Associate Professor of Linguistics
Affiliate in Black World Studies, Global and Intercultural Studies

327 Bachelor Hall
Oxford Campus
513-529-5262
rahmanj@MiamiOH.edu

Education

• PhD, Stanford University, 2004
• MA, University of Texas, 1998

Teaching Interests

• Sociolinguistics
• Syntactic and lexical analysis
• African-American English
• Pidgins and creoles

Research Interests

• The intersection of social class with regional and ethnic identity
• Standard and vernacular varieties of African American English: structure, social contexts, verbal traditions
• Linguistic profiling/language discrimination

Publications

• “N Word as an Emblem of Survival Identity in African American Comedy.” In The Routledge Companion to the Work of John R Rickford. Edited by Reneé Blake and Isabelle Buchstlaller. Routledge. 2019.
• "Linguistics." In English Studies Reimagined: A New Context for Linguistics, Rhetoric and Composition, Creative Writing, Literature, Cultural Studies, and English Education. Bruce McComiskey, Editor, National Council of Teachers of English. Champaign, IL 2022. 45-80.
• "Missing the Target: Group Practices that Launch and Deflect Slurs." Language Sciences. Volume 52. 70-81. Elsevier Publications November 2015.
• "African American Divas of Comedy:  Staking a Claim in Public Space." The Oxford Handbook of African American Language. Edited by Sonja Lanehart.  2015.
• "Verbal Dueling, including Dozens, Ritual Insult." Encyclopedia of Humor Studies. Edited by Salvatore Attardo. 2014
• "Representations of Race." Encyclopedia of Humor Studies. Edited by Salvatore Attardo. 2014
• "The N Word: Its History and Use in the African American Community." The Journal of English Linguistics, Volume 40, Number 2. June 2012. 137-171.
• "Woman to Woman: Building Solidarity in African American Female Comedy. English World-Wide Volume 32, 3, Fall 2011. 309-337.
• "Middle Class African Americans: Reactions and Attitudes toward African American English.” American Speech, Vol. 83, Summer 2008.
• "An ay for an ah: Language of Survival in African American Narrative Comedy," American Speech, Vol. 82, Spring 2007.

Online Publications

• “Blackface Lays Bare Hidden White Male Anxieties.” 2019. Medium.com.
• “N Word: Looking at the Bad to Understand the Good.” 2019. Medium.com.
• “The N Word Question.” Sociolinguists.com. Audio.

Work in Progress

• Linguistic practices of the African-American middle-class
• Establishing tests to identify instances of linguistic profiling