Visiting Professor

Cyndi Dunn is a linguistic anthropologist with a research focus on Japanese language and culture. She has published extensively on honorific use, Japanese ideologies of politeness, speech genres, and oral narrative. She taught anthropology for nineteen years at the University of Northern Iowa before retiring to Colorado and teaching as a visiting professor at Colorado College.

 

Interests:

 Japanese sociolinguistics

Honorific use and politeness

Language ideologies

Genre

Oral narrative

Publications

2021 Dunn, Cynthia Dickel. “Narrative” and "Self Talk." International Encyclopedia of Linguistic Anthropology, ed. by J. Stanlaw. Wiley-Blackwell. 

2020 Dunn, Cynthia Dickel. “Reported Thought, Narrative Positioning, and Emotional Expression in Japanese Public Speaking Narratives.” In Bonding through Context: Language and Interactional Alignment in Japanese Situated Discourse, ed. by R. Ide and K. Hata, pp. 63-104. John Benjamins.

2018  Dunn, Cynthia Dickel. “Bowing Incorrectly: Aesthetic Labor and Expert Knowledge in Japanese Business Etiquette Training.”  In Japanese at Work: Politeness, Power and Personae in Japanese Workplace Discourse, ed. by H.M. Cook and J.S. Shibamoto-Smith, pp. 15-36. Palgrave Macmillan.

2017  Dunn, Cynthia Dickel. Personal Narratives and Self-Transformation in Postindustrial Societies.  Annual Review of Anthropology 46: 65-80.  doi: 10.1146/annurev-anthro-102116-041702

2014  Dunn, Cynthia Dickel. “Then I Learned About Positive Thinking”: The Genre Structuring of Narratives of Self-Transformation. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 24(2): 133-150.  doi:10.1111/jola.12045 

 2013  Dunn, Cynthia Dickel. Speaking Politely, Kindly, and Beautifully: Ideologies of Politeness in Japanese “Business Manners” Training.  Multilingua 32(2):225-245.  doi:10.1515/multi-2013-0011 

2011  Dunn, Cynthia Dickel.  Formal Forms or Verbal Strategies?  Politeness Theory and Japanese Business Etiquette Training. 

 Journal of Pragmatics 43(15):3643-3654.  doi:10.1016/j.pragma.2011.06.003