SLATE University of Illinois

Michele E J Koven

Assoc. Professor of Second Language Acquisition and Teacher Education,LAS Global Studies,Communication, and French

User Photo

Contact Information:

Specializations / Research Interest(s)

  • The role of culture in verbal interaction; how speakers perform and infer cultural identities in their own and others' talk; style shifting and code switching in discourse; bilingualism; intercultural communication; sociolinguistics; oral narrative

Research Description

  • Professor Koven researches the relationships between identity and language practices in migrant communities. She is addresses how bilingual speakers enact multiple, culturally situated identities in talk, with a particular focus on narrative discourse.

Education

  • Ph.D., University of Chicago

Publications

Books

  • Selves in two languages: Bilingual Verbal Enactments of Identity in French and Portuguese. . Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2007.

Book Contributions


  • "Speaker Roles in Personal Narratives." Varieties of Narrative Analysis. . Thousand Oaks: Sage, 2011.

  • Miller, P., and H. Fung. "Narrative reverberations: How participation in narrative practices co-creates persons and cultures." Handbook of Cultural Psychology. . Ed. S. Kitayama and D. Cohen. New York: Guilford Press, 2007.

  • "“Feeling in Two Languages: A Comparative Analysis of a Bilingual’s Affective Displays in French and Portuguese.”." Bilingualism, Emotions, and Selves. . Ed. Aneta Pavlenko . Clevedon: Multilingual Matters, 2006. 84-117.

Journal Articles

  • "Comparing stories told in sociolinguistic interviews and spontaneous conversation." Language in Society 40.1 (2011): 75-89.
  • "Managing Relationships and Identities through Forms of Address: What French-Portuguese Bilinguals Call their Parents in each Language." Language and Communication 29.4 (2009): 343-365.
  • "Getting "Emotional" in Two Languages: Bilinguals' Verbal Performance of Affect in Narratives of Personal Experience. ." Text 24.4 (2004): 471-515.
  • "Transnational Perspectives on Sociolinguistic Capital among Luso-descendants in France and Portugal.." American Ethnologist 31.2 (2004): 270-290.