UMass Boston

Jennifer Sclafani

Department:
Applied Linguistics
Title:
Assistant Professor

Areas of Expertise

Intercultural communication, Sociolinguistics, language and identity, gender, language ideologies, narrative analysis, political discourse analysis

Degrees

PhD, Linguistics, Georgetown University
MS, Linguistics, Georgetown University
BA, Italian and French Studies, The University of Virginia

Professional Publications & Contributions

Additional Information

Research Interests:
Dr. Sclafani's research takes an interactional sociolinguistic approach to examine identity construction and language ideologies. Her current project examines how political candidates construct "presidential selves" in US presidential primary campaign events, with a focus on how women candidates discursively navigate the double bind of gender and leadership through the use of personal narrative. She is also involved in a study of how return migrants to Greece from the diaspora conceptualize their heritage language and culture, and how they use different varieties of Greek to illustrate their affiliations with and attitudes toward their communities. 

Courses Taught:

APLING 605: Theories and Principles of Language Teaching
APLING 614: Bilingual and Multicultural Education
APLING 615: Dual Language Pedagogy
APLING 635: Literacy and Culture
APLING 637: Ethnography