Gumperz Graduate Student Essay Prize
This award recognizes excellence in original research by a graduate student. We are currently updating past winners.
2024
2023
Timothy Y. Loh, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, for his paper, “al-lugha al-‘umm/’arabi mukassar: Competing Discourses about Jordanian Sign Language (LIU) in Amman”
Jiarui Sun, University of Chicago, for their paper “Digital Rituals in Danmu: The Enregisterment of Online Nationalism in China”
Honorable Mentions: Katherin Arnold-Murray (University of Colorado, Boulder), Sarah Rosenau (University of Pittsburgh)
2022
Spencer Chen, University of California at Los Angeles, for his paper “Shamed into Linguistic Insecurity: Language Socialization of Voice-Acting Novices in Taiwan”
Honorable Mentions: Cameron Zarrabzadeh (University of New Mexico), Eugene Yu Ji (University of Chicago)
2021
Hannah Carlan, University of California at Los Angeles, for her paper “‘No One is Poor in Hamachal’: Cultivating Bureaucratic Agency in an Indian Village Assembly”
Honorable Mentions: Katherine Culver (University of Pennsylvania), Mallory Matsumoto (Brown University)
2019
Britta Ingebretson, Fordham University, for her paper “‘Living Fossils’: The Politics of Language Preservation in Huangshan, China”
Honorable Mentions: Mary-Caitlyn Valentinsson (University of Arizona), Hannah McElgunn (University of Chicago)
2018
Nikolas Sweet, University of Michigan, for his paper “Ritual Contingency: Teasing and the Politics of Participation”
Honorable Mentions: Sharon Jacobs (University of Pennsylvania), Crystal Sheedy (State University of New York at Albany)
2016
Molly Bloom, University of California at Los Angeles
Janet Connor, University of Chicago
Honorable Mentions: Crystal Sheedy (State University of New York at Albany), Nora Tyeklar (The University of Texas at Austin)
2015
Andrew Carruthers, Yale University, for his paper “Between Affinity and Equivalence: Undocumented Migration, Commensuration, and Intrusive Phonosonics in the Indonesia-Malaysia Borderlands”
Honorable mentions: Lynnette Arnold (University of California, Santa Barbara), Gregory Kohler (University of California, Irvine), Andrea Leone-Pizzighela (University of Pennsylvania)
2014
Magnus Pharao Hansen, Brown University, for his paper “The Difference Language Makes: The Life-History of Nahuatl in Two Mexican Families”
Honorable mentions: Perry Sherouse (University of Michigan), Katherine B Martineau (University of Michigan), Lori Labotka (University of Arizona), and Matthew L Hale (Indiana University)
2013
Elise Kramer, University of Chicago, for her paper “Speaking for the Voiceless: Metaphors of Power and Agency in Political Discourse”
Katherine Geenberg, Stanford University, for her paper “Fractal Marginalization and Linguistic Style in Hill Country: How the Nor-Rel-Muk Indians Mix Local Englishes to Construct Authenticity”
Honorable Mentions: Jonghyun Park (University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign), Jenanne Ferguson (University of Aberdeen), Sabrina Gavigan (American University)
2012
Jennifer Guzmán, University of California at Los Angeles, for her paper “The Epistemics of Symptom Experience and Symptom Accounts in Mapuche Healing and Pediatric Primary Care in Southern Chile”
Honorable Mentions: Charles (Chip) Zuckerman (University of Michigan), Lauren Zentz (University of Arizona), Dario Valles (Northwestern University)
2011
Rebecca M. Pardo, University of Pennsylvania, for her paper, “‘There was nothing racial that I said’: Reality Television and the Metapragmatics of Racism”
Honorable Mentions: Antonio José Bacelar da Silva (University of Arizona), Elizabeth Peacock (University of California at San Diego), Lynnette Arnold (University of California at Santa Barbara)
2010
Nicholas Harkness, University of Chicago, for his paper “Vowel Harmony Redux: A Binary Structure of Attribution in Korean and Its Ideological Framings.”
2009
Benjamin K. Smith, University of Chicago, for his paper, “Or Marbles and (Little) Men: Bad Luck, Aymara Boyhood and Masculine Identification”
2008
Alejandro Paz, University of Chicago, for his paper, “The Circulation of Chisme and Rumor: Gossip, Evidentiality, and Authority in the Perspective of Latino Labor Migrants in Israel”
2007
Isaac Gagné, Yale University, for his paper, “Role-Playing and ‘Women’s Language’ in Japan’s Gothic-Lolita Subculture”
2005
Heather Loyd, University of California at Los Angeles, for her paper “Language Socialization in Nicastro, Italty”
2003
Joseph Sung-Yul Park, University of California at Santa Barbara, for his paper “Ideological Aspects of Korean English Yumeo“
2002
Eleanor Culley, University of Virginia, for her paper “Learning to Listen: Confronting Two Meanings of ‘Language Loss’ in the Contemporary White Mountain Speech Community”
Jonathan Larson, University of Michigan, for his paper “Ambiguous Transparency: Résumé Fetishism in a Slovak Workshop”
2001
Sara Meacham, UCLA, for her paper “Getting Schooled: Rehabilitative Practices in a Los Angeles Court School.”
