Publications
Completed
Book chapter (forthcoming): GPT-4-Trinis: Fine-tuning an LLM on the grammar of an underrepresented English variety.
My GPT-4-Trinis team is thrilled to contribute a chapter to the upcoming book, Provoking Generative AI Futures: Merging Theory and Praxis, edited by Regina Luttrell and Nick Bowman, and slated for 2026 publication by Routledge. This chapter describes strategies we used to fine-tune GPT-4o to improve (markedly) at translating between Standard English and Trinidadian English Creole.
Journal article (forthcoming): Same script, different sway: Ethnolinguistic accent hierarchies in hiring evaluations in southern Ontario.
This is the second paper from my postdoctoral work at UofT, again with Derek Denis. It is currently under revision with the Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development! This paper focuses on the full sample of 96 evaluators and is centred on a quantitative analysis.
Journal article: GPT-4-Trinis: Assessing GPT-4’s communicative competence in an underrepresented variety of English.
This paper was published in AI & Society. I'm honoured to be part of this cross-disciplinary team headed by President of Victoria University, Rhonda McEwen, and coordinated by me. In this first paper from our work (more to come!) we look at GPT-4's competence (or lack thereof) in comprehending and producing Trinidadian English Creole and what its performance means for speakers of non-dominant English varieties. Our other teammates are Zhao Zhao, Barend Beekhuizen and an impressive undergraduate research assistant, Michael Zhao. See the paper here.
Journal article: What I say or how I say it? Ethnic accents and hiring evaluations in the Greater Toronto Area.
This is the first paper published on my postdoctoral work at UofT, co-written with my supervisor, Derek Denis and published in Language! It explores accent discrimination in hiring evaluations among 48 evaluators located in the GTA. The paper is available open access here.
Book chapter (forthcoming): English and Creole in Trinidad and Tobago.
This upcoming chapter in The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of World Englishes was a serendipitous collaboration with Philipp Meer and Mirjam Schmalz. I enjoyed working with these new colleagues and conducting in-depth research on the language attitudes and sociolinguistic history and situation of my country. We're looking forward to its release!
Journal article: Acquisition during normative code-mixing: Trinidadian children’s varilingual pronoun usage.
This article in First Language explores the ways that Trinidadian preschoolers express subject, object, reflexive and possessive pronouns, since the Trinidadian context is one where children are exposed to both Trinidad and Tobago English and Trinidadian English Creole. As a result, acquisition does not proceed in the ways that we can expect from monolingual English speakers. It's available open access here.
Book chapter: Endonormative approaches to language research design in the Caribbean.
This chapter of the Routledge book Affirming Methodologies - Research and Education in the Caribbean is co-authored with my amazing colleagues Kristian Ali, Ben Braithwaite, Ryan Durgasingh and Nicha Selvon-Ramkissoon. In my section, Caribbean Language Acquisition Research: Hybridisation as Endonormative, I discuss principles that should guide Caribbean language acquisition research and optimal methods to collect such data.
In Progress
Here are current publications I’m working on:
Journal article: Speaking of immigrants: Commentary on the aural employability of non-Canadian English.
This is the third paper from my postdoctoral research at UofT, co-written with Derek Denis. We use a thematic analysis to investigate the 96 evaluators’ sense-making of what it means to be heard as employable in southern Ontario (see Ramjattan 2023).
Journal article: Adjustment, balance and belonging among newcomers engaged in remote work in Canada.
This paper analyses the tensions involved in working remotely in Canada as a newcomer. It is based on interviews with 21 newcomers residing primarily in the Greater Toronto Area and Metro Vancouver. It is being co-written with my UBC postdoc supervisor, the phenomenal Suzanne Huot.