Christina Esposito

Christina Esposito is a Professor of Linguistics at Macalester College, where her research focuses on the intersection of phonetics and laboratory phonology. Her primary expertise lies in the acoustic and articulatory properties of voice quality (phonation), particularly how it is used contrastively in the world’s languages to distinguish meaning.

Dr. Esposito’s research spans several language families, including Hmong-Mien, Tibeto-Burman, and Oto-Manguean. Her research often investigates how non-modal phonation types, such as breathy or creaky voice, interact with other phonetic features like pitch and vowel quality. Her scholarship has appeared in leading journals such as the Journal of Phonetics, Journal of the International Phonetic Association, and Language.

Beyond her research, Dr. Esposito is a dedicated educator and advocate for undergraduate research. She regularly involves students in her research as co-authors.  She holds a Ph.D. in Linguistics from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).

Selected work co-authored with students:

(Students indicated with an *)

Esposito, Christina M., Faith Moua*,  John Esh, & Nelson Mondale* Minnesota Hmong Folktales Macalester College Digital Scholarship | hmong-mn-folktales.macalester.digital

Glass*, Ethan, Kevin Schäfer*, Christina Esposito, Rowan Stephenson*, Sidney

Langford*, Ani Gribbin*, Cristina Suarez, Lopez*, Amarah Friedman*, Jamie Ringel*, Finnigan Lewis*, Xavier Webber*, Amelia Tate*, Iris Koppenheffer*, Miles Libbey* & Andrew Cotton*  2025 Vectorizing kinds of participants: variation in voice quality.  Presentation at the 53rd meeting of New Ways of Analyzing Variance (NWAV)

Esposito, Christina M., Kevin Schäfer*, & S.D. Khan. 2023. Phonation and aging in White Hmong. Proceedings of the International Congress of Phonetic Sciences 20, 2050-4.

Esposito, Christina M., SD Khan, Kelly Harper Berkson, & Max Nelson. 2019. Distinguishing breathy consonants and vowels in Gujarati. Journal of South Asian Languages and Linguistics 6(2) 215-243. 

​Esposito, C., M. Sleeper*, & K. Schäfer*. (2019.). Examining the relationship between vowel quality and voice quality. Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 1-32.

Esposito, C.M., S.D. Khan, K. Berkson, & M. Nelson*. (2019).   Distinguishing breathy consonants  and vowels in Gujarati. In Sasha Calhoun, Paola Escudero, Marija Tabain & Paul Warren (eds.) Proceedings of the 19th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences, Melbourne, Australia 2019. Canberra, Australia: Australasian Speech Science and Technology Association Inc.

Elkins*, N., C.M. Esposito, & E. Reyes Herrera*. (2019). The Phonetics of Anyuak Vowels. In Sasha Calhoun, Paola Escudero, Marija Tabain & Paul Warren (eds.) Proceedings of the 19th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences, Melbourne, Australia 2019. Canberra, Australia: Australasian Speech Science and Technology Association Inc.

Webpage: https://cmesposito.wixsite.com/cmesposito