Naomi Baron
Naomi S. Baron (born September 27, 1946, New York, NY) is a linguist and professor emerita of linguistics at the Department of World Languages and Cultures at American University in Washington, D.C. Education and career. Baron earned a B.A. in 1968 in English and American Literature at Brandeis University, and, in 1973, a PhD in Linguistics at Stanford University. Her dissertation is entitled, "The Evolution of English Periphrastic Causatives: Contributions to a general theory of linguistic variation and change." She taught at Brown University, the Rhode Island School of Design, Emory University, and Southwestern University before coming to  American University, where she held a position from 1987 until her retirement. Research interests. Her areas of research and interest include computer-mediated communication, writing and technology, language in social context, language acquisition and the history of English. She is also interested in language use in the computer age, instant messaging, text messaging, mobile phone practices, cross-cultural research on mobile phones, Human multitasking behavior, and Facebook online social interaction usage by American college students. She has published a number of books on these topics. Honors and Awards. She was a Guggenheim Fellow, Fulbright Fellow, and president of the Semiotic  Society of America. Her book, "Always On: Language in an Online and Mobile World", which was published in 2008, won the English-Speaking Union’s HRH The Duke of Edinburgh ESU English Language Book Award for 2008.