About

Eric W. Campbell is an Associate Professor of linguistics at the University of California, Santa Barbara. His research involves linguistic theory and description informed by diachronic and typological perspectives. He is a field linguist interested in all levels of linguistic structure and approaches language within its social and cultural context. His work focuses on less-studied languages, especially the Otomanguean languages spoken in Mexico, including Chatino, Zapotec, Mixtec, and Mè'phàà. Campbell's specialization encompasses typological, functional, and community-based approaches to phonology, morphology, syntax, historical linguistics, language documentation, lexical semantics, lexicography, and language and culture.

Research topics

• Computer Science
• Linguistics
• Artificial Intelligence
• Natural Language Processing
• Social Science
• Sociology
• Philosophy
• Pedagogy
• Biology
• Psychology
• Geography
• History

Selected publications

• Researcher positionality in linguistics: Lessons from undergraduate experiences in community‐centered collaborative research

  Language and Linguistics Compass · 2023 · 20 citations

  • Sociology
  • Sociology
  • Social Science

  Abstract Researcher positionality has come into focus in a number of fields, as scholars increasingly acknowledge the impact of their lived experiences and identities on all aspects of the research process. In most areas of linguistics, however, researcher positionality remains underdiscussed, even as many linguists from dominant groups conduct research on the language of subordinated groups without community self‐determination regarding the research direction and goals. While the growing emphasis on collaborative community‐centered research overcomes some inequities, another key step toward a more inclusive linguistics is the involvement of undergraduate researchers who are members of the partner community or whose backgrounds, experiences, and identities overlap with those of community members. Such undergraduate team members can contribute special insight and knowledge to the research. This article describes the role of a mostly Latinx team of undergraduate research interns in a community language maintenance survey project as part of a collaboration between a Hispanic Serving Institution and a nonprofit organization supporting the Mexican Indigenous community on California’s Central Coast. Undergraduate interns strengthened the project by drawing connections between their own linguistic experiences and those of the survey respondents, thus enabling the research team to better support community goals. The article concludes with recommendations for centering researcher positionality in linguistics in order to produce more inclusive, just, and rigorous linguistic science.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Subgrouping in a ‘dialect continuum’: A Bayesian phylogenetic analysis of the Mixtecan language family

  Journal of Language Evolution · 2023 · 12 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding
  • Computer Science
  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Natural Language Processing

  Abstract Subgrouping language varieties within dialect continua poses challenges for the application of the comparative method of historical linguistics, and similar claims have been made for the use of Bayesian phylogenetic methods. In this article, we present the first Bayesian phylogenetic analysis of the Mixtecan language family of southern Mexico and show that the method produces valuable results and new insights with respect to subgrouping beyond what the comparative method and dialect geography have provided. Our findings reveal potential new subgroups that should be further investigated. We show that some unexpected groupings raise important questions for phylogenetics and historical linguistics about the effects of different methods of primary data gathering and organization that should be considered when interpreting subgrouping results.

  DOI

• US Physicians’ Knowledge About The Americans With Disabilities Act And Accommodation Of Patients With Disability

  Health Affairs · 2022 · 110 citations

  • Political Science
  • Family medicine
  • Medicine

  More than thirty years since the enactment of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), people with disability continue to experience health care disparities. The ADA mandates that patients with disability receive reasonable accommodations. In our survey of 714 US physicians in outpatient practices, 35.8 percent reported knowing little or nothing about their legal responsibilities under the ADA, 71.2 percent answered incorrectly about who determines reasonable accommodations, 20.5 percent did not correctly identify who pays for these accommodations, and 68.4 felt that they were at risk for ADA lawsuits. Physicians who felt that lack of formal education or training was a moderate or large barrier to caring for patients with disability were more likely to report little or no knowledge of their responsibilities under the law and were more likely to believe that they were at risk for an ADA lawsuit. To achieve equitable care and social justice for patients with disability, considerable improvements are needed to educate physicians and make health care delivery systems more accessible and accommodating.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Probing phonological structure in play language: Speaking backwards in Zenzontepec Chatino

  Phonological Data and Analysis · 2020 · 3 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Computer Science
  • Linguistics
  • Psychology

  Play languages (also known as language games or ludlings) represent a special type of language use that is well known to shed useful light on linguistic structure. This paper explores a syllable transposition play language in Zenzontepec Chatino that provides evidence for the segmental inventory, syllable structure, the limits of the phonological word, the prosodic status of inflectional formatives, and the autonomy of tone, all of which aligns with independent phonological evidence in the language. While recent theoretical and cross-linguistic studies have questioned the nature, and even the validity, of constituents such as the phonological word, the syllable, and the onset, this study provides an example of a language with strongly manifested phonological constituents. Following the International Year of Indigenous Languages, the study also highlights the importance of in-depth analysis of less-studied languages for linguistic theory, typology, and language maintenance or reclamation for communities.

  DOI

Recent grants

• Maintaining Indigenous Languages within Immigrant Oaxacan Communities in the United States

  NSF · $388k · 2017–2021

Frequent coauthors

• Sandra Auderset

  University of Bern

  5 shared

• Simon J. Greenhill

  University of Auckland

  2 shared

• Griselda Reyes Basurto

  University of California, Santa Barbara

  2 shared

• Abbie Hantgan

  Langage, langues et Cultures d’Afrique Noire

  1 shared

• Katrin Erk

  1 shared

• Alexia Z. Fawcett

  University of California, Santa Barbara

  1 shared

• Mahamane L. Abdoulaye

  1 shared

• Verónica Orqueda

  Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile

  1 shared

Education

• Ph.D., Linguistics

  The University of Texas at Austin

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