Academic Projects
When I worked towards my master’s in linguistic anthropology, I focused on the linguistic negotiation of identity—using language itself as a tool to understand social grouping.
We try to show other people what social groups or communities we belong to through our language behaviors, often without thinking about it. We also make decisions about the groups or communities we think other people are part of through the same processes.
I used an intersectional perspective to examine:
Asian American and mixed/multiracial identity
Gender and sexuality
Shaping identity through interests or communities like food or video gaming
Beliefs and attitudes people have about different language usage
Key linguistics concepts like indexicality, performativity, style switching, and linguistic ideology
In my master's thesis, I discussed how someone could talk about food in certain ways that helped establish their claim to an ethnic or racial identity. I looked at Eddie Huang—the chef, author, and media personality—and analyzed how his speech changed depending on the situation. (Or, if you’re familiar with linguistics terminology: I examined how Huang used food discourse to perform his ethno-racial identity interactionally.)
Gulping Brews From Pints & Sipping Ales From Tulips: Crafting Masculinities Through Beer (presentation)
“Gulping Brews…” was developed for a panel at the 2015 Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association. This panel, "Materiality in and Through the Lens of Food," focused on how social and cultural meanings are associated with food and drink.
My talk focused on a Budweiser ad that first aired during the 2015 Super Bowl. Using that ad and internet comments made in response to it, I discussed how the (culturally defined) categories of "macro" and "craft" beer become linked to different ideas of masculinity.
Unamerican Tongues: Food Discourse & Ethnic Identity (presentation)
The presentation for “Unamerican Tongues” was given at the 2013 Annual Conference for the Mid-Atlantic Popular & American Culture Association (MAPACA). This interdisciplinary academic conference focused on popular and American cultural studies.
“Unamerican Tongues” focused on a case study I did which used early episodes of a food travelogue series. This series was hosted by Eddie Huang, a chef, author, and media personality. (The series was originally known as Fresh Off the Boat, but later renamed Huang’s World).
This case study later became the foundation of my master’s thesis, “Rice, Rap, and Based FOBs: Food Discourse and Asian American Identity.”
Rice, Rap, and Based FOBs: Food Discourse and Asian American Identity (paper)
This is my September 2014 thesis, submitted for my Masters degree in Linguistic Anthropology (Hunter College, CUNY).
Abstract: Research, while limited, has shown that some Asian Americans may employ features of African American English or racist or stereotypical attitudes in the performance of their “Asianness,” and the indexical link between consumables, speech, and social position has also been established. However, while talk about food can be used as an interactional resource in the day-to-day performance of an ethnically- or racially-linked identity, work that links language and food has been limited. Using a media-based example (Eddie Huang on Vice's 'Fresh Off the Boat') I show how talk about different foods—including pronunciation and accent, use of foreign language words, and speaking as an “expert”—can be used as a resource by a speaker to present themselves as a member in an ethnic group or to show identification with broader racial categories. Through this case study, I will demonstrate how this practice takes place through the use of a variety of registers and styles that index food knowledge and ethnic identity, and how there can be clear differences in the ways of speaking employed depending on the ethno-racial links that a particular food is understood to have.