In April 2024 I received my PhD from the department of linguistics at the University of Pittsburgh. I completed a concentration in sociolinguistics and earned a graduate certificate in East European studies. I’m interested in language and identity, political and nationalist discourse, language policy, production of language ideologies, semiotic processes of meaning-making, language and the internet, and discourse pragmatics. I have recently begun to explore the world of digital humanities and open-source information analysis.
From Spring 2019 to Spring 2023, I also served as the president and business manager for the Graduate Organization for the Study of Europe and Central Asia (GOSECA), the graduate wing of the Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies Center (REEES), which organizes cultural events, film screenings, and social events, as well as an annual graduate student conference for students in all fields studying Russia, Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and the former Soviet Union. Check out the website here
I have recently defended my dissertation on the construction and circulation of linguistic nationalism and state identity in Montenegro, a beautiful Balkan country on the Adriatic.
Dissertation topic:
Constructing Montenegrin Identities Online through Language Ideology and Semiotic Differentiation
Dissertation committee:
Dr. Scott F. Kiesling, Dr. Karen E. Park, Dr. Ljiljana Đurašković, Dr. Brian D. Joseph, Dr. Kate Stanton, Dr. Dan Villarreal
Brief summary of dissertation:
This project focuses on the Montenegrin national language variant, analyzing marked graphemes, emoji usage, and metapragmatic discourse using social media data from Reddit and Twitter. The study highlights the local tension between Montenegro-aligned Montenegrins and Serbia-aligned Montenegrins and contributes to discourses of language and identity in the Balkans through a semiotic framework.
Feel free to contact me at: joseph.patrick@pitt.edu or through any of the sites below:
