Anthropology Faculty
Arienne M. Dwyer
Professor Dwyer (Ph.D. in Altaic and Chinese Linguistics, U Washington, 1996) is an Associate Professor of Linguistic Anthropology at the University of Kansas, with formal affiliations with the Departments of Linguistics and Indigenous Nations Studies. Focusing on Turkic-Mongolic-Sinitic-Tibetic language contact, she has conducted 20 years of local research with individuals and communities in Inner and Central Asia, and has directed a number of cooperative documentation and archiving projects, including on Salar (1991-1993, Fulbright), Kazakh (1993, Fulbright), Uyghur dialectology (2002-2003, ACLS), Salar, Monguor, and Wutun (2000-2005, 2007-2008 Volkswagen-DOBES), Kyrgyz folklore and language policy (2004 and 2008, respectively, Open Society Institute), and archaic German dialects in Kansas (2005). Internationally she acts as a consultant on endangered language documentation and multimedia annotation and archiving (IMDI, UNESCO, EMELD), and has organized two conferences on language resources and technology, the Digital Tools Summit in Linguistics (DTSL) and, with Helen Aristar-Dry, Towards Interoperability in Language Resources (TILR, http://linguistlist.org/tilr/). Currently she and several Central Asian colleagues are working to develop Central Asian linguistic anthropology.
At the University of Kansas, Professor Dwyer teaches courses on language endangerment and revitalization, ethnicity and languages of China and Central Asia, linguistic field methods, linguistic data processing, discourse analysis, and ethnopoetics. She initiated an academic-year Uyghur language program and established the foundation for exchange program with Manas University and the American University of Central Asia, both in Kyrgyzstan.
She is currently Chair of the Committee on Endangered Language Preservation (CELP) of the Linguistic Society of America.
Recent publications:
2008 (in press). Tonogenesis in Southeastern Monguor. In Harrison, K. David, David Rood, and Arienne Dwyer, eds. Lessons from documented endangered languages. Typological Studies in Language 78. Amsterdam: Benjamins.
2007. Salar: a study in Inner Asian areal contact processes, Part I: Phonology. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz.
2005. The Xinjiang Conflict: Uyghur Identity, Language Policy, and Political Discourse. Policy Studies 15. Washington, D.C.: East-West Center Washington (Online pdf: http://www.eastwestcenter.org/stored/pdfs/PS015.pdf).
A pdf of Arienne Dwyer's CV can be accessed here.
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