Stefanie Ramos Bierge
Linguistics | Ecology | Education | Community work
Ko taku reo taku ohooho, ko taku reo taku mapihi mauria
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“My language is my awakening, my language is the window to my soul”
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-Maori Proverb
Research interests
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Morphology, syntax, typology, language documentation and description, language and ecology, environmental linguistics, language and culture, language contact, language revitalization, language teaching, Uto-Aztecan languages.
As a linguist, I am interested in the documentation and description of endangered languages, particularly in morphology and syntax, and in the intersection between language and ecology. I bring a functionalist/usage-based to my work to explain language structures and functions in natural language use. I integrate a crosslinguistic analysis in order to situate the research language in a typological perspective and to identify instances of language contact. My aim is also to understand how linguistic structures are used to conceptualize, encode, and transmit knowledge about the natural world.
My focus has been on the Uto-Aztecan language family spoken in Mexico:
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Huichol or Wixárika (Corachol)
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Northern Tepehuan or 'Odhami (Tepiman)
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My research work is based on extensive empirical data that I have gathered through my visits to various indigenous communities in Mexico.
Academic activities
I have presented in over 30 national and international conferences, participated in projects, peer-reviewed articles from scientific journals, given guest lectures and workshops, and won grants and awards. I have also published articles on Wixárika and Northern Tepehuan focusing on language description, including syntactic complexity, valence change, switch reference, grammaticalization, and language contact. My publication repertoire also includes articles on orally-transmitted stories from the Wixárika cosmogony, discussion on data sovereignty and community engagement, and botany genetics.
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