Photo of Susan Gal
Susan Gal PhD, University of California Berkeley, 1976 Office: Haskell 237 Office hours: By appointment Phone: (773) 702-2551 Email Interests:

Linguistic anthropology; politics of communication; sociolinguistics; social theory; gender; ethnicity; European studies; postsocialism.

Mae & Sidney G. Metzl Distinguished Service Professor of Anthropology, Linguistics, and of Social Sciences in the College; Director of the Center for the Study of Communication and Society

Susan Gal is presently doing research on the political economy of language, including linguistic nationalism, language and gender, and especially the rhetorical and symbolic aspects of political transformation in contemporary eastern Europe and post socialism generally. Her work focuses as well on the construction of gender and discourses of reproduction.

 

Recent Research / Recent Publications

Selected Works

2019
(with J.T. Irvine) Signs of Difference: Language and Ideology in Social Life. Cambridge University Press.
[Winner of the 2021 Edward Sapir Prize of the Society for Linguistic Anthropology of the American Anthropological Association. "The Sapir Prize is awarded biennially to a book that makes the most significant contribution to our understanding of language in society, or the ways in which language mediates historical or contemporary sociocultural processes."]

2018
A nyelv politikája: Antropológiai nyelvészeti tanulmányok. Susan Gal válogatott írásai magyar nyelven. [Language's Politics: Linguistic Anthropological Studies: Susan Gal’s Selected Wrtings in Hungarian]. eds. Ildikó Vancó and István Kozmách. Nyitra, Slovakia: University of Nyitra Press.

2018
Discursive struggles about migration: A commentary. Language and Communication.
59:66-69.

2018
Ideología de la lengua y diferenciación linguística,” IN E. Cerón (ed.) Ideologías, Linguísticas, Politica e Identidad: Cuatro Ensazos de Linguística. Veracruz, Mexico: Universidad Veracruzana: Veracruz, Mexico (transl. of Irvine & Gal 2000.)

2018
Registers in circulation: The social organization of interdiscursivity. Signs and Society 6:1:1-24. (Papers in honor of Michael Silverstein)

2017
Qualia as Value and Knowledge: Histories of European Porcelain. Signs and Society (Special Issue) 5(1): 128-153.

2017
Visions and Revisions of Minority Languages: Standardization and its Dilemmas. In P. Lane and J. Costa, eds., Standardizing Minority Languages in the Global Periphery: Competing Ideologies of Authority and Authenticity. Routledge.

2016
Nyelvi sztenderdizáció: Modellek és ideológiák. [Linguistic standardization: Models and ideologies.] In Standard and Non-Standard: Varieties of a Language Variety. Bratislava.

2016
Labov in Anthropology. Journal of Sociolinguistics.

2016
Language and Political Economy: An Afterward. HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory 6(3): 331-335.

2016
Scale-Making: Comparison and Perspective as Ideological Projects. In E.S. Carr and M. Lempert, eds., Scale: Discourse and Dimension in Social Life. University of California Press.

2016
Sociolinguistc Differentiation. In N. Coupland, ed., Sociolinguistics: Theoretical Debates. Cambridge University Press.

2016
Translation and Demarcation in Legal Worlds. In W. Ford and E. Mertz, eds., Translating the Social World for Law: Linguistic Tools for a New Legal Realism. Oxford University Press.

2015
Imperial Linguistics and Polyglot Nationalism in Austria-Hungary: Hunfalvy, Gumplowicz, Schuchardt. Papers in Honor of Victor Friedman. Balkanistica.

2015
Politics of Translation. Annual Review of Anthropology. Vol 44.

2015
Child Exchange and the Meaning of Multilingualism in Austria-Hungary. Festschrift for Andrea Seidler. University of Vienna.

