I'm a data scientist specializing in NLP, currently helping dogs live their best lives at The Farmer's Dog. I received my Ph.D. in Linguistics from the University of Pennsylvania, where my advisor was William Labov. My doctoral research focused on language variation and change.
The role of higher education in linguistic change
My dissertation research explores the interaction between higher education and linguistic change. I used quantitative corpus-based methods to model the role of education in dialect changes in progress in Philadelphia and Raleigh. The full text of the dissertation may be found here.
Publications
Prichard, Hilary. (2016). The role of higher education in linguistic change. PhD diss., University of Pennsylvania.
Prichard, Hilary. (2015). The Great Vowel Shift in the North of England. In Raymond Hickey, ed. Researching Northern English, 51-70. John Benjamins, Amsterdam.
Prichard, Hilary. (2014). Northern dialect evidence for the chronology of the Great Vowel Shift. Journal of Linguistic Geography 2.2, 87-102. [PDF]
Prichard, Hilary and Kobey Shwayder. (2014). Against a split phonology of Michif. University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics 20.1.
Prichard, Hilary and Meredith Tamminga. (2012). The impact of higher education on local phonology. University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics 18.2.
Prichard, Hilary. (2010). Linguistic Variation and Change in Atlanta, Georgia. University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics 16.2.
Selected Presentations
AI for Recruiting: Creating a More Meaningful Chatbot Conversation. Invited speaker for the NYU Tandon Future Labs session at The AI Summit, New York, December 2018.
Panellist at the Penn Linguistics Career Development Series: Jobs Outside of Academia, Philadelphia, April 2017.
Panellist at the WICT Philadelphia Big Data Event: Driving Business Strategy, Philadelphia, May 2016.
Quantifying cronuts: Predicting the quality of blends. Paper presented with Constantine Lignos at the LSA Annual Meeting, Portland, January 2015. [Abstract] [Slides] [TIME Magazine article]
A systematic partition of the speech community: Short-a in Philadelphia. Poster presented with W. Labov, S. Fisher, A. Henderson, and B. Sneller at the LSA Annual Meeting, Portland, January 2015.
The apple doesn't fall far from the tree: incremental change in Philadelphia families. Paper presented with Sabriya Fisher and Betsy Sneller at NWAV 43, Chicago, October 2014. [Abstract] [Slides]
Educational attainment and the actuation of sound change. Paper presented at the LSA Annual Meeting, Minneapolis, January 2014. [Abstract] [Slides]
Measures of education and participation in regional sound change. Paper presented with Kyle Gorman at the LSA Annual Meeting, Minneapolis, January 2014. [Abstract] [Slides]
Where education and salience meet, local dialects retreat. Paper presented with Robin Dodsworth at NWAV 42, Pittsburgh, October 2013. [Abstract] [Slides]
Against a split phonology of Michif. Paper presented with Kobey Shwayder at PLC 37, University of Pennsylvania 2013. [Abstract] [Slides]
Northern dialect evidence for the chronology of the Great Vowel Shift. Paper presented at NWAV 41, Indiana University, 2012. [Abstract] [Slides]
The Impact of Higher Education on Local Phonology. Paper presented with Meredith Tamminga at NWAV 40, Georgetown University, 2011. [Slides]
Other Projects
* R mapping tutorial * Tools for using PNC data