Agnes Weiyun He
Research Associate Professor
I received interdisciplinary training in areas including linguistics, linguistic anthropology, and sociology (specifically conversation analysis and ethnomethodology) in graduate school. The committee which supervised my PhD dissertation (1993, UCLA) consisted of a linguist, a sociologist, an anthropologist, and an education specialist.
My primary research interest lies in understanding the ways in which the use of language reflects, structures, and re-creates roles and identities, tasks and activities, and associated knowledge and stances. Methodologically, I seek to integrate interactional analysis with lexicogrammatical analysis in a way that accounts for the ethnographic and affective contexts of language use. Such an interest has led me to research on discourse in several domains: academic counseling encounters, second/foreign language assessment interviews, and, most recently, Chinese language classes for Chinese children in the U.S.
Prior to moving to New York to be with my family and to find my new academic home in SUNY-Stony Brook, I taught in the Department of Linguistics at Southern Illinois University for several years.
Education & Professional Experience
Publications
Books
1998. He, A. W. Reconstructing Institutions: Language Use in Academic Counseling Encounters. Greenwich, CT and London, UK: Ablex.
1998. Young, R. & He, A. W. (Eds.) Talking and Testing: Discourse Approaches to the Assessment of Oral Language Proficiency. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: Benjamins.
Current Project
Examining the role of language use in the socialization of values, ideologies, and patterns of emotion and cognition, focusing on Chinese American children in Chinese Heritage Language Schools.
Presentations
Go to My family home page
Go to the Linguistics
Faculty page