Keith Walters

Keith Walters will be teaching a course on the sociolinguistics of the Arab world and assisting Ed Finegan in a course on forensic linguistics. Keith first went to the Arab world in 1975 as a Peace Corps volunteer, teaching English as a foreign language in a small Tunisian town, and he’s been going back to the region ever since. While much of his research has focused on Tunisia, he has also lectured and trained EFL teachers in Morocco, Egypt, and the West Bank and had the privilege of working with students at all levels from across the region. His publications on Arabic include work on sociolinguistic variation, language and gender, diglossia, diglossic switching, Arabic/French codeswitching, Jewish and Muslim girls’ access to education and literacy, the New Media, language and identity, language attitudes and ideologies, and communal dialects, as well as language and nationalism. He has served as an expert witness chiefly in cases involving libel, medical malpractice, language assessment and the Miranda Rights, and what are termed Speak English only in the workplace rules. Among those for whom he served as an expert linguist is the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.