Victoria L. Bergvall

(brief CV, revised 4/19/07)

Associate Professor of Linguistics

Department of Humanities

Michigan Technological University

 

Education                            

   Harvard University Linguistics     Ph.D.                                                                1987

         MIT (cross-registered for Ph.D. coursework)                                                   1981-83          

   Harvard University Linguistics     A.M.                                                                 1982

   Whitman College      English           B.A., summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa        1978

 

Professional Experience                                                

     1996-present   Associate Professor, Michigan Technological University, Houghton, MI

   1999-2002       Director of Graduate Programs in Rhetoric & Technical Communication, MTU

   1989-1996       Assistant Professor, MTU

   1986-1989       Assistant Professor, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY

   1985                Instructor, Northeastern University, Boston, MA, spring quarter.

   1983-84           Fulbright Doctoral Research Fellow, University of Nairobi, Kenya

1980-86                Teaching Fellow, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA

 

Selected Publications

Edited Book         

   Rethinking Language and Gender Research: Theory and Practice. Bergvall, Victoria L., Bing, Janet M., & Freed, Alice F., eds. London and New York: Longman Press, 1996.

 

Selected Journal Articles

   (accepted, forthcoming) ÒHormones, hard-wiring, and headlines: The discursive construction of gender ideology,Ó Discourse & Society.

   ÒToward a Comprehensive Theory of Language and GenderÓ Language in Society (1999) 28.2:273-293.

   ÒAn Agenda for Language and Gender Research for the Start of the New Millennium.Ó Linguistik Online.(1999) http://viadrina.euv-frankfurt-o.de/~wjournal/heft1_99/ (~14 pages)

   ÒPower, Resistance, and Gender in Educational Discourse: Beyond Counts to Contexts.Ó Bergvall, Victoria L. and Remlinger, Kathryn A. Discourse & Society (1996) 7(4): 453-479.

   ÒJoining in Academic Conversation: Gender, Power, and the Apportionment of Turns at Talk,Ó Studies in the Linguistic Sciences (1995) 25(2): 105-129.

 ÒThawing the Freezing Climate for Women: Views from Both Sides of the Desk,Ó Bergvall, Victoria L., Sorby, Sheryl A., and Worthen, James B. (1994) Journal of Women and Minorities in Science and Engineering 1(4): 323-346.

                 

Selected Book Chapters        

   ÒThe Question of Questions,Ó reprint of Bing & Bergvall (1996); the final chapter in Coates, Jennifer, ed. Language and Gender: A Reader. Oxford: Blackwell. (1998) pp. 495-510.

   ÒThe Question of Questions: Beyond Binary Thinking.Ó Bing, Janet M. and Bergvall, Victoria L. In Bergvall, Bing, and Freed, (1996) pp. 1-30.         

   ÒConstructing and Enacting Gender Through Discourse: Negotiating Multiple Roles as Female Engineering Students.Ó In Bergvall, Bing, and Freed, (1996) pp. 173-201.

   ÒDivided Minds: Gender Polarization in Brain and Language Research,Ó in Natasha Warner, Jocelyn Ahlers, Leela Bilmes, Monica Oliver, Suzanne Wertheim, and Melinda Chen, eds., Gender and Belief Systems: Proceedings of the Fourth Berkeley Women and Language Conference. (1996) pp. 11-23. Berkeley, CA: Berkeley Women & Language Group.

 

Work in Progress              

   Language and Gender Beyond Nature and Nurture, singly authored book.                           

 

Selected Recent Conference Presentations

ÒGenes, Gender, & Language: Challenging ÔManly MenÕ & ÔGirly Girls,ÕÓ at the International Gender and Language Association (IGALA4), Valencia, Spain, November 10, 2006.

ÒAnalyzing Gender Representations in Public Media: Matching Tools to Tasks,Ó at the 14th AILA (International Applied Linguistics Association) World Congress, July 25, 2005.

ÒBridging Discursive Chasms in Debates about Sex/Gender: Beyond Nature and Nurture,Ó invited plenary address at the Poznan Linguistics Meeting, Poznan, Poland, April 24, 2005.  Also presented as invited seminars at:

               ¥ Adam Mickiewicz University (Poznan, Poland)  (April 21)

               ¥ Johann Wolfgang Goethe University (Frankfurt am Main, Germany) (April 25)

               ¥ Uppsala University (Uppsala, Sweden) (May 2)                                               

ÒIdeologies of Nature and Nurture in Language and Gender Research,Ó in a panel I organized, Perspectives on Ideologies of Language and Gender, presented at the Third Biennial International Gender and Language Association (IGALA-3), Cornell University, June 7, 2004.

