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Lauren Zentz

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Professor and Chair

Lauren Zentz

Dr. Zentz uses a broad lens of Language Socialization to examine processes related to identity formation, morality, politics/political activism, nationalism and state formation. In her current, three-book research project, titled "The Discourses of Internet Political Organization" (DIPO), she has conducted ethnographic studies of political activists' organizing practices on social media platforms; ethnographic and critical discourse analytic studies of political influencers’ posts; and she has begun pilot research on the third study related to this project, in which she is examining conversations in prominent news podcasts in which AI is discussed in moral terms. These three studies have resulted in, respectively, Narrating Stance, Morality, and Political Identity: Building a Movement on Facebook, Routledge, 2021); a current book under review with Routledge, titled Echo Chambers and Epistemological Bubbles: Communicative Flirtation with the End of Democracy; and her forthcoming book project on AI and morality. In Dr. Zentz's prior work, she focused on Indonesian nationalism and state formation, Indonesian language policies, and language learning and identity among English majors in Central Java. This resulted in her first book, Statehood, Scale and Hierarchy: History, Language and Identity in Indonesia.

Education

  • Ph.D., University of Arizona 
  • M.A., University of Ottawa 
  • B.A., B.S., University of Florida      

Selected Publications

Books
  • Zentz, L. (under review). Echo Chambers and Epistemological Bubbles: Communicative Flirtations with the End of Democracy.
  • Zentz, L. (2021). Narrating Stance, Morality, and Political Identity: Building a Movement on Facebook. Routledge.
  • Zentz, L. (2017). Statehood, Scale, and Hierarchy: History, Language, and Identity in Indonesia. Multilingual Matters.

 Articles/Chapters

  • Zentz, L. (in press). Navigating pre-authorial constraints on Facebook: the “Seven As”. Giaxoglou, K. & Tagg, C (eds.) Routledge Handbook of Language and Social Media.
  • Zentz, L. (2023). Grassroots scaling up: Navigating “algorithmic scales” in a technopolitical landscape. Language in Society. June.
  • Zentz, L. (2021). #LadiesWeGotYou: Stances of Moral-Political Alignment in the Formation of Group Identity On Facebook. Journal of Sociolinguistics. DOI: 10.1111/josl.12507.
  • Zentz, L. (2021). “I AM HERE AND I MATTER”: Virtue signaling and moral-political stance in progressive activists’ Facebook posts. Narrative Inquiry. https://doi.org/10.1075/ni.20117.zen.
  • Zentz, L. (2021). Nation and nationalism. In The International Encyclopedia of Linguistic Anthropology. Wiley.
  • Zentz, L. (2021). Conversational maxims and conversational implicature. In The International Encyclopedia of Linguistic Anthropology. Wiley.
  • Zentz, L. (2021). Public/Private. In The International Encyclopedia of Linguistic Anthropology. Wiley.

Honors, Awards and Grants Received

  • 2020: $2,300 CLASS Project Completion Grant, University of Houston 
  • 2017: $6,000 Research Progress Grant, CLASS, University of Houston 
  • 2016: $10,000 Grant from Hobby Center for Public Policy, University of Houston 
  • 2016: Runner-up, Ton Vallen Award, Babylon Center for the Study of Superdiversity, Tilburg University, Netherlands. Awarded October 2016. (Article submitted: Zentz, L., 2015. “Love” the local, “use” the national, “study” the foreign: Shifting Javanese Language Ecologies in (Post-)Modernity, Postcoloniality, and Globalization. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 24(3): 339–359.) 
  • 2015: New Faculty Research Grant, University of Houston             

Classes Taught

Graduate level 
  • Bakhtin & the Internet, online course 
  • Socializing the Nation in the Internet Age, online course 
  • Discourse Analysis 
  • Introduction to Applied Linguistics 
  • Language in Postcoloniality and Globalization 

Undergraduate level

  • Bakhtin & the Internet, online course 
  • Socializing the Nation in the Internet Age, online course 
  • Introduction to the Study of Language, face to face and online 
  • Introduction to Sociolinguistics, face to face and online 
  • Language Socialization, face to face and online 
  • Grammar and Usage, face to face and online  
  • Empirical and Theoretical Approaches to Syntax, face to face 

Research Interests

  • Language socialization
  • Identity
  • Morality
  • AI
  • Social media communication
  • State formation and nationalism

Current Book Project

  • AI & Morality  

Affiliations and Links

Full CV in PDF

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