John R. Rickford

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John Russell Rickford (born in Guyana) is the Martin Luther King, Jr. Centennial Professor at Stanford University's Department of Linguistics, where he has taught since 1980. His research focuses primarily on language variation, a type of quantitative sociolinguistics. His specialty is African American Vernacular English, also known as Ebonics, which garnered national attention in the U.S. when the Oakland, California school board recognized the variety as an official dialect of English and educated teachers in its use. Rickford has researched and written extensively on the topic and was an outspoken supporter of the decision. He is also the Vice-President of the Society for Caribbean Linguistics.

[edit] Publications

• Dimensions of a Creole Continuum, Stanford (1987): Stanford University Press.
• African American Vernacular English: Features and Use, Evolution, and Educational Implications, Oxford (1999): Blackwell.
• Spoken Soul: The Story of Black English (with Russell J. Rickford), New York (2000): John Wiley.

[edit] External links

• Profile at Stanford University