Current Work

Roslyn is currently an independent researcher contracted by the Linguistics Department at Yale University. Her interests include:

• Slavic Linguistics

• Germanic Linguistics

• Bantu Linguistics

• Historical Linguistics

• Contact Linguistics

• Sociolinguistics

In her recent work, Roslyn has investigated questions like what is timing in sound change, what mechanisms prevent certain sound changes from happening, and how does sound change spread in contact situations with partial bilingualism.

Past Work

Her past research was primarily with different islands of the archipelago-like Low German speech community of North America. You can read her most recent article on this topic in JAPAS. The title of her dissertation is New World Mennonite Low German: An Investigation of Changes in Progress (chair: Gary Holland).

Roslyn received her Linguistics M.A. from the University of California, Berkeley in 2011 and received her Linguistics Ph.D. from UC Berkeley in 2016. As an undergrad, she attended Reed College graduating in 2008 with a B.A. in Linguistics. She studied Spanish literature and German literature alongside linguistics. Her culminating work focused on linguistic aspects of Low German speakers living in northern Mexico and the southern United States. Her undergraduate thesis is titled Gender Stability in Germanic Languages: An Investigation of Plautdietsch in North America and Ingvaeonic Languages (chair: J. Matthew Pearson).

Roslyn's other academic interests include Bantu linguistics, especially in issues related to morphology and syntax (and any interface thereof).

Other Interests

In addition to linguistic research, Roslyn has a keen interest in pedagogical methods. She has taught linguistics courses at the university level, as well a taught English as a Foreign Language (EFL) in day schools and summer schools. She has also worked with reading development programs such as Portland's SMART.