This dissertation builds on existing heritage language research (e.g., Albirini 2014, 2018; Benmamoun & Albirini 2018) and examines the complex and challenging practices of an understudied, marginalized, and stigmatized group of Muslim Arabic heritage-speaking children (MAHSC) and their immigrant families in the US. It argues that the…

This dissertation presents the results of a tripartite exploration of English use by Latinxs in post-Katrina New Orleans, defined here as an ethnolinguistic repertoire that I call New Orleans Latinx English (NOLAE). The project considers how contemporary English use differs from that found in a pre-Katrina sample, how social network geometry…

This dissertation explores the way Kotiria/Wanano (E. Tukanoan, Kotiria hereafter) women of the Brazilian "Alto Rio Negro" (ARN) contrive (McDowell 1990) "kaya basa" "sad songs" using linguistic and musical resources to construct songs that express loneliness and other private emotions, while also creating alliances…

Quechua language education and research has long been relegated to rural areas and elementary schools of the Andes. Nonetheless, current language policy in the southern Peruvian region of Cusco has opened new opportunities for Quechua, a minoritized Indigenous language, to be taught in cities and towns and in high schools. In this sociolinguistic…

Technically Speaking: On the Structure and Experience of Interaction Involving Augmentative Alternative Communications examines the ways that communication is structured and experienced by looking at interactions involving augmented communicators--people with severe speech disabilities who use forms of assistive technology in order to communicate…

Identity has become a major interest for researchers in the areas of linguistic anthropology and sociolinguistics. Recent understandings of identity emphasize its malleability and fluidity. This conceptualization of identities as malleable comes from the realization that speakers relate strategically to propositions and their interlocutors in…

In recent times, recess has become threatened by the press for more academic instruction time and by fears of violent behavior. A dramatic indicator of this trend is seen in the increasing number of schools and school districts which have done away with or significantly reduced recess time (BBC news, 2007; Coughlan, 2007; Jarrett, 2002; Pressler,…

Many scholars have proposed concepts relevant to spatial reference. Herskovits (1982) proposed that the topological concepts support, contiguity and containment are basic in English, while Levinson et al.'s (2003) examination of nine unrelated languages revealed that the concept attachment is primary. Neither of these proposals is confirmed in…

Using the Practice Theory Approach to Language, this dissertation examines how social actors use communicative practices within activities to constitute a communicative context that I call the American English Stuttering Speech Community (AESSC). Building on previous linguistic research on stuttering and sociological research on collectives of…

Research in both the anthropology and sociology of education has increasingly come to consider the institutional effects of migration, globalization, and transnationalism on learning environments. Yet, most studies examining transmigration and education have only looked at migrant children in schools rather than at the "transitions" they…

This dissertation is a study of diverse linguistic resources and contentious identity politics among indigenous Amazonian Kichwas in the city of Tena, Ecuador. Tena is a rapidly developing Amazonian provincial capital city with a long history of interethnic and interlinguistic contact. In recent decades, the course of indigenous Kichwa identity…

Building on 18 months of fieldwork in the Bolivian highlands, this dissertation examines how traversing landscapes, through the mediation of spatial practices and spoken words, are embedded in systems of belief. By focusing on "wak'as" (i.e. sacred objects) and on how the inhabitants of the Altiplano relate to the Andean deities known as…

This dissertation study sets out to take a close look at the complex mix of factors on the ground, which influence the appropriation of language and education policies by local education stakeholders at Lesotho primary schools. I argue that much of the research in language policy and planning (LPP) has focused too largely on the macro-level…