Dr. Olga Pahom has just finished a major book, Conversational Storytelling in Spanish-English Bilingual Couples: Gender Roles and Language Choices, which is scheduled to be published by Bloomsbury this fall.
Dr. Pahom serves as the Associate Professor of Linguistics and Cultural Studies and as the Associate Dean of the J.E. and L.E. Mabee Foundation Honors College. is a major international academic publisher.
鈥淔or more than three decades, the percentage of people who married someone of a different race, ethnicity, culture, or linguistic background has been on the rise in the United States, but the communication practices of such couples have remained understudied,鈥� Bloomsbury says of Dr. Pahom鈥檚 work. 鈥淐ombining bilingualism, gender studies, and conversation analysis, this book explores and describes the storytelling practices and language choices of several married heterosexual Spanish-English bilingual couples, all residing in Texas but each from different geographic and cultural backgrounds.鈥�
Based on more than 900 minutes of conversations and interviews, the book offers a data-driven analysis of the ways in which language choices and gender performance shape the stories, conversations, and identities of bilingual couples, which in turn shape the social order of bilingual communities.
Dr. Pahom鈥檚 book has garnered glowing reviews by top scholars in the field of intercultural communication and discourse analysis. Dr. Ingrid Piller, Distinguished Professor of Applied Linguistics at Macquarie University, Australia, lauded, 鈥淭his meticulous study of Spanish-English bilingual couples' conversational story-telling shows how the middle ground in intercultural communication is found when people talk and listen to each other in everyday interactions.鈥�
Similarly, Dr. Anthony Liddicoat, Professor of Applied Linguistics, University of Warwick, UK, praised Dr. Pahom鈥檚 work. 鈥淭his book presents a detailed study of how bilingual couples use their languages in contexts of storytelling,鈥� he shared. 鈥淚t draws on Conversation Analysis to understand how couples鈥� talk draws on their language repertoires in sophisticated ways in telling stories and reveals that there are gendered differences in their language use. The book offers new insights into both storytelling and gender studies.鈥�
Dr. Pahom鈥檚 work is exemplary of the high levels of scholarship for which 糖心Vlog鈥檚 faculty continuously strives. Dr. Stacy Patty, Dean of the J.E. and Eileen Hancock College of Liberal Arts and the J.E. and L.E. Mabee Foundation Honors College, says, 鈥淒r. Pahom represents well the Honors College, the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences, and the University, both in such outstanding scholarship and in her teaching and service here.鈥