Penelope Brown (born 1944 in Summit, NJ) is an American anthropological linguist who has studied a number of aspects of cross-linguistic, sociolinguistic, and cross-cultural studies of language and cognition.

Education and career

Brown earned a BA in Psychology from

Carleton College Carleton College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Northfield, Minnesota. Founded in 1866, it had 2,105 undergraduate students and 269 faculty members in fall 2016. The 200-acre main campus is between Northfield and the 800-acre Cowling ...

1965 and an M.A. in Anthropology and Linguistics from the

University of Iowa The University of Iowa (UI, U of I, UIowa, or simply Iowa) is a public university, public research university in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. Founded in 1847, it is the oldest and largest university in the state. The University of Iowa is org ...

in 1970. She earned a PhD in Anthropology from the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

in 1979 under the supervision of

John J. Gumperz John Joseph Gumperz (January 9, 1922 – March 29, 2013) was an American linguist and academic. Gumperz was, for most of his career, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley. His research on the languages of India, on code-switching i ...

. Her dissertation is entitled, "Language, interaction, and sex roles in a Mayan community: a study of politeness and the position of women." Brown was the co-developer of the theory of

politeness Politeness is the practical application of good manners or etiquette so as not to offend others. It is a culturally defined phenomenon, and therefore what is considered polite in one culture can sometimes be quite rude or simply eccentric in ano ...

, a key topic in 20th century sociolinguistics. With her research collaborator and husband, linguist

Stephen Levinson Stephen C. Levinson FBA (born 6 December 1947)LEVINSON, Prof. Stephen Curtis

, she is co-author of the seminal work, ''Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage'' (cited more than 30,000 times). This book was first published in 1978 (and was republished with a new introduction, corrections, and a new bibliography in 1987). Brown worked in the field for a number of years with Tzeltel Maya speakers in Mexico, and has also worked in Rossel Island in

Papua New Guinea Papua New Guinea (abbreviated PNG; , ; tpi, Papua Niugini; ho, Papua Niu Gini), officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea ( tpi, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niugini; ho, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niu Gini), is a country i ...

. She is currently an emeritus member of the Language Acquisition Department at the

Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics The Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics (German: ''Max-Planck-Institut für Psycholinguistik''; Dutch: ''Max Planck Instituut voor Psycholinguïstiek'') is a research institute situated on the campus of Radboud University Nijmegen located ...

in Nijmegen.

Honors and awards

She earned the Stirling Prize for Best Work in Psychological Anthropology in 1992.http://projects.americananthro.org/Prizes-Awards/display.cfm?execute=36

Key publications

*Tanya Stivers, N.J. Enfield, Penolpe Brown, Christina Englert, Makoto Hayashi, Trine Heinemann, Gertie Hoymann, Federico Rossano, Jan Peter de Ruiter, Kyung-Eun Yoon. and Stephen C. Levinson. 2009. Universals and cultural variation in turn-taking in conversation. ''Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.'' *Melissa Bowerman and Penelope Brown (eds.) 2008. ''Crosslinguistic Perspectives on Argument Structure.'' Taylor and Francis. *Penelope Brown and Stephen C. Levinson. 1987. ''Politeness: Some universals in language usage.'' Cambridge University Press. *Penelope Brown. 1980. How and why are women more polite: Some evidence from a Mayan community. ''Women and language in literature and society.'' Preager Publishers. pp. 111–136. *Penelope Brown and Stephen C. Levinson. 1978. Universals in language usage: Politeness phenomena. ''Questions and politeness: strategies in social interaction''. Cambridge University Press. pp. 56–311. *Gillian Sankoff and Penelope Brown. 1976. The origins of syntax in discourse: A case study of Tok Pisin relatives. ''Language'' 52:3 pp. 631–666.

References

External links

CV
at the

{{DEFAULTSORT:Brown, Penelope 1944 births Living people Linguists from the United States Women linguists UC Berkeley College of Letters and Science alumni Carleton College alumni