CU Linguistics celebrates the career of Professor Barbara Fox
On May 21, 2022, colleagues, research collaborators and grateful former students of CU Professor Emerita Barbara Fox (upper left) gathered on Zoom to celebrate her 37-year career in linguistics. CU faculty members Prof. Bhuvana Narasimhan and Chase Raymond oversaw a day of recollection in which over 20 colleagues and former students shared memories of Prof. Fox's wisdom, warmth, insight and infectious laughter. Barbara Fox began her academic career at CU Linguistics in 1984, at the age of 24, after receiving her PhD in Linguistics from UCLA, under the direction of the eminent discourse specialist Prof. Sandra. A. Thompson. Her research explores the mutual shaping relationship between grammar and usage, especially within face-to-face interaction. Her work reveals the importance of action and interaction to grammatical choice, and highlights the role of the body in constructing utterances. It also calls for an extraordinarily dynamic, and embodied, model of grammar. During her career at CU, Dr. Fox taught courses in semantics, pragmatics, morpho-syntax, Conversation Analysis, and Interactional Linguistics. She is the widely cited author of over 100 works, including several books and co-edited volumes. She has received funding from the National Science Foundation for groundbreaking work on the structure of self-repair in conversation across languages. Celebrants noted that Dr. Fox's brilliance as a scholar is matched by the joy, empathy and kindness she displayed to colleagues and students alike. Her CU colleagues are delighted that she will continue to elevate our lives and those of her many collaborators, students and friends around the world as she continues research and advising activities in retirement.