Eliot Raynor is a Ph.D. candidate in Hispanic Linguistics. He received B.A. degrees in Linguistics and Spanish from UNC-Chapel Hill, and an M.A. in Spanish from the University of South Carolina. His dissertation examines variation and change in the Spanish of northwestern Colombia from a historical sociolinguistic perspective, focusing on the non-emergence of creoles as well as the introduction of contact features from Amerindian and West African languages. In the classroom, Eliot has developed a partnership with the Universidad de Córdoba in Montería, Colombia to provide language learners opportunities to interact with native speakers via computer-mediated communication. Outside the university, Eliot has also worked as an adult ESL instructor, an immigration paralegal, and a family counselor at an affordable housing agency, providing Spanish-English translation and interpretation.
The College of Arts