Morgan Williams

Current Program: MA in ALDS

My academic journey began at Carleton, where I completed a BA in ALDS with minors in American Sign Language and Spanish. Throughout my studies, I explored topics such as discourse analysis, forensic linguistics, and sociolinguistics. Working as a research assistant under both Dr. Rachelle Vessey and Dr. Eva Kartchava in my fourth year further solidified my desire to pursue further education and conduct research in this field.

I’m particularly interested in analyzing the language of sexual violence policies at Ontario’s public universities. Aiming to explore how sexual violence is portrayed and how agency and responsibility are emphasized or obscured in these policies, I plan to draw on tools from critical discourse analysis, systemic functional linguistics, and corpus linguistics. Ultimately, I hope to contribute to the development of more effective and supportive sexual violence policies at post-secondary institutions.

Area(s) of Interest:

• critical discourse analysis
• corpus linguistics
• systemic functional linguistics
• policy language