2014
John Gumperz's Discourse Strategies. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, 23(1): 115-126.

2013
Tastes of Talk: Qualia and the Moral Flavor of Signs. Anthropological Theory, 31(1/2): 31-48.

2012
Sociolinguistic Regimes and the Management of “Diversity.” In M. Heller and A. Duchene, eds., Language in Late Capitalism: Pride and Profit. Routledge, 22-37.

2011
Polyglot Nationalism: Linguistic Theories and Everyday Practice in 19th Century Hungary. Langage et société, v. 136: 1-24.

2009
Language and Political Space. In P. Auer & J.E. Schmidt, eds., Language and Space. Mouton de Gruyter, 33-50.

2008
Perspective and the Politics of Representation. In A. Reyes & A. Lo, eds., Beyond Yellow English. Oxford University Press, 325-330.

2008
Hungarian as a Minority Language. In G. Extra & D. Gorter, eds., Multilingual Europe: Facts and Policies. Mouton de Gruyter, 207-232.

2006
(ed.) Gender and Circulation in East European Politics and Societies (Special Issue), East European Politics and Societies. 20:1:1-180. Contains: “Introduction: Gender and Circulation,” 1-14.

2006
Linguistic Anthropology. In K. Brown, ed., The Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, Second Edition. Elsevier.

2006
Contradictions of standard language in Europe: Implications for the study of publics and practices. Social Anthropology. 14(2): 163-181.

2006
Minorities, migration and multilingualism: Language ideologies in Europe. In P. Stevenson & Mar-Molinaro, eds., Language Ideologies, Practices and Policies: Language and the Future of Europe. London: Palgrave.

2005
Language ideologies compared: Metaphors and circulations of public and private. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology. 15:1:23-37.

2003
Movements of feminism: The circulation of discourses about women. In B. Hobson, ed., Recognition Struggles and Social Movements: Contested Identities, Power and Agency. Cambridge U. Press, pp. 93-120.

2002
A semiotics of the public/private distinction. Differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies. 13:1:77-95.

2001
(with K. Woolard) (eds.) Languages and Publics: The Making of Authority. Contains “Introduction” and the article “Linguistic theories and national images in 19th century Hungary,” pp. 30-45. Manchester UK: St. Jerome’s Press.

2000
(with J.T. Irvine) Language ideology and linguistic differentiation. In P. Kroskrity, ed., Regimes of Language: Ideologies, Polities, and Identities. Santa Fe: School of American Research Press, pp. 35-84.

2000
(with Gail Kligman) The Politics of Gender After Socialism: A Comparative Historical Essay.

2000
(with Gail Kligman) (eds.) Reproducing Gender: Politics, Publics and Everyday Life after Socialism. Princeton University Press. [Winner of the Heldt Prize of the American Association for the  Advancement of Slavic Studies, 2000.]

1998
Multiplicity and contestation among linguistic ideologies. In K. Woolard & B. Schieffelin, eds., Language Ideologies: Practice and Theory. Oxford University Press, pp. 317-331.

1997
Feminism and civil society. In J. Scott, C. Kaplan & D. Keats, eds., Transitions, Environments, Translations: Feminisms in International Politics. NY: Rutledge, pp. 30-45.

1995
(with J.T. Irvine) The boundaries of languages and disciplines: How ideologies construct difference. Social Research. 62:4:966-1001.

1995
Language and the ‘arts of resistance.’ Cultural Anthropology. 10:3:407-424

1994
Gender in the post-socialist transition: The abortion debate in Hungary. East European Politics and Societies 8:2:256-286.

1991
Between speech and silence: The problematics of research on language and gender. In M. di Leonardo, ed., Gender at the Crossroads of Knowledge: Feminist Anthropology in the Postmodern Era. Berkeley: University of California Press. pp. 175-203.

1991
Bartok’s funeral: Representations of Europe in Hungarian political rhetoric. American Ethnologist 18:3:440-458.

1978
Peasant Men Can't Get Wives: Language Change and Sex Roles in a Bilingual Community. Language in Society 7:1:1-16.