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Christopher V. Odato

Ph.D. Student in Linguistics
Rackham Predoctoral Fellowship

Christopher grew up in Braintree, VT, and a received a B.A. in Linguistic Anthropology from Brown University in 2000. Before entering graduate school he taught for three years in an alternative learning program for special needs high school students.  His research seeks to understand how speakers integrate knowledge of formal properties of language (e.g., rules governing how words are combined to form grammatical sentences) and systems of social knowledge in order to effectively use language to negotiate a social world. In Christopher’s dissertation, he explores the relationship between these two types of knowledge through the example of children’s acquisition of innovative forms of the English word ‘like’.

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