I am on the faculty of the Rhetoric Program at Carnegie Mellon University, where I teach courses in discourse analysis, sociolinguistics, style, and research methods. I am currently Editor of the journal Language in Society, and I am working on a project about the enregisterment of dialect in Pittsburgh. I am interested in the connections between discourse and place and in the role of the individual in language and linguistic theory. My previous work has been in these areas: - Discourse structure and function Forms and functions of narrative; women's and men's narrative; functions of repetition in discourse and their implications for linguistic theory; cross-cultural study of rhetorical discourse; current work on the individual voice in linguistic and rhetorical theory, on the rhetorical construction of place and local identity through discourse about local speech in Pittsburgh. - Sociolinguistics. Regional/social variation in discourse structure and strategy; interactional sociolinguistics; ethnography of communication; gender and regional variation in discourse style; methodology in qualitative sociolinguistics; current work on urban North Midland English in Southwestern Pennsylvania. Editor, Language in Society, 2005-present. - Rhetoric, history and theory. Persuasive talk; cross-cultural study of persuasive styles in the U.S. and the Middle East; revised and edited my sister's doctoral thesis on journal-keeping for posthumous publication. You can find links to some of my forthcoming and published work on this site. If you would like a copy of anything that is not available here, whether for copyright reasons or because I haven't uploaded it yet, please don't hesitate to email me. (I cannot provide copies of books, unfortunately.)
Apologizing
Workplace reasons for saying you're sorry: Discourse Management and Apology in Telephone Interviews (with Judith Mattson Bean), Discourse processes (1994)
Arabic discourse
'Orality' and discourse structrure in Modern Standard Arabic, Perspectives on Arabic Linguistics I (1990)
Linguistic Strategies and Cultural Styles for Persuasive Discourse, Language, Communication, and Culture: Current Directions (1989)
Discourse analysis for rhetorical studies
Reasons for Reason-Giving in a Public-opinion Survey (with Martha S. Cheng), Argumentation (2002)
Arguments with Khomeini: Rhetorical situation and persuasive style in cross-cultural perspective, Text (1986)
Discourse, place, and dialect
Language and Geographical Space, Language and Space: An International Handbook of Linguistic Variation (2010)
Locating language in identity, Language and Identity (2010)
New Questions for Chinese Discourse Studies: Language, Space, and Place, Journal of Chinese Sociolinguistics (2010)
Gender and language
Community and Contest: Midwestern Men and Women Creating their Worlds in Conversational Storytelling, Gender and Conversational Interaction (1993)
Gender, politeness, and discourse management in same-sex and cross-sex opinion-poll interviews (with Kathleen M. Ferrara and Judith M. Bean), Journal of Pragmatics (1992)
Media
Do You Speak Pittsburghese? Media Technology and Metalinguistic Expertise, American Anthropological Association, San Francisco, Nov. 2008 (2008)
Method
Dell Hymes and the Ethnography of Communication (with Marcellino William), The Sage Handbook of Sociolinguistics (2010)
New Questions for Chinese Discourse Studies: Language, Space, and Place, Journal of Chinese Sociolinguistics (2010)
In the Profession: Choosing the Right Journal for your Manuscript, Journal of English Linguistics (2009)
Some Personal Reflections on Rhetoric and Interdisciplinary, Plenary speech for Rhetoric Society of America Institute, June 26, 2009 (2009)
Indexicality and Experience: Variation and Identity in Pittsburgh (with Scott F. Kiesling), Journal of Sociolinguistics (2008)
Narrative
Social characteristics and self-expression in narrative, Journal of Narrative and Life History (1997)
Southern speech and self-expression in an African-American woman's story, Language Variety in the South Revisited (1997)
Community and Contest: Midwestern Men and Women Creating their Worlds in Conversational Storytelling, Gender and Conversational Interaction (1993)
Persuasion
Do You Speak Pittsburghese? Media Technology and Metalinguistic Expertise, American Anthropological Association, San Francisco, Nov. 2008 (2008)
Linguistic Strategies and Cultural Styles for Persuasive Discourse, Language, Communication, and Culture: Current Directions (1989)
Arguments with Khomeini: Rhetorical situation and persuasive style in cross-cultural perspective, Text (1986)
Pittsburgh speech
Pittsburghese shirts: Commodification and the enregisterment of an urban dialect, American Speech (2009)
This article considers a type of material artifact that circulates ideas about regional speech in...