Lev Michael
Assistant Professor

Anthropological linguistics, documentation and description of Amazonian languages, grammar and interaction, prosodic systems and verbal art, language contact, language endangerment and revitalization
Languages: Aʔɨwa, Iquito, Máíhɨki, Matsigenka, Muniche, Nanti, Omagua, Záparo
Ph.D., Anthropology, University of Texas at Austin, 2008

Groups: Fieldwork & Language Documentation, Language & Social Context, Language & Historical Context

Contact information

Office: 1212 Dwinelle Hall
Email: levmichael@berkeley.edu

Office hours: M 10-11, and by appointment

Web site: http://www.cabeceras.org/ldm_publications/ldm_publications.htm

Personal statement

I am an anthropological linguist with an areal commitment to Amazonia and adjacent regions. My research focuses on the social, political, and cultural life of grammar, and conversely, on using our understanding of grammar to shed light on cultural history. In the former domain, my work focuses on the strategic uses of deictic grammatical categories (e.g. evidentiality) to create particular social effects, on the manipulation of phonological and morphological structure for verbally artistic ends, and on how languages as a whole come to serve as political resources and objects of political conflict. I am also interested in using genetic historical linguistics and contact linguistics as a tool for exploring the cultural history of Amazonia.

Methodologically, my work is grounded in detailed language description, which, tied to my political engagements in indigenous communities, has led to being substantially involved in community-oriented language documentation and revitalization. Due to the typologically remarkable nature of Amazonian languages, my work in language description has also led to an interest in language typology.

Selected publications

Journal Articles

In Press. Michael, Lev, Stephanie Farmer, Gregory Finley, Christine Beier, and Karina Sullón Acosta. A sketch of Muniche segmental and prosodic phonology. International Journal of American Linguistics.

In Press. The interaction of tone and stress in the prosodic system of Iquito (Zaparoan, Peru). Amerindia 36.

2012. Nanti self-quotation: Implications for the pragmatics of reported speech and evidentiality. Pragmatics and Society 3(2): 321-357.

2012. Nuckolls, Janis and Lev Michael. Introduction: Evidentials and evidential strategies in interactional and sociocultural context. Pragmatics and Society 3(2): 181-188.

2011. Beier, Christine, Cynthia Hansen, I-Wen Lai, and Lev Michael. Exploiting word order to express and inflectional category: Reality status in Iquito. Linguistic Typology 15: 65-99. 

2006. Beier, Christine and Lev Michael. The Iquito Language Documentation Project: Developing team-based methods for language documentation. Linguistic Discovery 4(1). [webpage]

2005. Crowhurst, Megan and Lev Michael. Iterative footing and prominence-driven stress in Nanti (Kampa). Language 81(1): 47-95. [pdf]

2002. Beier, Christine, Lev Michael, and Joel Sherzer. Discourse forms and processes in indigenous lowland South America: an areal-typological perspective. Annual Review of Anthropology 31: 121 - 145. [pdf]

Book Chapters

2012. Possession in Nanti. In Alexandra Aikhenvald and R.M.W. Dixon (eds.), Possession and Ownership: A cross-linguistic typology, pp. 149-166. Oxford University Press

2011. Language and Culture. In Peter Austin and Julia Sallabank (eds.), The Cambridge Handbook of Endangered Languages, pp. 120-140. Cambridge University press.  

2009. Clause linking in Iquito (Zaparoan). In R.M.W. Dixon and Alexandra Aikhenvald (eds.), The Semantics of Clause Linking. Oxford University Press.

Dissertation

2008. Nanti evidential practice: Language, knowledge, and social action in an Amazonian society. PhD dissertation, University of Texas at Austin. [pdf]