Elaine Chaika (1934–2016)

Elaine O. Chaika was born in Milford, Massachusetts, and grew up in Providence, Rhode Island. She graduated from Rhode Island College in 1960 and earned a master’s degree in English in 1965 and a doctorate in linguistics in 1972 from Brown University.
In 1971, she was among the first group of women to teach at Providence College and became the first to achieve the rank of professor there in 1980. She was an expert in linguistics and widely respected for her research and writing in the science of language, particularly schizophrenic speech. Throughout her career, she presented papers and contributed scholarly writings in journals and elsewhere.
She wrote six books, including her textbook Language: the Social Mirror (1982, revised several times) her most influential publication and often used in classrooms. She also wrote a non-academic title, Humans, Dogs, and Civilization (2015), which combined her experiences, observations, and research on the evolution of dogs. Dr. Chaika was a member of the Linguistic Society of America, the American Dialect Society, and the New England Child Language Association. She was married to William Y. Chaika, a lawyer, with whom she had three children.