Assistant Professor
Felicia Jean Steele received her B.A. from the University of New Mexico and her M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin. She teaches courses in introductory linguistics and the global history of the English language, as well as courses in early literatures and medievalism in British literature. Professor Steele’s main research is in historical linguistics, specifically auxiliary verb change over the history of the English language. She has also published essays in historical phonology, the uses of linguistic analysis in discussions of literary influence, the relationship between J. R. R. Tolkien’s scholarship and Seamus Heaney’s translation of Beowulf, and the teaching of the History of the English Language. She has presented her work on community engaged pedagogy and the study of American Dialects at the American Dialect Society meeting and her work on teaching Dictionary Skills at the Dictionary Society of North America Meeting. She also maintains research interests in lexicography, cognitive linguistics, medieval literature, and the literature of the Inklings, particularly J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis. She is one of the co-sponsors for Sigma Tau Delta, the English Honor Society. She serves on the national board of Sigma Tau Delta as the Eastern Regent.