Mary Bucholtz (born 29 October 1966) is professor of

linguistics Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Linguis ...

UC Santa Barbara The University of California, Santa Barbara (UC Santa Barbara or UCSB) is a public land-grant research university in Santa Barbara, California with 23,196 undergraduates and 2,983 graduate students enrolled in 2021–2022. It is part of the U ...

. Bucholtz's work focuses largely on language use in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

, and specifically on issues of language and youth; language, gender, and sexuality;

African American English African-American English (or AAE; also known as Black American English, or Black English in American linguistics) is the set of English sociolects spoken by most Black people in the United States and many in Canada; most commonly, it refers ...

; and Mexican and Chicano Spanish.

Biography

Bucholtz received a B.A. in

Classics Classics or classical studies is the study of classical antiquity. In the Western world, classics traditionally refers to the study of Classical Greek and Roman literature and their related original languages, Ancient Greek and Latin. Classics ...

from

Grinnell College Grinnell College is a private liberal arts college in Grinnell, Iowa, United States. It was founded in 1846 when a group of New England Congregationalists established the Trustees of Iowa College. Grinnell has the fifth highest endowment-to-st ...

in 1990 and an M.A. and Ph.D. in

from

UC Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public university, public land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of Californi ...

in 1992 and 1997 under the supervision of

Robin Lakoff Robin Tolmach Lakoff (; born November 27, 1942) is a professor emerita of linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley. Her 1975 book ''Language and Woman's Place'' is often credited for making language and gender a major debate in lin ...

. At

, where she has worked as an assistant professor (2002-2004), an associate professor (2004-2008) and a full professor (2008–present), Bucholtz is affiliated with several departments including the anthropology, the feminist studies, the Spanish and Portuguese, as well as the Gevirtz Graduate School of Education, the comparative literature program, and the Latin American and Iberian studies program. She held academic positions at

Stanford Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is considere ...

and

Texas A&M Texas A&M University (Texas A&M, A&M, or TAMU) is a public, land-grant, research university in College Station, Texas. It was founded in 1876 and became the flagship institution of the Texas A&M University System in 1948. As of late 2021, T ...

before joining the faculty of UC-Santa Barbara. Since 2011, she has also directed the Center for California Languages and Cultures within

's Institute for Social, Behavioral, and Economic Research. Through her work at the Center for California Languages and Cultures, Bucholtz has been the director (2009-2017) and associate director (2017–present) of a community partnership program, School Kids Investigating Language in Life + Society (SKILLS), which provides linguistics research opportunities to students enrolled in Santa Barbara high schools.

Honors and distinctions

Bucholtz has been an editorial board member for several journals. She served as series editor for Studies in Language and Gender from 1998-2013, editor of the

Journal of Linguistic Anthropology The American Anthropological Association (AAA) is an organization of scholars and practitioners in the field of anthropology. With 10,000 members, the association, based in Arlington, Virginia, includes archaeologists, cultural anthropologists, ...

from 2002-2004, and an editorial board member of

Language in Society ''Language in Society'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal of sociolinguistics. It was established in 1972 and is published five times a year by Cambridge University Press. The current editors in chief are Susan Ehrlich (York University) and T ...

(2005-2012),

Gender and Language ''Gender and Language'' is an international, peer-reviewed academic journal for language-based research on gender and sexuality from feminist, queer, and trans perspectives. Gender and Language is currently one of the few academic journals to whic ...

(2005-2014),

Journal of Sociolinguistics The ''Journal of Sociolinguistics'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal that covers topics in sociolinguistics. Its scope encompasses a wide range of languages treated from a multidisciplinary point of view. It was established in 1997 and appears ...

(2007-2011),

American Anthropologist ''American Anthropologist'' is the flagship journal of the American Anthropological Association (AAA), published quarterly by Wiley. The "New Series" began in 1899 under an editorial board that included Franz Boas, Daniel G. Brinton, and John W ...

(2008-2012), and Text and Talk (2011-2014). She still serves as an editorial board member of the

(from 1999-2001 and since 2005), Visual Communication (since 2004), the International Journal on Research in Critical Discourse Analysis (since 2005), Language and Linguistics Compass (since 2006),

American Speech ''American Speech'' is a quarterly academic journal of the American Dialect Society, established in 1925 and currently published by Duke University Press. It focuses primarily on the English language used in the Western Hemisphere, but also publis ...

(since 2008), Research on Language and Social Interaction (since 2009), Pragmatics and Society (since 2009), and Discourse, Context, and Media (since 2011). She has also been an advisory board member for

since 2014. From 2000-2001, Bucholtz was appointed as the chair of the Nominations Committee of the

Society for Linguistic Anthropology The American Anthropological Association (AAA) is an organization of scholars and practitioners in the field of anthropology. With 10,000 members, the association, based in Arlington, Virginia, includes archaeologists, cultural anthropologists, ...

