Texas German Dialect Project

TGDP

Dedicated to the Preservation of Texas German

Ransom-Laud, Sarah — Research Assistant

Sarah completed her MA in the Linguistics department at UT Austin in 2026, with a thesis exploring the temporal effects of musical rhythm on the vowels in sung Estonian folksongs. She is interested in corpus linguistics, poetics, phonetics, computation, language contact, the interface of language and music, and the role of folksongs in language preservation. She is engaged with various community organizations centered around language and literacy. When not teaching or doing research, she spends her time writing songs and performing in local venues.

Active with the TGDP: Around 2009-2010

PhD in Linguistics (UT Austin)

Alena’s academic interests include the phonology of glossolalia as well as the interaction of musical elements and lyrics in country music. She enjoys crafts and polka music. As a fifth-generation Texas-Czech, Alena has a keen awareness of the need to preserve the dialects spoken by Texans in their mother tongues.

Marc is an associate professor of Germanic linguistics at UT Austin. His research focuses on historical linguistics, phonology, and the history of linguistics. He first became interested in Texas German during a stint as a visiting assistant professor at UT in 2005-06, and is looking forward to investigating it more intensively. He plans to focus on the history and phonology of Texas German.

TGDP publishes its 11th annual newsletter. Click here to download the newsletter.

TGDP publication: Boas, Hans C. & Steffen Hoeder (eds.). 2018. Constructions in Contact. Constructional perspectives on contact phenomena in Germanic languages.Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. vi+316pp.

TGDP publication: Blevins, Margo. 2018. Towards a constructional analysis of the progressive aspect in Texas German. In: Boas, Hans C. & Steffen Hoeder (eds.). Constructions in Contact. Constructional perspectives on contact phenomena in Germanic languages.Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. 73-114.

TGDP publication: Boas, Hans C. 2018. A constructional account of the modal particle ‘ja’ in Texas German. In: Boas, Hans C. & Steffen Hoeder (eds.), Constructions in Contact. Constructional perspectives on contact phenomena in Germanic languages.Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. 253-276.

TGDP publication: Boas, Hans C. & Steffen Hoeder. 2018. Construction Grammar and language contact: An Introduction In: Boas, Hans C. & Steffen Hoeder (eds.), Constructions in Contact. Constructional perspectives on contact phenomena in Germanic languages.Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. 5-36.

TGDP publication: Dux, Ryan. 2018. Texas German word order constructions in contact. In: Boas, Hans C. & Steffen Hoeder (eds.), Constructions in Contact. Constructional perspectives on contact phenomena in Germanic languages.Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. 211-249.

Call for papers posted for German Abroad 3 conference at the University of Erfurt, Germany, March 2018. Consider submitting an abstract!

TGDP publishes its 7th annual newsletter.

http://tgdp.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Newsletter2014.pdf

New TGDP publication: Boas, Hans C., Pierce, Marc, and Collin L. Brown. 2014. “On the variability of Texas German wo as a complementizer.” In:STUF – Language Typology and Universals 67(4), 589-611. [ PDF ]

On October 25, 2014, the Texas German Dialect Project hosted a public outreach event at Rudi Lechner’s restaurant in Houston. The goal was to connect to Houston area supporters of the TGDP. We had a very successful event, with speeches by Hans Boas, Jim Kearney, and Rod Koenig. A total of 30 people attended.

Sandy Schwalen joins the TGDP as an undergraduate research assistant.

TGDP presentation at the Eighth International Conference on Construction Grammar at the University of Osnabrueck, Germany: “Introduction to Construction Grammar and Language Contact”. (Hans C. Boas and Steffen Hoeder)

TGDP presentation at the Eighth International Conference on Construction Grammar at the University of Osnabrueck, Germany: “A constructional account of progressive aspect in Texas German”. (Margo Blevins)

TGDP presentation at the Eighth International Conference on Construction Grammar at the University of Osnabrueck, Germany: “The effects of verb borrowing in V2 word order in Texas German”. (Ryan Dux)

New TGDP publication by Jim Kearney:“European Immigrant History in the 19th Century,” in:  Bruce Glasrud, et al, eds., Discovering Texas History, (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, September 2014).

TGDP presentation by Jim Kearney:September 7, 2014, Bob Bullock Museum, Austin, TX “Medevac in Vietnam: A personal perspective.”

TGDP presentation at the conference German abroad – variationist, language contact, and multilingualism research perspectives.    University of Vienna, Austria: “Variation im Texas Deutschen: Interne und Externe Faktoren (‘Variation in Texas German: Internal and External Factors’)”. (Hans C. Boas)

TGDP presentation at Sociolinguistics Symposium 20, University of Jyväskylä, Finland: “Social networks and lexical borrowing in new Braunfels German”. (Marc Pierce and Hans C. Boas)

TGDP presentation at the Conference on the Border of Language and Dialect, University of Joensuu, Finland: “The for … zu construction in Texas German”. (Hans C. Boas and Marc Pierce)

TGDP presentation by Jim Kearney:June 14, 2014, Goethe Center, Dallas, TX  “Adelsverein in Texas.”

TGDP alumn Dr. Karen Roesch (UT Austin, 2009) accepts a job offer to join the Indiana University – Purdue University faculty at Indianapolis as Assistant Professor, Hoyt-Reichmann Scholar of German-American Studies, and Director of the Max Kade German American Resource Center as of August 1, 2014. Congratulations Karen!

The TGDP is featured in a radio show by the “Deutschlandfunk” (National German Radio).

http://www.deutschlandfunk.de/usa-auf-den-spuren-von-german-texas.1242.de.html?dram:article_id=285719#

James Kearney receives the Gillespie County Historical Society Award of Merit. Fredericksburg, TX.

TGDP presentation at the Workshop Germanic Genitives,Free University, Berlin, Germany: “The genitive in Texas German: Leveling, accommodation, and the influence of Standard German”. (Hans C. Boas, Marc Pierce, Ryan Dux, and Adams LaBorde).