 | Fern JohnsonProfessor of English |
B.A., University of Minnesota, 1968 Brief BiographyProfessor Johnson is a sociolinguist specializing in the study of gender, race, and ethnicity in discourse. Her teaching and research center on the relationship of cultural systems to language-in-use, especially ideological codes in discourse and language policy issues. She has written on topics including women’s discourse and culture, cultural models for understanding language diversity, bilingual education policy, and language in advertising. Her new book, Imaging in Advertising, focuses on discourse codes in advertising as these relate to ideology and cultural practice. In 2000, she published Speaking Culturally, which examines the cultural foundations of language diversity in the U.S. She is on the editorial boards for two journals: Women and Language and The Howard Journal of Communications. She teaches courses on language and culture in the U.S., language policy issues, and gender and discourse.Current Research and TeachingAs a scholar specializing in the study of race, ethnicity, and gender in discourse, I pay attention to many aspects of language in everyday life. Conversations, public speeches, advertising, television programs, and news reports all contain complex cultural discourse codes. I am especially interested in the role of discourse in shaping ideology and notions of "reality." Everyday discourse--drawn from sources such as conversation, ads from magazines and the Internet, billboards, television programs, political speeches, and news stories--find their way into both my scholarship and my teaching. Teaching and my interaction with students play key roles in developing projects that I pursue. I build many ideas with students, probe new directions while developing course materials, and enjoy exploring ideas with students engaged in projects and theses. The core ideas in my new book, Images in Advertising: Verbal and Visual Codes of Commerce, began with class lectures and discussion and then progressed as I worked with students to develop their projects. Teaching is for me inseparable from scholarship, and students--undergraduate and graduate alike--constitute a significant part of my itellectual community. I teach a range of courses that explore issues of language, identity, and culture. At the first-year level, I offer "American Talk" (Eng 114). My signature undergraduate course is "Language and Culture in the U.S." (Eng 215), which is a tour of the complexity of ancestry, languages, and cultural hybridity. I teach mid-level seminars on "Cultural Discourses of Advertising" (Eng 252), which uses various types of sociolinguistic analysis to understand the role of advertising in circulating cultural codes of meaning; and "Language at Issue" (Eng 257/357), which looks at language policy debates. My advanced research seminar on "Gender and Discourse" (Eng 295/395) is devoted to exploring a range of theories and research methodologies that are brought to bear on questions related to the entanglements of gender and discourse in complex cultural contexts. Many of my offerings are cross-listed with the Communication and Culture Program, and I also participate in the Women's Studies Program. Selected Recent Publications 2008: Imaging in Advertising: Verbal and Visual Codes of Commerce. New York: Routledge.
2000: Speaking Culturally: Language Diversity in the United States. Thousand Oakes, CA: Sage Publications. 2006: Section Editor, SAGE Handbook of Gender and Communication, B. J. Dow & J. T. Wood (Eds.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Introductory essay, "Culture as Con-text for Gender and Communication" (pp.371-378) for section focused on Gender and Communication in Intercultural and Global Contexts. 2006: "Transgressing gender in discourses across cultures." In B. J. Dow & J. T. Wood (Eds.), SAGE Handbook of Gender and Communication (pp.415-431). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
|