Honourable mention: Angela Reyes (University of Pennsylvania)
Undergraduate Student Essay Prize
This award recognizes excellence in original research by an undergraduate student. We are currently updating past winners.
2024
2023
Joelle Jackson, Indiana University, for her paper “(Re)animating Treasured Texts: Volunteers’ Visibility and Voice in Participatory Archival Transcription”
Senior Thesis Winner: Allyson Emmett, Saint Mary’s College, Notre Dame, for her paper “Gender and Linguistic Change: Perceptions of English Influencing Changes in Spanish in the U.S.”
Honorable Mentions: Thayer H. Ackerman (Appalachian State University), JS Brown (Appalachian State University)
2022
Maya Wong, Borough of Manhattan Community College, for her paper “Judging by the ‘Color’ of my Language: Language Appropriation, Raciolinguistic Ideologies, and the Power of Words in Identity Construction”
Honorable Mentions: Uyên Phương Bùi (University of Pennsylvania, Kutztown), Julia Dettor (Barnard College)
2021
Alexander Ward, University of Chicago, for his paper “Values in Conflict: Expert Interpretations of the Persepolis Fortification Archive”
Feng Ye, University of Chicago, for their paper “Campus Free Speech in Interdiscursive Contexts”
Honorable Mention: Samantha Stein (University of Pennsylvania)
2019
Lydia Yellow Hawk, Miami University, Ohio, for her paper “HÉČHEL LENÁ OYÁTE KIŊ NÍPI KTÉ Ella C. Deloria: Lakota Orthography, Intertextuality, and Indigenous Articulations”
2018
Emma A. Ricker, Grinnell College, for her paper “Discourse, Power, and the Rape Trial: A Textual Analysis of People v. Turner
Honorable Mentions: Thomas Gerz (Temple University), Hai Ri Jeon (New York University)
2016
Jack LaViolette, University of Pennsylvania, for his paper “‘Cyber-Metapragmatics’ and Alterity on reddit.com”
Alessandro Rosen, Hunter College, for her paper, “‘Yoga is Made for You’: Meta-Voicing Yoga Brand and Type”
Honorable Mentions: Emily Corvi (Hunter College), Alice Frederick (Princeton University), Carla Nieves (University of Puerto Rico)
2015
Korinne Dunn, Indiana University, for her paper “Binders Full of Regret: The Circulation of Blunders in US Presidential Politics”
Kira Greenberg, Vassar College, for her paper “#SixSeasonsAndAMovie: An Analysis of Fanfiction as a Form of Virtual Mediation of the Fan Community of Community”
Honorable mentions: Margaret Tennis (Brown University) and Rose Underhill (University of Massachusetts at Amherst)
2013
Alice Yeh, University of California at Berkeley, for her paper, “Retrospective Re-creation: Latin sine fine and the Afterlife of a Classic”
Sarah Carson, Wayne State University, for her paper, “Black Nerds in the Media: A Linguistic Analysis”
Honorable Mentions: Joshua Babcock (University of Chicago), Shifra Sered (University of Massachusetts at Amherst)
2012
Kamala Russell, University of Chicago, for her paper “Form and Function: Character Viewpoint Gestures in Dialogic Narrative”
Honorable Mention: Hannah Carlan (New York University)
2011
Janet Connor, University of Chicago, for her paper, “National Standardization or Strength in Diversity? Language Ideological Debates in the South of France”
Honorable Mentions: Alex Warburton (University of Chicago), Karen M. Kuhn (New York University)
2010
Jade Sewa De La Paz, Brooklyn College CUNY, for her paper “ ‘OMG, Guess What?!’: The Indispensability of Gossip in Community Building”
2009
Ruairidh Ralconer, University of Aberdeen, for his paper, “Santiago Atitlán: Globalisation and Bilingual Development among Youth in a Mayan Town”
2008
Lauren E. Deal, Gorge Washington University, for her paper “Fat Birds and Intercostals: Ideologies of Science and Poetry in Bel Canto Singing”
2007
Honorable Mention: Lauren Knapp (Grinnell College)