Bio 

Jennifer F. Reynolds is a Professor of Anthropology and core faculty member of the graduate program in Linguistics as well as the Latin American Studies Program in the College of Arts and Sciences. She received her MA (1995) and PhD (2002) in Anthropology from the University of California, Los Angeles. Between 2001-2004, Dr. Reynolds was a postdoctoral researcher at Northwestern University’s School of Education and Social Policy in the Human Services and Psychological Development Program. She joined the Department of Anthropology at the University of South Carolina in 2004.

Teaching 

ANTH 102: Understanding Other Cultures

ANTH 210/WGST 210: Human Life Cycles in Different Cultures

ANTH 273/LING 273: Cross-Cultural Communication

ANTH 355/LING 340: Language, Culture & Society

ANTH 553/LING 545: Anthropological Approaches to Narrative and Performance

ANTH 748/LING 748: Introduction to Linguistic Anthropology

ANTH 780/LING 805: Ethnography of Communication

Research 

Dr. Reynolds is a linguistic anthropologist who examines the relationship(s) between quotidian discourse practices and social and linguistic reproduction and transformation, especially within the context of political economic restructuring impacting rural communities and agricultural livelihoods entwining regions located in Guatemala, Mexico and the U.S. She combines visual and linguistic ethnographic methods and forms of analysis in all of her work. Her research involves longitudinal ethnographic study of Guatemalan indigenous youth and their families’ experiences as they cross multiple borders, assume new identities, and restructure familial relationships in different receiving contexts located in the Midwest and the South within transnational circuits of migration. See her personal webpage for more details. She has also undertaken collaborative research with colleagues on topics ranging from language revitalization and language and literacy. With colleague, Paul Kroskrity (UCLA) she designed a multimedia CD-ROM featuring the verbal art of Western Mono, a California Indian tribe to support their language revitalization project. With colleague, Marjorie Faulstich Orellana (UCLA) Dr. Reynolds has also published extensively on the educational and social consequences of child immigrant youth language brokering. Her research has been funded by the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research and the University of South Carolina.

Representative Publications 

Reynolds, J. F. “Interdiscursive dimensions of mobility and precarity for Guatemalan indigenous youth.” In Language and Social Justice: A Global Perspective, edited by Kathleen Riley, Bernard C. Perley, and Inmaculada M. García-Sánchez. Pp. 286-310. Bloomsbury Publishers, 2024.

Reynolds, J. F. Mediatized Image Politics of an ICE Raid, Staged in a Midwestern Idyll. Semiotic Review, [S.l.], v. 9, Dec. 2023. https://www.semioticreview.com/ojs/index.php/sr/article/view/80

Reynolds, J. F. “Linguistic Anthropology of the Visual.” In The New Wiley Blackwell Companion to Linguistic Anthropology. Alessandro Duranti, Rachel George, and Robin Conley Riner, eds. Pp. 253-272. John Wiley & Sons Ltd., 2023.  https://doi.org/10.1002/9781119780830.ch14

Reynolds, J. F.  “Forms of Talk.” In The International Encyclopedia of Linguistic Anthropology, edited by James Stanlaw. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., 2020.  https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118786093.iela0135

Reynolds, J. F. “Language and creativity, theoretical aspects of play.” In The International Encyclopedia of Linguistic Anthropology, edited by James Stanlaw. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., 2020. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118786093.iela0190 

Reynolds, J. F. and Orellana, M. F.  “Transliteracy Practices by Youth in New Immigrant Communities.” In Language and Cultural Practices in Communities and Schools: Bridging Learning for Students from Non-Dominant Groups, Inmaculada García-Sánchez and Marjorie Faulstich Orellana, eds. Pp. 197-212. New York & London: Routledge – Taylor & Francis, 2019.

Reynolds, J. F. “A Multivocal Method Modeling Cross-Cultural Research in Multilingual Educational Settings Connected Through a Transborder Migratory Circuit” in Ethnographic perspectives to teaching and learning in multilingual contexts, Ana María Relaño Pastor, ed. Foro de Educación 17, no. 27 (2019): 91-123. https://www.forodeeducacion.com

Reynolds, J.  “Structuralism (linguistic anthropology).” In International Encyclopedia of Anthropology, edited by Hilary Callan. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, 2018. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118924396.wbiea1616

Reynolds, J. F., Orellana, M. F., and García-Sánchez, I. 2015. “In the service of surveillance: Immigrant child language brokers in parent-teacher conferences.” Langage et Société 2015/3(153): 91-108.  https://www.cairn.info/revue-langage-et-societe-2015-3-page-91.htm

Estrada, R. D., Reynolds, J. F. & Hilfinger Messias, D. K. “A Conversation Analysis of Verbal Interactions and Social Processes in Interpreter-Mediated Primary Care Encounters.” Research in Nursing and Health 38, no. 4 (2015): 278-288.  doi.org/10.1002/nur.21660

Reynolds, J. F. and Orellana, M. F.  “Translanguaging within Enactments of Quotidian Interpreter-Mediated Interactions.” Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 24, no. 3 (2014): 315-338. DOI: 10.1111/jola.12057

Reynolds, J. F., and Chun, E. W.  “Figuring youth citizenship: Communicative practices mediating the cultural politics of citizenship and age.” Language and Communication 33, no 4, Part B (2013): 473-480. doi.org/10.1016/j.langcom.2013.07.002

Reynolds, J. F.  “Refracting articulations of citizenship, delincuencia and vigilantism in boys’ sociodramatic play in postwar Guatemala.” Language and Communication 33, no. 4, Part B (2013): 515-531.  doi.org/10.1016/j.langcom.2013.02.003

Reynolds, J. F.  “(Be)laboring childhoods in Postville, Iowa.” Anthropological Quarterly 86, no. 3 (2013): 821-860.

Reynolds, J. F., and Didier, C.  “Contesting diversity and community within Postville, Iowa – ‘Hometown to the World’.” In Latin American Migrations to the U.S. Heartland: Reshaping Communities, Redrawing Boundaries. Linda Allegro and Andrew Wood, eds. Pp. 169-197. Champaign, IL: Univ. of Illinois Press, 2013.

Reynolds, J. F. and Orellana, M. F.  “New immigrant youth interpreting in White public space.” American Anthropologist 111, no. 2 (2009): 211-223. DOI: 10.1111/j.1548-1433.2009.01114.x

Reynolds, J. F. “Shaming the shift generation: Intersecting ideologies of family and linguistic revitalization in Guatemala.” In Revealing Native American Language Ideologies: Beliefs, Practices, and Struggles in Indian Country. Paul V. Kroskrity and Margaret C. Field, eds. Pp. 213-237. Tuscon: University of Arizona Press, 2009.

Orellana, M. F. and Reynolds, J. F.  “Cultural modeling: Leveraging bilingual skills for school paraphrasing tasks.” Reading Research Quarterly  43, no. 1 (2008): 48-65.  doi.org/10.1598/RRQ.43.1.4

Reynolds, J. F.  “Socializing puros pericos (little parrots): The negotiation of respect and responsibility in Antonero Mayan sibling and peer networks.” Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 18, no. 1 (2008): 82-107. DOI: 10.1111/j.1548-1395.2008.00005.x

Orellana, M. F., Reynolds, J., Dorner, L., and Meza, M. “In other words: Translating or “para-phrasing” as a family literacy practice in immigrant households.” Reading Research Quarterly 38, no. 1 (2003): 12-34.