. She was also elected to serve as an advisory council member and co-chair for the

International Gender and Language Association The International Gender and Language Association (IGALA), is an international interdisciplinary academic organization that promotes research on language, gender, and Human sexuality, sexuality. Claire Maree is its current president. History Th ...

from 2000-2004. Bucholtz was recognized in 2014 by the

with the Award for Public Outreach and Community Service. In 2020, Bucholtz was inducted as a

Fellow A fellow is a concept whose exact meaning depends on context. In learned or professional societies, it refers to a privileged member who is specially elected in recognition of their work and achievements. Within the context of higher education ...

of the

Linguistic Society of America The Linguistic Society of America (LSA) is a learned society for the field of linguistics. Founded in New York City in 1924, the LSA works to promote the scientific study of language. The society publishes three scholarly journals: ''Language'', ...

Research & work

As a sociocultural linguist, Bucholtz has focused on researching how language is used in interactional contexts to create identity and culture and contribute to issues of social power. She is well known for her contributions to research on language and identity within

sociocultural linguistics Sociocultural linguistics is a term used to encompass a broad range of theories and methods for the study of language in its sociocultural context. Its growing use is a response to the increasingly narrow association of the term sociolinguistics wi ...

, and especially the

tactics of intersubjectivity Tactic(s) or Tactical may refer to: * Tactic (method), a conceptual action implemented as one or more specific tasks ** Military tactics, the disposition and maneuver of units on a particular sea or battlefield ** Chess tactics ** Political tact ...

framework developed with

Kira Hall Kira Hall (born 1962, Birmingham, Alabama) is professor of Linguistics and Anthropology, as well as director for the Program in Culture, Language, and Social Practice (CLASP), at the University of Colorado at Boulder. The majority of Hall's wor ...

Language and youth

In the late 1990s, Bucholtz began

ethnographic Ethnography (from Greek ''ethnos'' "folk, people, nation" and ''grapho'' "I write") is a branch of anthropology and the systematic study of individual cultures. Ethnography explores cultural phenomena from the point of view of the subject o ...

work on the ways adolescents and pre-adolescents construct

identity Identity may refer to: * Identity document * Identity (philosophy) * Identity (social science) * Identity (mathematics) Arts and entertainment Film and television * ''Identity'' (1987 film), an Iranian film * ''Identity'' (2003 film), ...

. Her research extended the work of

Penelope Eckert Penelope "Penny" Eckert (born 1942) is Albert Ray Lang Professor Emerita of Linguistics at Stanford University. She specializes in variationist sociolinguistics and is the author of several scholarly works on language and gender. She served as t ...

, who identified three adolescent social categories (jocks, burnouts, and in-betweens) concerned with pursuing "coolness." From 1994-1996, Bucholtz studied another social category, "nerds," using a

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

high school in the

San Francisco Bay Area The San Francisco Bay Area, often referred to as simply the Bay Area, is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun Bay estuaries in Northern California. The Bay Area is defined by the Association of Bay Area Go ...

as her field site. She initially presented her work on nerd girls at the 1997 International Conference on Language and Social Psychology. Bucholtz positions the "nerd" as a separate and distinct

community of practice A community of practice (CoP) is a group of people who "share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly". The concept was first proposed by cognitive anthropologist Jean Lave and educat ...

set in opposition to the burnouts, jocks, and in-betweens: nerds purposely reject the burnouts', jocks', and in-betweens' pursuit of "coolness" and instead prioritize knowledge and individuality. Bucholtz uses the concepts of positive identity practices (linguistic and social behaviors that confirm and reflect an intragroup identity) and negative identity practices (linguistic and social behaviors that distance individuals from other groups) to show how nerds construct their

. Her research suggests that the nerd identity is "hyperwhite", characterized linguistically by more infrequent use of valley girl speech and

slang Slang is vocabulary (words, phrases, and linguistic usages) of an informal register, common in spoken conversation but avoided in formal writing. It also sometimes refers to the language generally exclusive to the members of particular in-gro ...

than other social categories; by a preference for Greco-Latinate over Germanic words; by the use of the discourse practice of

punning A pun, also known as paronomasia, is a form of word play that exploits multiple meanings of a term, or of similar-sounding words, for an intended humorous or rhetorical effect. These ambiguities can arise from the intentional use of homophon ...

; and by adherence to conventions of "super-

standard English In an English-speaking country, Standard English (SE) is the variety of English that has undergone substantial regularisation and is associated with formal schooling, language assessment, and official print publications, such as public service a ...

," or excessively formal English. Additionally, Bucholtz found that the speech of nerds often included consonant-cluster simplification, phonological reduction of unstressed vowels, careful and precise enunciation, and reading style speech (wherein nerds pronounce words more closely to how they're spelled). She proposes that these linguistic practices and features are used to establish the nerds' intragroup identity marker of intelligence.

Selected bibliography

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Book chapters

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Journal articles

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References

External links

Mary Bucholtz's home page

School Kids Investigating Language in Life + Society

Center for California Languages and Cultures
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bucholtz, Mary 1966 births Grinnell College alumni Living people Sociolinguists Texas A&M University faculty Stanford University Department of Linguistics faculty UC Berkeley College of Letters and Science alumni University of California, Santa Barbara faculty Women linguists Fellows of the Linguistic Society of America