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420 Lucas Hall
314-516-6848
torbertb@umsl.edu
PhD, English, Linguistics concentration, Duke University
MA, English, Linguistics concentration, North Carolina State University
BA, Classical Languages, Duke University
A sociolinguist, Benjamin Torbert studies English language variety in North America and the Caribbean, especially regional and socioethnic dimensions of language variation. He has authored and co-authored publications on language variety in American Speech, Southern Journal of Linguistics, the de Gruyter World Atlas of Varieties of English, and in other venues. Other interests include pedagogy in the teaching of Linguistics, syntax in English-language literature, and portrayals of vernacular speakers in television and in film.
Courses Taught at UMSL
HON 3010 and EN 5950/Language, Ethnicity, and Inequality in HBO's The WireHON 3010/The Linguistic Study of African American English
HON 3010/Revelations of Grace: The Fiction of Flannery O'Connor
HON 3010 and EN 4950/Opera Literature
EN 4800/Introduction to Linguistics
EN 4810/Descriptive English Grammar
EN 4820/History of the English Language
EN 5800/Variety in Language
Curriculum Vitae
Other Files
Dr. Eugene Charles Torbert (obituary)