Research

My research critically questions how those othered by race and gender respond to categories using semiotic resources such as sounds, words, and the body, and the limits and affordances of these discursive practices.

As you'll see below, my current research projects consider the relationship between gender, race, and language for Black nonbinary speakers; how trans studies can better inform sociolinguistics and vice versa; and the role of perception for marginalized language users.

I engage with seemingly disparate theories and methods emerging from sociolinguistics, linguistic anthropology, psycholinguistics, and phonetics, to critical theory, trans and gender studies, philosophy, and more to interpret trans and nonbinary language.

Link to my Google Scholar homepage

Current projects

Semiotics of nonbinary identity

How does an identity primarily based in self-identification function in the material world? How do power and oppression shift indexical meaning for multiply marginalized individuals?

I analyze discourses emerging from my fieldwork and from social media to discuss the role of the embodiment in construction nonbinary identity, considering how language, race, clothing, and more come to play in construction of nonbinary identity.

Talks & papers

Paper:

Steele, Ariana. 2025. Indexicality, power, and hegemony: The case for indexical resistance. In Battlefield Linguistics: Queer, Trans, and Feminist Interventions in Linguistic and Discursive Change, eds. Scott Burnett and Francesca Vigo. De Gruyter (p. 47-66) [Link to access]

Dissertation:

Steele, Ariana. 2024. The sociolinguistic construction of gender non-conformity under hegemony: Nonbinarity, Blackness, and the possibilities of resistance [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. [Link to access]

Talks:

Steele, Ariana. 2026. “Nonbinary can be anything really:” The implications of self-identificatory discourses and nonbinary asubjectivity. Presented at Big Ten Trans Studies Symposium, Urbana-Champaign, IL, USA.

Steele, Ariana. 2026. Are you clocking my nonbinary tea? Plenary talk for Graduates in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Annual Conference, Pennsylvania State University.

Steele, Ariana. 2025. Gender non-conformity amongst concerns about safety: Nonbinary stylization, embodiment, and the confines of anti-Blackness. Presented at the International Gender and Language Association Biannual Conference, Montevideo, Uruguay.

Steele, Ariana. 2023. Liberation under hegemony: Nonbinary ideologies of gender subversion and the racialization of it all. In Steele, A. & Raclaw, J. (Chairs), Trans Linguistic Logics: Spatial and Embodied Epistemologies Across Modalities. Panel conducted at the American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting, Toronto, Canada.

Steele, Ariana. 2019. Genderless, genderfuck, and everything in between: Racialized style and queer visibility among non-binary speakers in Columbus, Ohio, USA. Presented at Lavender Languages & Linguistics Conference, Gothenburg, Sweden.

Sociophonetics of Black nonbinary speech

I incorporate analyses of oppression and resistance as I consider how Black and white nonbinary speakers use language, particularly the linguistic variable /s/, to construct nonbinary gender identities. This work fuses quantitative sociolinguistic work with critical analyses of power, resistance, anti-Blackness, and transphobia.

Interested in working with the data I've used for these projects? Check out my upcoming Nonbinary & Black Corpus!

Talks & papers

Papers:

Steele, Ariana. 2022. Enacting new worlds of gender: Nonbinary speakers, racialized gender, and anti-colonialism. In The Oxford Handbook of Language and Sexuality, ed. Kira Hall and Rusty Barrett. Oxford: Oxford University Press. [Link to access]

Theses:

Steele, Ariana. 2019. Non-binary speech, race, and non-normative gender: Sociolinguistic style beyond the binary [Masters thesis, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. [Link to access]

Talks:

Steele, Ariana. 2022. Intersectionality of social meaning: Race, gender, and /s/ perception. Presented at New Ways of Analyzing Variation, San Jose, CA, USA.

Steele, Ariana. 2022. Can we mitigate stereotypes through speech? Sociophonetic perception of /s/ amongst Black and white nonbinary talkers. Presented at Lavender Languages & Linguistics Conference, Catania, Italy.

