I am linguistics scholar, dialect coach, and creative writer, as well as a former professor who has taught linguistics classes in the English department of Hunter College in New York City. I have taught college classes on both The Structure of Modern English and The History of the English Language. Before my time in academia, I grew up in New York City in a family deeply interested in the written and performing arts. Since childhood, I have written fiction, drama, and poetry. In college and graduate school, I studied linguistics and, while doing so, discovered that an understanding of linguistics brings many valuable skills to not only creative writers, but to scholarly writers, language learners, and accent learners. Since I started studying linguistics, I have become a better writer on both scholarly and creative projects, I have found it easier to learn new languages, I have been able to teach myself many new accents of English, and I have developed a fictional language for one of my larger creative projects. As my own skills developed under the influence of linguistics, I realized that others could benefit from linguistic knowledge as well, so now that I have earned my PhD in linguistics and taught linguistics at the college level, I share my linguistics knowledge with the general public. For each Kingsfield Linguistics course, I have stripped the traditional linguistics curriculum of anything that students don’t need and have replaced that extra material with specific instruction on how students can use linguistics knowledge to advance their practical skills.

For more information about my creative writing and academic work, visit the Kingsfield Endeavors site.

- Benjamin Shavitz, PhD (Linguistics),

Creator and Instructor of Kingsfield Linguistics,

Creative Writer,

Linguist and Former Linguistics Professor at Hunter College in New York City