Research Summary I examine the politics of linguistic "accents" within the field of ethnic, gender, and media studies. “Accent” is used to emphasize their relational nature and notion that certain people are seen as having one and others not. In this interdisciplinary project, I analyze how patterns of Spanish inflected English (SIE) "accent" are linked to troubling representations for Chicana/o and Latina/o actors and how representations remain noticeably similar throughout the twentieth century despite drastic changes in media technologies. I demonstrate how language has long been a primary mode of racialization, which recurrently casts People of Color as both funny and foreign across different media forms. Specifically, Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis (FCDA) and acousmatic listening assists in investigating how “accents,” gender, and socioeconomic class are heard and read differently across various media forms.
Research and Teaching Interests Chicana/o and Latina/o Media; Race and Gender in Media; Cultural Studies; Popular Culture; Language Politics; Humor; and Sound