Steele, Ariana. 2018. Stylistic practice and linguistic differentiation for non-binary speakers in Columbus, Ohio. Presented at the International Gender and Language Association Biannual Conference, Gaborone, Botswana.

Putting the 'trans' in (applied) linguistics

Trans epistemology has a lot to offer (applied) linguistics, and yet few have explored in depth the ways in which transness is generative of the stakes in modern sociolinguistics and other critical language studies. In this stream of research, I integrate trans studies and sociolinguistics to push forward both fields of study.

With the reading and research group I direct, Trans & Queer Terrains Lab, we discuss questions like: What is the role of boundaries, normativities, and lived experience in the study of language? What can transness - when taken seriously and grounded in trans epistemologies - tell us about these aspects of language in use?

Talks

Panels:

Translanguaging with(out) trans people: Exploring translanguaging through trans studies (Organizer), Panel organized with Yi-Fan Li, Hannah Lukow, Julian Canjura, and Jung In Lee for American Association for Applied Linguistics Conference, Chicago, IL.

Talks:

Steele, Ariana. 2026. Ethics of transing translanguaging. In Steele, A. et al. (Chairs), Translanguaging with(out) trans people: Exploring translanguaging through trans studies. Presented at American Association for Applied Linguistics Conference, Chicago, IL, USA.

Steele, Ariana. 2026. On self-identification in language and identity research: Bringing Black trans feminism to the fore. Presented at the Linguistics Society of American annual meeting, New Orleans, Louisiana.

Steele, Ariana, Yi-Fan Li and Julian Canjura. 2025. Putting the 'trans' in translingualism: A conversation. Presented to Weiss Humanities Symposium, Pennsylvania State University.

Steele, Ariana. 2025. What and why a trans (applied) linguistics: Trans epistemologies in language research. Presented to the Department of Applied Linguistics, Pennsylvania State University.

Steele, Ariana. 2024. Sociolinguistics and indexicality as tools for trans resistance. Presented at the 2nd International Trans Studies Conference, Chicago, Illinois.

Perception & subjectivity amongst trans speakers

How is trans subjectivity in meaning-making conditioned by the transphobic world?

I advocate for an approach in sociolinguistics that centers community-based gender epistemologies in interpreting social meaning, as well as theorizing the cisgender listening subject as a hegemonic perceiver of trans people. Much of my early thinking on this work emerged from working with J Calder.

Talks & papers

Papers:

Steele, Ariana. 2025. Perception is political: The production-perception interface as a contested site of power and legibility. Journal of Sociolinguistics 29(5), 367-370. [Link to access]

Calder, J and Ariana Steele. 2025. Interrogating the cisgender listening subject in the study of trans voices. Gender & Language 18(3). [Link to access]

Talks:

Steele, Ariana. 2025. Queer linguistics at the edge: Production, perception, and agency. Invited talk presented to the Linguistics Society of Iceland, University of Iceland, Reykjavík, Iceland.

Calder, J and Ariana Steele. 2019. Gender in sociolinguistic variation beyond the binary. Paper presented at the Linguistic Society of America annual meeting. New York, NY.

Rhythm in Haitian Creole

Nandi Sims and I are measuring prosodic rhythm in Haitian Creole to develop a documentation of rhythm in the language.

Talks

Talks:

Sims, Nandi & Ariana Steele. 2026. Prosodic Rhythm in Haitian Creole. Summer Conference of the Society for Pidgin and Creole Linguistics.

Past projects

Reverse linguistic stereotyping of African American English

When we speak to a person, our perceptions of their speech are modulated by social things about them such as their race.

Using a matched guise study as the basis for my undergraduate thesis, I investigated how listeners' experience with and stereotypes about Black talkers influenced their perception of the diphthong /ai/.

Presentation:

2016. The sociophonetics of Blackness. Presented at the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship Research Forum, Evanston, IL.

Thesis:

Steele, Ariana. 2016. Reverse linguistic stereotyping of a race-based dialect [Unpublished undergraduate thesis]. Northwestern University.

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