Carol Myers-Scotton

Carol Myers-Scotton (born 1934) was a Distinguished Professor Emerita in the Linguistics Program and Department of English at the University of South Carolina until 2003 and is now an adjunct professor in the Department of Linguistics and Languages at Michigan State University, and also a visiting scholar at the MSU African Studies Center.

She received her A.B. from Grinnell College in 1955, and her M.A. in English in 1961 and Ph.D. in linguistics in 1967, both from the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

Myers-Scotton has authored or coauthored over 100 articles and book chapters in linguistics, primarily in the areas of contact linguistics, sociopragmatics, bilingualism and African linguistics. Much of her attention has been spent explaining the social and cognitive aspects of code-switching and bilingualism. In addition to her numerous articles, she has also published six books, including Contact Linguistics (2002) and Multiple Voices (2006).

Myers-Scotton has received many grants and honors, including a 1983 Fulbright grant to study language use patterns in Kenya and Zimbabwe, a 1994-1997 National Science Foundation grant to study grammatical constraints on code switching (with Co-PI Jan Jake), and a 2004-2005 National Science Foundation grant to test a hypothesis about the grammatical aspects of the abruptness of language shift. Specifically, the study dealt with Xhosa-English bilinguals in Gauteng Province in South Africa around Pretoria and Johannesburg.

She resided in Columbia, South Carolina until 2003, where she was Carolina Distinguished Professor at the University of South Carolina in the Linguistics Program and Department of English. She currently resides in Michigan, where she is an adjunct professor in the Department of Linguistics and Languages at Michigan State University, and also a visiting scholar at the MSU African Studies Center. She continues her research and writing.