Location
Age
Area of FocusAbout Michael's Work
Michael Silverstein studies the mutual relations of language structure and the patterns of language used by people in various kinds of social groups.
His research has ranged from grammatical theory to ethnographic description to history of the social sciences involving language. Silverstein has proposed new, integrative ways of looking at people’s interactions, the texts they create while interacting via language, and the dynamic relations of these processes to language structure. His field investigations and other topical research in language and culture have centered on Native America and Aboriginal Australia, as well as the contemporary United States. He is the author of Talking Politics: The Substance of Style from Abe to “W.” (2003), a linguistic analysis of the public remarks made by President George W. Bush, in contrast to Abraham Lincoln, and other U.S. Presidents.
Biography
His other works include Whitney on Language (1971) and Natural Histories of Discourse (1996). He is a contributor to journals such as the Journal of Linguistic Anthropology and Current Anthropology. Silverstein is the Charles F. Grey Distinguished Service Professor of Anthropology, of Linguistics, and of Psychology and in the Committee on Interdisciplinary Studies in the Humanities at the University of Chicago.
Silverstein received an A.B. (1965) and a Ph.D. (1972) from Harvard University.
Last updated January 1, 2005.
Published on August 1, 1982