 ÒPicture This: Realizing Language and Gender in Theory and Image,Ó poster for the joint COSWL/IGALA conference, E. Lansing, MI, July 2003. Received 2004 ÒBest Conference Paper AwardÓ from the Organization for the Study of Communication, Language, and Gender.

ÒFrom Dichotomies to Continua (and Back?): Theorizing and Representing Gender.Ó Paper presented at the 25th Organization for the Study of Communication, Language, and Gender (OSCLG) meeting, Minneapolis, MN, October 4, 2002.

ÒMaking a Difference: Science, the Media, and the Construction of Gender Ideologies.Ó Paper presented at the International Gender and Language Association (IGALA-2) meeting, Lancaster, England, April 12, 2002.

 ÒPride and Parody: The Upper Peninsula (UP/"Yooper") Dialect of Michigan.Ó Paper presented at the American Dialect Association/Linguistic Society of America meeting, Washington, DC, January 4, 2001.

ÒThe Continuum of Gender Construction in On-Line Discourse: Communicating in a Technical Environment.Ó Paper presented at the International Gender and Language Association (IGALA-1), Stanford University, CA, May 6, 2000.

ÒRethinking Gender in Cyberia: Where Does Gender Go in the Computer-Mediated Construction of Technical Communication?Ó  Paper presented at the Challenging Rhetorics: Feminisms and Rhetorics Conference, Minneapolis, MN, Oct. 7. Part of a two-part panel I organized, entitled Gender in Cyberia: How Gender (Still Really) Matters in Electronic Discourse, 1999.

 ÒMoving from Face-to-Face to New Electronic Discourse Traditions: The Contributions of Linguistic Analysis of Computer-Mediated Discourse,Ó part of panel that I organized, Finding Our Voices: Using Close Analysis of Electronic Discourse to Study and Create New Traditions. Computers and Writing Conference, Rapid City, SD; May 26, 1999.

ÒTheory into Practice: Why Theory Matters in Language and Gender Research.Ó Paper presented at the Fifth Berkeley Women and Language Conference, Berkeley, CA, April 25, 1998.

 ÒConsidering Theory and Method in Language and Gender Research.Ó Part of invited/refereed symposium: Communities of Practice in Language and Gender Research. Sixth International Conference on Language and Social Psychology, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario; May 17, 1997.

 

Research Interests

   Language and gender (nature~nurture, ideology; the reporting of gender variation, from scientific reports to popular press; graphic/book cover portrayals of language and gender variation; on-line/computer-mediated performance of gender variation)

   Language and mind

   Local dialect variation

   Computer-mediated communication

   Classroom discourse

 

Teaching (Selected Recent Courses)

HU5030 Linguistic Analysis: sociolinguistics, discourse theory & analysis, oral/written/electronic

HU6111 Special Topics in Gender Studies: Gender and Language                                        

HU5004 Communication in Cultural Contexts

HU5100 Qualitative Research Methods                                 

HU5001 Proseminar in RTC

HU2910  Language and Mind     

HU2920  Language in Society     

HU3910  Language Issues in the World

UN1001  Perspectives on Inquiry: What is Intelligence?                                           

 

Graduate Advising      

Ph.D.       Chair of two completed dissertations (Kathryn Remlinger, 1995; Gerald Savage, 1994); two in process (Thomas Henry; Laurence Jose)

                Chaired seven other doctoral committees, Member of nineteen other doctoral committees

MasterÕs  Chaired nine masterÕs committees (5 theses; 2 projects; 2 coursework papers)

                Member of fifteen other masterÕs committees; two in Social Sciences

 

Selected Professional & Administrative Activities

International   International Gender and Language Association

                        ¥ Elected Vice President (2006-08)/President-Elect (2008-2010)            

National          Committee on the Status of Women in Linguistics (COSWL) (1992-1994)

                        ¥ Co-Chair, Chair (1993, 93-94)  ¥ Conference Organizer  (Summer 1993)