The Arc of a Scholarly Life: Listening to the Languages of Politics

This reflection on my years in linguistic anthropology also includes the broader sociohistorical transformations of which I have been a part. The Cold War and its aftermath were the backdrop against which we learned and taught. As a child migrant to the United States from the Soviet region, I became fascinated by the intersection of political relationships and linguistic practices. At the same time, linguistic anthropology was starting to navigate between theories of political economy and the analysis of speaking as action-in-events. Within that endeavor, I have studied conceptual questions about multilingualism and the workings of language ideology as well as questions about sign phenomena in constructing gender, sociocultural differentiation, scaling, and translation. My scholarly path has depended on the generous, inspiring influence of mentors, colleagues, and students, individually and in the many seminars and study groups we have formed together. Working now on analyzing authoritarian regimes, I see with alarm their effects on public expression, safety, and protest, echoing my earliest memories of repression.