Natalie Fernsten, a BYU senior, presented her research at the Oxford Education Research Symposium in July and was the only undergraduate presenting.
Her essay, “White Ears Fix Black Lives in Place: Dialect as Power, Identity and a Barrier in James, Pudd’nhead Wilson and The Lynching of Jube Benson,” was originally a paper for her class on Mark Twain and was eventually adapted into her English Capstone project.
“Race is something that we generally see as a visual construct, but there’s also something audible about it, right? Linguistic prejudice is very much an issue in today’s world,” Fernsten said.
Her research focused on African American Vernacular English (AAVE) and how African Americans or Black individuals are stigmatized and generalized as less intelligent because of their speech patterns.
“These texts speak directly to our world today. People are still judged by how they speak, through accents, dialects and linguistic bias, showing that sound continues to shape identity in powerful ways,” she said in her essay.
This year, Fernsten was also part of the Quill Project, a multi-university collaboration on the meaning of the Constitution. She will present another piece of her work this November in Washington, D.C., and she said this all came about because of her study abroad in London during the summer of 2025.
“We had so many people interested in the program. We only took about half of the people that applied, so we turned away a bunch of great students," J. Spencer Fluhman, a co-director of the study abroad, said. "So we kind of got the cream of the crop, and Natalie was among those."
Nick Mason and Fluhman — co-directors of the study abroad — aimed to explore sacred spaces in literature and history. The study abroad was hosted at the BYU London Centre and lasted seven weeks.
“For me, Natalie stands out as a kind of poster child for what experiential learning is supposed to do at the university. Because that experience in London kind of opened her up to a much broader sense of what learning can be,” Fluhman said.
Fernsten said the connections she made during her study abroad in London are what motivated her to apply to the Oxford symposium.
“I think that study abroad made me realize I can do more than school. I need to look bigger outside of what I can actually do on campus … if I knew all the things I would’ve done here a year ago, I wouldn’t have believed myself,” Fernsten said.
Although the experience was intimidating, Fernsten said the only way growth happens is by going out and doing things that make her uncomfortable.
“It’s really been within this last year that all of these amazing academic opportunities have come up, and I’ve just applied for things and doors have opened,” Fernsten said.
Fernsten’s research will be published following the conclusion of the symposium.