Rate My Professor Sonja Lanehart

Lanehart's research specializations include African American Language encompassing discourse, education, identity, and social justice activism; sociolinguistics with critical discourse analysis, critical race theory, and critical sociolinguistics; history of the English language, varieties of English, and African American Vernacular English; and language, ethnicity, identity, culture, society, variation, and change. Key publications feature the edited The Oxford Handbook of African American Language (Oxford University Press, 2015), Sista, Speak! Black Women Kinfolk Talk about Language and Literacy (University of Texas Press, 2002), African American Women’s Language: Discourse, Education, and Identity (Cambridge Scholars Press, 2009), and Sociocultural and Historical Contexts of African American English (John Benjamins, 2001). Other contributions include chapters such as “African American Language and Identity: Contradictions and Conundrums” (2015) and the article “Diversity and Intersectionality” (Texas Linguistic Forum, 2009). During her UTSA tenure, she received the Richard S. Howe Excellence in Service to Undergraduate Students Award (2019), President’s Distinguished Diversity Award—Group (2019, 2016), Top-Performing Faculty Award (2016), and Outstanding Faculty Award (2013). Her scholarship has profoundly influenced sociolinguistics by advocating diverse, inclusive, intersectional methodologies.