Lydia Rodríguez

Linguistic Anthropology

Regional focus: Latin America, Mesoamerica, Amerindian cultures, Maya languages.

Topical interests: Pragmatics, body language, personhood, spirituality and corporality in language.

My interest in linguistic anthropology is related to both my formation as a philologist and as an anthropologist. I hold degrees in classical philology (2000) and in social and cultural anthropology (2002). In 2002, I enrolled in the Ph.D. program in social anthropology at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. During the first year of my graduate studies, I joined a research group on the project titled "Transnational Networks: Migration, Globalization and Citizenship," and I conducted fieldwork in a community of Ecuadorean transmigrants, both in Spain and in Ecuador.

In 2003-2004, I spent a year at Boston College, where I took my first courses in sociolinguistics. The next year I received an M.A. in Amerindian Studies from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid and a Diploma of Advanced Studies from the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, for which I presented the research paper "Woman, language and culture in a Quichua community of the Ecuadorean Sierra." This paper, based on my first fieldwork in Ecuador, explored the role that Quichua women had played in the transmission of Quichua identity, and how they used their language and culture as a strategy for economic and cultural empowerment.

In 2005, I was awarded La Caixa Scholarship, and I enrolled at UVA. I am currently working on Chol Mayan. My research interests are in the field of pragmatics, body language, and how indigenous philosophies of personhood, spirituality and corporality are reflected in the language.