Dr Jackie Jia Lou
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Overview
Overview
Biography
I trained in linguistics at Georgetown University (PhD 2009), where I also worked as research and teaching assistant in linguistics and Chinese language instructor. I returned to City University of Hong Kong as Assistant Professor in the Department of English until I moved to the UK in 2016. Before joining Birkbeck in 2017, I lectured at Queen Mary University of London in linguistics and was affiliated with UCL IoE as an Honorary Fellow.
My research has so far focussed on language and the city, particularly through the lens of linguistic landscape, and I have published widely on the topic, including a monograph titled The Linguistic Landscape of Chinatown: A Sociolinguistic Ethnography (Multilingual Matters, 2016). More recently, I have become interested in historical urban sociolinguistics, and received a Leverhulme Research Fellowship for the project ‘Language change and urban transformation in Treaty Port Shanghai, c.1842-1943’.
I am an Associate Editor of the journal Linguistic Landscape (John Benjamins) and a member of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development.
At Birkbeck, I teach on a variety of sociolinguistic and applied linguistic modules at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels, and direct the BA Linguistics and Language and BA Linguistics and Culture programmes. I also serve on the steering committees of the Birkbeck Institute for Social Research (BISR) and the Birkbeck Institute of Moving Images (BIMI).
Highlights
Leverhulme Research Fellowship (2022-2024): 'Language change and urban transformation in Treaty Port Shanghai, c.1842 - 1943'
Zhao, F., & Lou, J. J. (2023). Localising cosmopolitanism in place talk: Semiotic landscape as stance object. Language in Society, 1–21. doi:10.1017/S0047404523000945
Jaworski, A., & Lou, J. J. (2021). #wordswewear: mobile texts, expressive persons, and conviviality in urban spaces. Social Semiotics, 31(1), 108–135. https://doi.org/10.1080/10350330.2020.1810545
Lou, JJ., Malinowski, D., Peck, A. (eds) (2022). The Linguistic Landscape of Covid-19. A special issue of Linguistic Landscape, Volume 8, Issue 2-3.
Qualifications
- Ph.D., Georgetown University, 2009
Web profiles
Administrative responsibilities
- Programme Director for BA Linguistics and Language and BA Linguistics and Culture
- LCAL Cluster Exam Board Chair
Honours and awards
- Research Fellowship: ‘Language change and urban transformation in Treaty Port Shanghai, c.1842-1943’, Leverhulme Trust, May 2022
- ISSF Translational Award:Covid-19 signs: Improving the impact and equality of regulatory signage in public space, Birkbeck Wellcome ISSF , May 2021
- Applying Linguistics Grant : Increasing the visibility of linguistic diversity in an international school: Children as co-researchers and co-designers of linguistic landscape (in collaboration with Ms. Susan Stewart and Prof. Jean Marc Dewaele, Birkbeck), BAAL, May 2018
- Research Innovation Fund: Navigating the linguistic landscapes of Chinatown: Spatial narrations of urban change, Birkbeck, May 2018
ORCID
0000-0002-6931-3756 -
Research
Research
Research interests
- sociolinguistics
- discourse and narrative analysis
- social semiotics
- ethnography of communication
- linguistic landscape
- language and the city
- history of languages
- language and culture
Research overview
My main research interest is concerned with language and the city, especially how languages are used in transnational urban spaces like Chinatown and how such spaces are represented and reconstructed through discourse. This often entails an eclectic research design which integrates sociolinguistic and discourse analysis with social- and geo-semiotic analysis, ethnographic fieldwork, and mobile video ethnography. I have also extended this approach to transnational educational spaces in collaboration with language educators with a BAAL Applied Linguistics Grant.
The Covid-19 pandemic has also prompted me to reflect more on the role of signage in public health communication globally, which resulted in a co-edited special issue on the linguistic landscape of Covid-19.
More recently, I have become interested in historical urban sociolinguistics, and received a Leverhulme Research Fellowship for the project ‘Language change and urban transformation in Treaty Port Shanghai, c.1842-1943’.
I am also an associate editor of the journal Linguistic Landscapes (John Benjamins) and serve as the Network Manager for the Linguistic Ethnography Forum, the British Association for Applied Linguistics.
