CU Boulder is a leading international center for sociocultural linguistics, an interdisciplinary approach to the study of language and society that encompasses diverse methods and theoretical perspectives. Research strengths held by our faculty include linguistic anthropology, sociolinguistics, conversation analysis, sociophonetics, language, gender, and sexuality, and language shift and endangerment.
The Department currently has four tenure-track faculty members and one Postdoctoral Chancellor’s Fellow working in the area of sociocultural linguistics. Departmental offerings are strengthened by the university’s interdisciplinary program in Culture, Language, and Social Practice, which brings together faculty and students from 18 different departments and divisions across the schools of Arts & Sciences, Media, Communication and Information, and Education.
Prof. Kira Hall, Director of the CLASP program, works across the fields of linguistic anthropology and sociolinguistics. She uses ethnographic methods to analyze relations of language, gender, and sexuality in both India and the United States. Her areas of interest include language and globalization, language and embodiment, political discourse, and most recently, language, sociality, and autism.
Prof. Barbara Fox is a specialist in conversation analysis focusing on the grammar of conversational discourse, both visual and auditory. Her recent research examines the grammar of commercial transactions in typological perspective.
Prof. Chase Raymond specializes in conversation analysis, with particular interests in sense-making, language and dialect contact, identity construction, and normativity. He explores these issues in both ‘mundane’ and institutional contexts, especially medicine.
Prof. Andy Cowell works in the area of linguistic anthropology, focusing on Native American languages. His work examines identity and power relations in the context of language shift and loss, as well as issues of language endangerment, maintenance and revitalization.
Prof. Jeremy Calder researches social meaning and the construction of cross-modal styles. They explore interactions between language and the gendered body, focusing on how this interface illuminates the range of performative agency among trans* and queer individuals.
Dr. Rai Farrelly works in the areas of second language acquisition and English language teaching. Influenced by critical and antiracist pedagogies, she encourages new English teachers to reflect on their roles and responsibilities to foster ethical practice and social justice.