Noah Betz-Richman

Noah Betz-Richman teaches courses on logic, philosophy of language, and metaphysics. His courses aim to connect foundational philosophical arguments and theories with contemporary issues of personal, social, and political significance.

In his research, Betz-Richman focuses on the philosophy of language, concentrating especially on social meaning: how speech represents and shapes the social world. Betz-Richman investigates phenomena including sociolinguistic variation, slang, register, honorifics, dogwhistles, nicknames, and personal titles, to explore how speakers use language to assign social status and position themselves in the social landscape. He is also interested in linguistic context-sensitivity and the philosophy of lying.

Betz-Richman received his doctorate in philosophy from Columbia University. His dissertation focused on style shifting: how speakers use different sounds (‘working’ vs. ‘workin’), words (‘sweat’ vs. ‘perspire’), and syntactic structures (‘there aren’t any bagels’ vs. ‘ain’t no bagels’) to express social information as they move between social interactions.

“Stylistic variation, convention, and linguistic prejudice.” Journal of the American Philosophical Association, forthcoming.

“Lying, hedging, and the norms of assertion.” Synthese 200, no. 2 (2022): 1–21.