner, et al. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Gordon, Matthew J. "Interview with William Labov." Journal of English Linguistics 34(2006): 1-20.
Gordon, Matthew J. "Tracking the low back merger in Missouri." Language Variation and Change in the American Midland: A New Look at "Heartland" English T. Murray and B. Simon. Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 2006. 57-68.
Gordon, Matthew J. "The sounds, they are a shiftin'. Do you speak American?" This website is a companion to a documentary series which aired on PBS in January 2005.
Lesley Milroy and Matthew Gordon. Sociolinguistics: Methods and Interpretation (Blackwell, 2003) www.blackwellpublishing.com
Matthew J. Gordon. Small-Town Values, Big-City Vowels: A Study of the Northern Cities Shift in Michigan (Duke University Press, 2001) www.dukeupress.edu