Robert Moore
Education:
B.A. (Anthropology)
Reed College, 1982.
M.A. (Anthropology)
University of Chicago, 1986.
Ph.D. (Anthropology and Linguistics)
University of Chicago, 2000.
Permanent linkB.A. (Anthropology)
Reed College, 1982.
M.A. (Anthropology)
University of Chicago, 1986.
Ph.D. (Anthropology and Linguistics)
University of Chicago, 2000.
Description of Research Expertise
Areas of ExpertiseSociolinguistics and linguistic anthropology
Language shift, obsolescence, and endangerment
Verbally-mediated interaction
Heritage language education
Narrative performance and verbal art
Language planning and policy discourses
Semiotics of brands and branding
Native North American languages; the English language in Ireland
Professional Biography
Dr. Moore joined the faculty as a lecturer in 2011. Before coming to the Penn GSE he held faculty appointments in a number of departments and institutions, including the National University of Ireland (Anthropology Department), the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (Linguistics Department), New York University (Anthropology Department), and Reed College (Anthropology Department and Linguistics Program). He has held research positions at Dublin City University (2007-2008) and the University of Chicago (2002-2003), and in 2003-2004 served as one of 20 Fellows in the European-American Young Scholars’ Summer Institute on “The Concept of Language in the Academic Disciplines,” under the joint sponsorship of the National Humanities Center (Research Triangle Park, NC), the Humboldt University (Berlin), and the Institute for Advanced Study, Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin.
Research Interests and Current Projects
Dr. Moore’s linguistic and ethnographic research has included a long-term study of language obsolescence and heritage language maintenance and teaching efforts in the Warm Springs Reservation community (Oregon, USA) and studies of the sociolinguistics of contemporary Ireland with special attention to the mediatization of ‘accent’ in Irish English. In addition to studies based on these two ongoing ethnographic projects, his publications include a series of critical interventions into the public and scholarly discourse of language endangerment, studies of the politics and policy of multilingualism in contemporary Europe and the US, of the culture history of American Indians in the Pacific Northwest, the semiotics of branding, and the history of American anthropology.
Selected Publications
Moore, R.: Heritage languages. Annual Review of Anthropology 43,, in press.R. Moore: Shifters. Cambridge Handbook of Linguistic Anthropology. J. Sidnell, N. Enfield, and P. Kockelman (eds.). in press.
R. Moore: Standardisation, diversity and enlightenment in the contemporary crisis of EU language policy. King’s College London Working Papers in Urban Language and Literacies 74, 2011.
R. Moore: Overhearing Ireland: Mediatized personae in Irish accent culture. Language & Communication 31(3), 2011.
R. Moore: Ben Zimmer “On Language” in the New York Times Magazine and the new public linguistics. American Anthropologist 113(1), 2011.
R. Moore: “If I actually talked like that, I’d pull a gun on myself”: Accent, avoidance, and moral panic in contemporary Irish English. Anthropological Quarterly 84(1), 2011.
R. Moore, S. Pietikäinen, and J. Blommaert: Counting the losses: Numbers as the language of language endangerment Studies in Sociolinguistics 4(1), 2010.
R. Moore: From performance to print, and back: Ethnopoetics as social practice in Alice Florendo’s corrigenda to “Raccoon and his Grandmother” Text & Talk 29(3), 2009.
R. Moore: From endangered to dangerous: Two types of sociolinguistic inequality (with examples from Ireland & the US). King’s College London Working Papers in Urban Language and Literacies 45, 2007.
R. Moore: Images of Irish English in the formation of Irish publics, 1600-present. Irish Journal of Anthropology 10(1), 2007.
R. Moore: Disappearing, Inc.: ways of writing in the politics of access to “endangered languages” Language & Communication 26, 2006.
R. Moore: Ceremonialism, self-consciousness, and the problem of the present in North American Indian Studies. New Perspectives on Native North America: Cultures, Histories and Representations. S. Kan and P.T. Strong (eds.). University of Nebraska Press, 2006.
R. Moore: From genericide to viral marketing: on ‘brand’ Language & Communication 23, 2003.
R. Moore: “Indian dandies.” Sartorial finesse and self-presentation along the Columbia River, 1790-1855. Dandies: Fashion and Finesse in Art and Culture. Susan Fillin-Yeh (eds.). New York University Press, 2001.
R. Moore: Endangered. Key Terms in Language and Culture. Alessandro Duranti (eds.). Blackwell Publishers, 2001.
R. Moore: Performance form and the voices of characters in five versions of the Wasco Coyote Cycle. Reflexive Language: Reported Speech and Metapragmatics. John A. Lucy (eds.). Cambridge University Press, 1993.
R. Moore: Lexicalization vs. lexical loss in Wasco-Wishram language obsolescence. International Journal of American Linguistics 54(4), 1988.
R. Moore and P. Kroeber: Native American Languages and Grammatical Typology: Papers from a Conference at the University of Chicago, April 22, 1987. Bloomington: Indiana University Linguistics Club 1987.