James M. Stratton is an assistant professor of German and Linguistics at Pennsylvania State University. He specializes in language variation and change in Germanic languages, both past and present, with a particular emphasis on lexis and discourse-pragmatics.

Karen V. Beaman is a lecturer and post-doctoral fellow in sociolinguistics at the University of Tubingen, Germany. Her research interests concern language variation, coherence, and change, with particular focus on how factors of identity, mobility, and social networks affect change.