I particularly enjoy interdisciplinary collaborations with researchers of shared interests as well as with writers, artists, and community groups. One such collaboration is an interactive sound installation named 'The Interpreter', which translates the rhythm of human speech into drum beats, designed and made by Oblik Soundwork Collective in Hong Kong.
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Supervision and teaching
Supervision and teaching
Supervision
I welcome enquiries from prospective PhD students who are interested in undertaking research in any of my areas of research interest, particularly:
- language, space, and place;
- linguistic and semiotic landscapes;
- urban sociolinguistics;
- transnational migration;
- linguistic ethnography
Doctoral alumni since 2013-14
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FENGZHI ZHAO
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MAHA EL-FARHAN
Teaching
Teaching modules
- Doing Languages, Cultures and Applied Linguistics (ARLL004S4)
- Research Methods and Design (LNLN019S7)
- Linguistics Final Year Project (LNLN023S6)
- Approaches to Language (Level 4) (LNLN026S4)
- Language, Culture and Communication (LNLN063S7)
- Introduction to Applied Linguistics (LNLN076S7)
- Independent Literature Review (SSAC012S7)
- Empirical Research Skills Training Workshop (SSAC035Z7)
- Language, Culture, and Communication (Level 5) (SSAC052H5)
- Postgraduate Research Seminars (SSAC059Z7)
- Investigating Language (SSAC060H5)
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Publications
Publications
Article
- Jaworski, A. and Lou, Jackie Jia (2020) #wordswewear: mobile texts, expressive persons, and conviviality in urban spaces. Social Semiotics 31 (1), pp. 108-135. ISSN 1035-0330.
- Lee, J.W. and Lou, Jackie Jia (2019) The ordinary semiotic landscape of an unordinary place: spatiotemporal disjunctures in Incheon’s Chinatown. International Journal of Multilingualism 16 (2), pp. 187-203. ISSN 1479-0718.
- Lou, Jackie Jia (2018) Discussion: The local practice of “Global Chinese”. Global Chinese 4 (1), pp. 89-101. ISSN 2199-4382.
- Lou, Jackie Jia (2017) Spaces of consumption and senses of place: a geosemiotic analysis of three markets in Hong Kong. Social Semiotics 27 (4), pp. 513-531. ISSN 1035-0330.
- Lou, Jackie Jia (2016) Shop sign as monument: the discursive recontextualisation of a neon sign. Linguistic Landscape: An International Journal 2 (3), pp. 211-222. ISSN 2214-9953.
- Lou, Jackie Jia and Jaworski, A. (2016) Itineraries of protest signage: semiotic landscape and the mythologizing of the Hong Kong Umbrella Movement. Journal of Language and Politics 15 (5), pp. 612-645. ISSN 1569-2159.
Book
- Lou, Jackie Jia (2016) The linguistic landscape of Chinatown: a sociolinguistic ethnography. Bristol, UK: Multilingual Matters. ISBN 9781783095629.
- Jenks, C. and Lou, Jackie Jia and Bhatia, A., eds. (2015) The discourse of culture and identity in national and transnational contexts. London, UK: Routledge. ISBN 9781138901919.
Book Section
- Lou, Jackie Jia (2020) The narrative arc of nation branding: staging Shanghai World Expo 2010 in historical events. In: Irene, T. and Tovar, J. (eds.) Research Companion to Language and Country Branding. London, UK: Routledge. ISBN 9780367343590.
- Lou, Jackie Jia (2017) Linguistic landscape and ethnographic fieldwork. In: Mallinson, C. and Childs, B. and Van Herk, G. (eds.) Data Collection in Sociolinguistics: Methods and Applications (2nd edition). Abingdon, UK: Routledge. ISBN 9781138691377.
- Lou, Jackie Jia (2015) Space and place as context. In: Flowerdew, John (ed.) Discourse in Context. Contemporary Applied Linguistics Volume 3. London, UK: Bloomsbury. pp. 205-223. ISBN 9781623563011.
- Lou, Jackie Jia (2014) The other side of the postcard: navigating linguistics landscapes in Hong Kong. In: Curry, J. and Hanstedt, P. (eds.) Reading Hong Kong, Reading Ourselves.. Hong Kong: City University of Hong Kong Press. ISBN 9789629372354.
External Repositories