Sandra Thompson (linguist)
Encyclopedia
Sandra Annear Thompson is an American linguist
specializing in discourse analysis
, typology
, and interactional linguistics
. She has published numerous books and her research has appeared in many linguistics journals. She is currently a professor
of linguistics at the University of California, Santa Barbara
(UCSB) and serves on the editorial board of several prominent linguistics journals.
Thompson is known for her large body of research on Mandarin
grammar, much of which she has conducted in collaboration with UCSB colleague Charles Li. Their 1981 book Mandarin Chinese: A Functional Reference Grammar is widely cited and often compared to Yuen Ren Chao
's A Grammar of Spoken Chinese (1968). That work, along with her earlier work in Chinese resultative verb compounds, was a major contribution to the study of Chinese morphosyntax, and stood apart from contemporary research in that it devoted attention to the internal structure of Chinese compound words, whereas other research focused on the syntactic nature of compound words. She has also conducted research on discourse and grammar, collaborating with linguistics such as Paul Hopper
on topics including transitivity
and emergent grammar
.
Linguistics
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. Linguistics can be broadly broken into three categories or subfields of study: language form, language meaning, and language in context....
specializing in discourse analysis
Discourse analysis
Discourse analysis , or discourse studies, is a general term for a number of approaches to analyzing written, spoken, signed language use or any significant semiotic event....
, typology
Linguistic typology
Linguistic typology is a subfield of linguistics that studies and classifies languages according to their structural features. Its aim is to describe and explain the common properties and the structural diversity of the world's languages...
, and interactional linguistics
Interactional linguistics
Interactional linguistics is a recent interdisciplinary approach to grammar and interaction in the fields of linguistics, the sociology of language, and anthropology...
. She has published numerous books and her research has appeared in many linguistics journals. She is currently a professor
Professor
A professor is a scholarly teacher; the precise meaning of the term varies by country. Literally, professor derives from Latin as a "person who professes" being usually an expert in arts or sciences; a teacher of high rank...
of linguistics at the University of California, Santa Barbara
University of California, Santa Barbara
The University of California, Santa Barbara, commonly known as UCSB or UC Santa Barbara, is a public research university and one of the 10 general campuses of the University of California system. The main campus is located on a site in Goleta, California, from Santa Barbara and northwest of Los...
(UCSB) and serves on the editorial board of several prominent linguistics journals.
Thompson is known for her large body of research on Mandarin
Standard Mandarin
Standard Chinese or Modern Standard Chinese, also known as Mandarin or Putonghua, is the official language of the People's Republic of China and Republic of China , and is one of the four official languages of Singapore....
grammar, much of which she has conducted in collaboration with UCSB colleague Charles Li. Their 1981 book Mandarin Chinese: A Functional Reference Grammar is widely cited and often compared to Yuen Ren Chao
Yuen Ren Chao
Chao Yuen Ren was a Chinese American linguist and amateur composer. He made important contributions to the modern study of Chinese phonology and grammar....
's A Grammar of Spoken Chinese (1968). That work, along with her earlier work in Chinese resultative verb compounds, was a major contribution to the study of Chinese morphosyntax, and stood apart from contemporary research in that it devoted attention to the internal structure of Chinese compound words, whereas other research focused on the syntactic nature of compound words. She has also conducted research on discourse and grammar, collaborating with linguistics such as Paul Hopper
Paul Hopper
Paul J. Hopper is an American linguist of British birth. In 1973, he proposed the glottalic theory regarding the reconstruction of the Proto-Indo-European consonant inventory, in parallel with the Georgian linguist Tamaz Gamkrelidze and the Russian linguist Vyacheslav V. Ivanov...
on topics including transitivity
Transitivity (grammatical category)
In linguistics, transitivity is a property of verbs that relates to whether a verb can take direct objects and how many such objects a verb can take...
and emergent grammar
Emergent grammar
Emergent grammar is an approach to the study of syntax, originally proposed by Paul Hopper, which postulates that rules for grammar and syntactic structure emerge as language is used...
.