Current Research

    • Brown, Joshua R. Forensic multilingualism in 19th century Pennsylvania.

    • Brown, Joshua R. Postvernacular Pennsylvania Dutch.

    • Bousquette, Joshua, Joshua R. Brown, Michael T. Putnam & Joseph Salmons. German worldwide: Variation, change, and stability. Oxford: Oxford University Press

    • Brown, Joshua R. Diachronic diversity and multilingualism in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

    • Brown, Joshua R. The language ecology of Pennsylvania Dutch material culture. Haugen re-visited: Theoretical and empirical realities of heritage communities. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.

    • Brown, Joshua R. & Angela Hoffman. Durable texts in heritage language communities.

    • Brown, Joshua R. & Nora Vosburg. Social factors in language shift. In Joshua Bousquette & Simon Pickl, Oxford handbook of the German language. Oxfrord: Oxford University Press.

    • Salmons, Joseph C. & Joshua R. Brown. Verticalization and the historical sociolinguistics of language maintenance in medieval England. In Bridget Drinka, Terttu Nevalainen, & Gijsbert Rutten (eds.), Handbook of historical sociolinguistics. De Gruyter Mouton.

    • Brown, Joshua R. Pennsylvania Dutch cemeteries as multilingual landscapes. Journal of Historical Sociolinguistics.

Research interests

  • American Studies / Material Culture Studies

    • Pennsylvania Dutch Studies: Material culture, history

    • Folk craft: Weaving techniques, gravestones, folk art and craft

  • Sociolinguistics

    • Language shift: issues, motivations, and results in heritage language communities

    • Historical sociolinguistics: heritage language ego-documents, forensic linguistics, language & religion

    • Heritage languages: permeability of the grammar in language contact, linguistic landscapes

  • Language pedagogy

    • Culturally relevant pedagogy: diversity through formal and symbolic curricula, teaching with cultural realia

    • Proficiency: Acquisition of written and oral proficiency

Faculty-student collaboration

  • 2024: Elva Crist. “An ecolinguistic analysis of toponymy in Iceland and the Northern United States”

  • 2023–2024: Kitty Stewart. “Flower cloth: Language and material culture of Hmong embroidery”

  • 2020–2023: Luca Ciletti and Katie Scherger. “Wisconsin’s heritage language ego-documents”

  • 2020: Kensie Kiesow, Stephanie Puestow, Mary Kate Schneeman, and Nikolaus Spittlemeister, . “Preserving heritage language ego-documents”

  • 2018–2019: Kylie Olson, Benjamin Peterson, and Cassandra Placketka. “Transcultural nursing care and Wisconsin’s Amish communities”

  • 2018: Rachyl Hietpas. “Postvernacular Dutch in Wisconsin”

  • 2018: Jillian Kresen and Hannah Schneeman. “Beyond the tourist’s Berlin”

  • 2017: Tristan Devick and Connor Zielinski. “Inclusive Pedagogy in the German Classroom”

  • 2016: Benjamin Carpenter and Hannah Schneeman. “Gender, class, generation, and politics of memory in Berlin”

  • 2014: Benjamin Carpenter. “Language and identity among Somalis in Barron, Wisconsin”

  • 2013–2015: Lara Steinke. “Writing Proficiency in the Second Language Classroom”

  • 2012: Kelsey Freymiller and Benjamin Gordon. “Teaching culture with soap operas”