Norma Mendoza-Denton
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Norma Catalina Mendoza-Denton (born 1968) is a professor of anthropology at the University of California, Los Angeles.[1] She specializes in sociolinguistics and linguistic anthropology, including work in sociophonetics, language and identity, ethnography and visual anthropology.[2][3]
Mendoza-Denton earned a doctorate in linguistics from Stanford University in 1997 with the completion of her dissertation, Chicana/Mexicana Identity and Linguistic Variation: An Ethnographic and Sociolinguistic Study of Gang Affiliation in an Urban High School.[4][5] She worked as an assistant professor at Ohio State University and at the University of Arizona before taking up a position at UCLA.[2]
Her ethnographic and sociolinguistic analyses of Latina gang members in California are presented in her book Homegirls: Language and Cultural Practice Among Latina Youth Gangs.[6] Mendoza-Denton was a consultant for the Do You Speak American? television program.[7] In 2020, she published a collection of essays, co-edited with linguistic anthropologist Janet McIntosh, examining the politics of language during the Trump presidency.[8]
Honors and awards
Mendoza-Denton served as president of the Society for Linguistic Anthropology, a section of the American Anthropological Association, from 2011 to 2013.[9] She has also been active in the Linguistic Society of America, including serving on the executive committee from 2018 through 2020.[10][11]
In 2011 she received a National Institute for Civil Discourse grant for her work analyzing the ways in which politicians handle disagreements with their constituents.[12]
