Walt Wolfram

Walt Wolfram ( ; born February 15, 1941) is an American sociolinguist specializing in social and ethnic dialects of American English. He was one of the early pioneers in the study of urban African American English through his work in Detroit in 1969. He is the William C. Friday Distinguished University Professor at North Carolina State University.

Since the 1960s, Wolfram has authored or co-authored more than 20 books and more than 300 articles on variation in American English. He was an active participant in the 1996 debate surrounding the Oakland Ebonics controversy, supporting the legitimacy of African American English as a systematic language system. In addition to African American English, Wolfram has written extensively about Appalachian English, Puerto Rican English, Lumbee English, and many other dialects of North Carolina, particularly those of rural, isolated communities such as Ocracoke Island.

Biography Walt Wolfram was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1941. His parents were German immigrants. He attended Olney High School, where he played baseball, basketball, and football, graduating in 1959. He received his B.A. in anthropology (Greek) in 1963 from Wheaton College, where he played football and basketball. Wolfram is a former president of the Linguistic Society of America as well as of the American Dialect Society.

Linguistics and the public

Linguistic gratuity In 1993, Wolfram formulated the principle of linguistic gratuity, which states that "investigators who have obtained linguistic data from members of a speech community should actively pursue ways in which they can return linguistic favors to the community". In 2008, he and co-authors outlined venues for engaging in linguistic gratuity, including "video documentaries, oral history CDs, museum exhibits, formal curricular programs, and popular trade books on language differences," venues through which Wolfram himself has engaged in collaborative engagement via the Language and Life Project .

Language and Life Project Wolfram directs the Language and Life Project, a nonprofit at North Carolina State University dedicated to documenting and celebrating language diversity through public means. He established the Language and Life Project in 1993. The documentary chronicles the history of the Cherokee language in North Carolina and the efforts of the Eastern Band of Cherokee to save and preserve their endangered language. The film was awarded Best Public Service Film at the 2014 American Indian Film Festival. In 2015, PBS selected the documentary for national distribution, making it available for broadcast at member stations in 2016. In 2016, film won a regional Emmy in the documentary/cultural category at the 30th Midsouth Emmy Awards.

Also in conjunction with the Language and Life Project, Wolfram was executive producer for the documentary films Talking Black in America: The Story of African American Language (2019) and Signing Black in America: The Story of Black ASL (2020), both produced and directed by Danica Cullinan and Neal Hutcheson; as well as the Talking Black in American Project, a five-part documentary television series. Talking Black in America (2019) chronicles the history and impact of African American English. In 2020, the film won a Midsouth Regional Emmy award in the documentary/cultural category. Signing Black in America (2020) is the first documentary about Black ASL.

Talkin' Tar Heel explores regional, social, and ethnic dialects of North Carolina, drawing upon decades of research and thousands of recorded interviews with North Carolinians. The book was written for the general audience, with the goal of "shar[ing] knowledge and respect for the languages and dialects in North Carolina in a readable, audible, and visual format accessible to the public." It is first popular linguistics book to embed more than 100 video and audio clips through the use of QR codes. The book was awarded the 2014 North Caroliniana Book Award by the North Caroliniana Society.

Awards and honors In 2008, Wolfram was honored with the prestigious John Tyler Caldwell Award for the Humanities from the North Carolina Humanities Council, a statewide nonprofit affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities. In 2010, he was awarded the Linguistics, Language, and the Public Award by the Linguistic Society of America. In 2013, he was awarded the North Carolina Award, the highest award given to a North Carolina citizen. In 2019, he was inducted into the prestigious American Academy of Arts and Sciences.