This year, the Ohio State University’s Department of Linguistics regretfully announces the retirement of Professor Don Winford, a globally preeminent scholar whose work has shaped the study of sociolinguistics, language contact, and creole languages, and also shaped the development of our department.
Don was both a pioneer of new areas and a developer of existing theories from early on. His early work as a PhD student, published in 1972, served as one of the first investigations of vocalic sociophonetics in the Caribbean. This was a very early and quite important application of the Labovian quantitative sociolinguistic framework; Don’s work before long would see such early applications of models by valuable critical assessment of issues at play within them. Crowning the host of widely recognized journal articles and book chapters he produced are his book publications. These exemplify his aptitude to produce works that would become reference material both at a fine-grained level, as in his intricate works on Caribbean creole structures, and at a global theoretic level, as seen in his seminal An Introduction to Contact Linguistics.
In a recently released book on language contact, Social and structural aspects of language contact and change, the editors draw attention in the first chapter to an array of theoretical contributions Don has given the field. Don helped bring quantitative sociolinguistics into morphosyntax, being especially known for his work on Creole TMA systems. His approaches in this area served as the basis for much later work, and he played a special role, the authors note, in demystifying Creole TMA systems and bringing analytical frameworks concerning them into line with those used for other languages. Less known, yet still quite important, has been his work on other areas of creolistics, such as complementation and copulas. The two prominent creolists who curated the volume also emphasized his role in World Englishes research and his editorial work, including over two decades of service as an editor for the Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages.
The two prominent creolists alluded to above are Bettina Migge and Shelome Gooden, and they know Don well: they are among the various influential scholars who were advised by Don as PhD students. Reflecting on Don’s role in the field in terms of both scholarship and mentorship, the two emphasize “his tireless and proactive research, both individual and collaborative, and mentoring of a broad range of scholars,” arguing that, “[Don] being very humble about his work, the significance of Don’s contribution and the breadth and depth of his knowledge is often at least in part underestimated and requires far more attention than it currently has. Don’s work charts important research agendas and avenues that remain to be further explored”.
Don’s importance in shaping these areas of study stands beside his pivotal role in the history of our department. When Don arrived in 1988, our program’s sociolinguistics aspect consisted of a single course and was not particularly of note. In contrast, the writer of this article must remark that when considering going here for a PhD, both the research and courses in the area were clearly well-esteemed, with “Don’s contact course” (as it is usually called) particularly highly regarded by the student body. Taking the class itself a year later, it exceeded these high expectations; as a teacher, Don spurred vigorous participation by students, and stoked interest for many in hitherto unconsidered areas.
Thus, in 2023, Don leaves the department with a pillar of strength for the department. This pillar has attracted interest and people in our department to his fields of study, and attracted people in his fields of study to our department, further consolidating the department’s strength in the area. Kathryn Campbell-Kibler, a prominent sociolinguist and member of our department since 2007, remarked that before she even began her PhD program, “Don’s work was an inspiration for me… for comprehensive, detailed and careful empirical work… having Don as a colleague was one of the most exciting aspects of coming here. And rightly so, as it turned out.”
The same excitement that Kathryn felt about joining a department with Don in it was felt in the department when it welcomed Don nearly two decades earlier. Don was hired in 1988, at the same time as Bob Levine and Craig Roberts. Brian Joseph, an already established faculty member at the time, recalls that “it was seen by all involved as a real coup to be able to bring in such a prominent sociolinguist.”
Don did not fall short of these high expectations, Brian noted, noting that alongside his scholarly accomplishments, and that Don had trained “large number of alums who rank among our most successful Ph.D.s”. Aside from the aforementioned Professors Migge and Gooden, a few others include: Robin Dodsworth, a prominent sociolinguist; Tracey Weldon, an important scholar of African American English; Ila Nagar, now a professor at OSU herself, bringing sociolinguistic perspectives beyond linguistics. Don’s other accomplished students found his guidance helpful in application to languages as diffuse as Mam Mayan and Korean. In correspondence, Shelome Gooden remarked that she felt “blessed to have had Don Winford as a mentor… his insight was not only invaluable, but literally career marking.”
While everyone who contributed to this article mentioned Don’s accomplishments as a scholar and mentor, his personality usually came up too. Brian remarked that he always enjoyed interactions with Don, from which he had learned much about contact and sociolinguistics from Don. Ila Nagar emphasized that Don was not only her mentor whose patience and guidance helped her navigate her academic interests even long after they diverged from his, but also a trusted friend as she adjusted to academia and life in a new country.
Don will be missed greatly in the department; his retirement is surely a loss but it is far beyond well earned. We will honor his three and a half decades of superb work here by continuing to build upon his legacy.
