LISO Scholars are visiting scholars from other universities around the world who conduct research on issues related to social interaction. LISO Scholars are recognized on the LISO website and are invited to attend and participate in regular meetings and special events hosted by LISO. The LISO Scholars Program is unable to provide any financial or other resources; visiting scholars must have their own funding.
LISO Scholars must be affiliated either with one of the three contributing LISO departments (Education, Linguistics, and Sociology). Prospective visiting scholars should apply directly to the department most relevant to their research area and should indicate in their application their interest in being selected as a LISO Scholar. Graduate students, faculty members, and professional research scientists are all eligible to be named as LISO Scholars. LISO Scholars’ visits may begin and end at any time and may be of any length agreed upon by the sponsoring department. _________________________________________________________
2008-09
Rosalia Dutra
Department of English
University of North Texas and
Department of Linguistics, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Brazil (on leave)
September 2007-December 2008
LISO Sponsor: Sandra A. Thompson, Linguistics
One of the inevitable questions that arises from studying language in the context of interaction and social organization is the role language plays in the negotiation of a social space among participants. In this social space, participants constantly assess their social distance, which necessarily involves addressing questions of sameness and difference as the interaction unfolds. As a linguist interested in understanding the nature of grammatical systems, I am particularly interested in the linguistic mechanisms through which the social (sameness) and the personal (difference) are expressed in language use, and the ways in which grammars have to be able to respond to these interactive practices of solidarity and detachment.
The sociolinguistic practices of solidarity and detachment are in fact inevitable exercises in the construction of identity. Currently, I have been involved in two projects that, in one way or another, address the inevitable displays of identity that emerge in the give and take of face-to-face interaction: one project investigates the contribution of these exchanges in triggering grammaticization; the other explores the pictorial means through which alluring identities are portrayed, and hence shaped and reinforced, in commercial advertising.
R. Peter Hobson
Tavistock Professor of Developmental Psychopathology
University of London
January 2009
LISO Sponsor: John W. Du Bois, Linguistics
Jessica A. Hobson
Senior Research Fellow
Institute of Child Health, University College, London and Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust, London
January 2009
LISO Sponsor: John W. Du Bois, Linguistics
Our research is in the field of developmental psychopathology, the study of atypical and typical psychological development in relation to one another. A prime focus of our work is childhood autism. Here we study the nature and developmental implications of the children's limitations in social engagement. For example, we have studied how children with autism perceive and understand the emotional states of other people, how they communicate both verbally and non-verbally, and how they play. The aim is not only to understand more about autism, but also to illuminate the nature and role of interpersonal relatedness in typical development. During our time as LISO Scholars, we shall be collaborating with Professor John Du Bois in exploring how far, and in which specific respects, children with autism do or do not show 'dialogic resonance' in their conversations with others. This promises to provide insights into intersubjective dimensions of linguistic communication.
Sarah King
Universität Bern (University of Berne
Institut für Sprachwissenschaften (Institute of Linguistics)
September 2008-January 2009
LISO Sponsor: Charles Bazerman, Education
My linguistic interests are shaped by my background: my work as medical nurse, of which a big part was devoted to interaction; the studies of journalism and communication; my time as an assistant for the lecture media linguistics (Institute of Applied Media Studies, Zurich University of Applied Sciences); finally, my current master studies of Linguistics at the University of Berne. Out of this background has grown my general interests in human interaction – in particular in interaction within the media.
My current project builds my master’s thesis and is devoted to accommodation in interaction. In focus is the relation between nonverbal and verbal accommodation. From a structural view I’m interested in syntactic and prosodic alignment as well as bodily alignment such as the alignment of gestures, facial expression and proxemics. From a functional view I’m interested in the relation between these two linguistic modes, in particular if verbal and nonverbal alignment occur synchronously. My work assembles different theories on these issues, determines an appropriate method to analyze nonverbal behavior and finally builds the basis for future empirical studies on this topic.
Ryoko Suzuki
Faculty of Economics, Keio University, Hiyoshi Campus, Yokohama, Japan
LISO Sponsor: Sandra A. Thompson, Linguistics
August 2008-August 2009
My research focus has been the relationship between pragmatics and grammar in everyday interaction. I have been working on the grammaticization of Japanese quotatives forms and abstract nouns turning into pragmatic particles, using diachronic conversational data as well as contemporary conversational data. I am currently investigating what speakers are actually doing with so-called subordinate clauses (e.g., causal clauses), which are abundant in Japanese conversation; being involved in LISO is helping me see the interactional motivations for the grammar of these clauses.
Geertje Van Bergen
Department of Linguistics, Radboud University Nijmegen, the Netherlands
September 2008-December 2008
LISO Sponsor: Sandra A. Thompson, Linguistics
My research interests include corpus linguistics, the syntax-semantics interface, and typology. Especially, I am interested in explaining variation both between and within languages. In my Ph.D. project, I investigate different types of word order variation in Dutch. At the moment, I am performing a corpus study of Dutch genitive constructions, looking at both language-internal and interactional factors that influence the choice for one genitive construction over the other.
