Saint Mary's

English Language and Literature
Assistant Professor
Office: MN308
Email: marisa.brook@smu.ca

Marisa Brook is an Assistant Professor in English Language and Linguistics, cross-appointed to the Linguistics Program. She has a Ph.D. in Linguistics from the University of Toronto (2016) with a focus on sociolinguistics. Her research is centered on dialectology, mechanisms of language change, and the relationship between language and identity. After completing teaching contracts at several institutions including Michigan State University (2016-17), the University of Toronto (2018-23), and the University of Essex (2023-24), Marisa joined Saint Mary's in 2024. She teaches classes in linguistics/sociolinguistics, the history of English, language and gender and sexuality, and computer-mediated communication.

Selected Publication

Peer-reviewed Journal Articles

Naomi Nagy and Marisa Brook (in press). Constraints on speech rate: A heritage-language perspective. International Journal of Bilingualism. Preprint:  

Marisa Brook and Emily Blamire (2023). Language play is language variation: Quantitative evidence and what it implies about language change. Language, 99(3), 491-530.  

Marisa Brook (2023). As if, as though, and like in Canadian English: Register and the onset of change. English World-Wide, 44(3), 381–402.  

Marisa Brook and Sali A. Tagliamonte (2023). Subject relative who in Ontario, Canada: Change from above in a transplanted ecology. Journal of Linguistic Geography, 11(1), 25-37.  

Matt Hunt Gardner, Derek Denis, Marisa Brook, and Sali A. Tagliamonte (2021). Be like and the Constant Rate Effect: From the bottom to the top of the S-curve. English Language and Linguistics, 25(2), 281–324.  

Marisa Brook (2020). I feel like and it feels like: Two paths to the emergence of epistemic markers. Linguistics Vanguard, 6(1).  

Book Chapters
Marisa Brook (in press). Canadian English grammar. In Kingsley Bolton (ed.), Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of World Englishes. Wiley- Blackwell.

Marisa Brook (2024). Sociolinguistics in Canada. In Martin J. Ball and Rajend Mesthrie (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Sociolinguistics Around the World (second edition), 28-38. Routledge.  

Marisa Brook and Keir Moulton (2023). Locating the locative in English pseudo-locative where-relatives. In Łukasz Jędrzejowski and Carla Umbach (eds.), Non-interrogative subordinate wh-clauses (Oxford Studies in Theoretical Linguistics), 438-460. Oxford University Press.