Education

Ph.D. in Linguistics, University of Texas at Austin, 2007
A.B. in Linguistics, Stanford University, 1995

Specialization

Sociolinguistics
Linguistic anthropology
Language, race, gender, and sexuality
Asian American language
Language in new media

Courses

Undergraduate
   • Korean Popular Culture & Language
   • Language & Racism
   • Introduction to Language
   • Introduction to Language Sciences
   • Language Conflict & Language Rights
   • Language & Whiteness
   • Language in Society
   • The English Language

Graduate and Undergraduate
   • Language, Race & Ethnicity in the U.S.
   • Language & Gender

Graduate
   • Research Methods in Linguistics
   • Survey of Linguistics
   • Language & Race
   • Discourse Analysis
   • Language Contact Phenomena
   • Introduction to Sociolinguistics

Research Projects

One of my current projects focuses on language and racism in U.S. public space. I explore what makes language hearable as racist and how anti-racist strategies can reshape racial ideologies.

Another project focuses on language in transnational social media contexts. I examine how the language of social media users, such as Asian American YouTube stars and K-pop (Korean popular music) fans, becomes collaboratively interpreted by viewers across trajectories of media commentary.

In past and current projects, I have investigated language practices that appear to traverse boundaries of race or nation, such as when Asian Americans stylize Asian immigrants, mock privileged white girls, or emulate African Americans. I have explored the ideologies of race, gender, and sexuality that these practices reproduce as well as the local cultural projects they serve.

Publications

   • Forthcoming. Chun, Elaine. The Possibilities and Perils of Mock Spanish. In Jane Hill, Christina Leza, Barbara Meek, & Jacqueline Messing. The Everyday Language of White Racism, Second Edition with Essays. Wiley-Blackwell: Malden, MA. 
   • Forthcoming. Brennan, Sara C., Chun, Elaine, Dlaske, Kati, Karrebæk, Martha Sif, Rambukwella, Harshana. Authentic problems: Critical reflections on theorizing authenticity. Critical Sociolinguistic Dialogues: The Constitution of a Field, Mi-Cha Flubacher & Alfonso Del Percio (eds.), Bloomsbury. 
   • Forthcoming. Chun, Elaine. Easy-Linguistics. ‘Untold Autoethnographic Stories of (In)Justice, Teaching, and Scholarship: Textu(r)alities in and beyond Applied Linguistics, Ari Sherris and Joy Kreeft Peyton (eds.). Bristol, UK: Multilingual Matters. 
   • 2021. Crowley, Archie & Chun, Elaine. Online Research and New Media. Research Methods in Linguistic Anthropology, Sabina Perrino and Sonya Pritzker (eds.). New York: Bloomsbury Academic Press. 
   • 2021. Chun, Elaine & Walters, Keith. At the Crossroads of Language, Race, and Sexuality. The Oxford Handbook of Language and Sexuality. Kira Hall and Rusty Barrett (eds.). New York: Oxford University Press. 
   • 2020. Lo, Adrienne & Chun, Elaine. Language, Race, and Reflexivity: A View from Linguistic Anthropology. The Oxford Handbook of Language and Race, 25-46. H. Samy Alim, Angela Reyes, and Paul Kroskrity (eds.). New York: Oxford University Press. 
   • 2018. Chun, Elaine. Listening to the Southern Redneck: Pathways of Contextualization on YouTube. American Speech, 93 (3–4): 425–44. Special issue edited by Jennifer Cramer and Dennis Preston.
   • 2017. Chun, Elaine. How to drop a name: Hybridity, purity, and the K-pop fan. Language in Society. Special issue edited by Adrienne Lo and Joseph Park.
   • 2016. McKinney, Julia & Chun, Elaine. Celebrations of a Satirical Song: Ideologies of Anti-Racism in the Media. Nancy Bell (ed.) Language Play. De Gruyter Mouton.
   • 2016. Chun, Elaine. The meaning of ching-chong: Language, racism, and response in new media. In H. Samy Alim, Arnetha F. Ball & John R. Rickford (eds.). Raciolinguistics: How language shapes our ideas about race, 81-96. New York: Oxford University Press.
   • 2015. Chun, Elaine & Lo, Adrienne. Language and Racialization. Handbook of Linguistic Anthropology, 220-232. Nancy Bonvillain (ed.). New York: Routledge.
   • 2013. Chun, Elaine. Ironic Blackness as Masculine Cool: Asian American Language and Authenticity on YouTube. Applied Linguistics 34 (5), 592-612. Special issue edited by Anna De Fina and Sabina Perrino.
   • 2013. Chun, Elaine. Styles of Pledging allegiance: Practicing youth citizenship in the United States. Language & Communication 33(4B), 500–514. Special issue edited by Jennifer Reynolds & Elaine Chun.
   • 2013. Reynolds, Jennifer & Chun, Elaine. Introduction: Figuring citizenship: Communicative practices mediating the cultural politics of citizenship and age. Language & Communication 33(4B), 473-480.
   • 2011. Chun, Elaine. Reading race beyond black and white. Discourse & Society 22(4), 403-21. Special issue edited by H. Samy Alim & Angela Reyes.
   • 2011. Chun, Elaine & Walters, Keith. Orienting to Arab Orientalisms: Language, race, and humor in a YouTube video. In Crispin Thurlow & Kristine Mroczek (eds.). Digital Discourse: Language in the New Media, 251-273. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
   • 2009. Chun, Elaine. Speaking like Asian immigrants: Intersections of accommodation and mocking at a U.S. high school. Pragmatics 19, 17-38. Special issue edited by Mary Bucholtz & Elena Skapoulli.
   • 2009. Chun, Elaine. Ideologies of legitimate mockery: Margaret Cho’s revoicings of mock Asian. In Angela Reyes and Adrienne Lo (eds.). Beyond Yellow English: Towards a Linguistic Anthropology of Asian Pacific America, 261-287. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
   • 2006. Chun, Elaine. Taking the mike: Performances of everyday identities and ideologies at a U.S. high school. In Er-Xin Lee, Kris M. Markman, Vivian Newdick and Tomoko Sakuma (eds.). SALSA XIII: Proceedings of the Thirteenth Annual Symposium about Language and Society—Austin, 39-49. Austin, TX: Department of Linguistics, University of Texas.
   • 2004. Chun, Elaine. Ideologies of legitimate mockery: Margaret Cho's revoicings of mock Asian. Pragmatics 14, 263-289, Special issue edited by Adrienne Lo & Angela Reyes.
   • 2001. Chun, Elaine. The construction of white, black, and Korean American identities through African American Vernacular English. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 11, 52-64. Special issue edited by Mary Bucholtz & Sara Trechter.