Elinor Ochs facts for kids
Elinor Ochs is an American anthropologist who studies language and how people communicate. She is a respected professor at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Professor Ochs has traveled to many places, including Madagascar, Italy, Samoa, and the United States, to observe how people talk and interact in their daily lives.
One of her most important ideas, developed with Bambi Schieffelin, is called language socialization. This field looks at how people learn to become active members of a community by using language. It's about how we learn to speak, listen, and understand the rules of talking in different groups, like our families or school friends. Professor Ochs is also known for her work in applied linguistics, which means she uses her knowledge of language to solve real-world problems. She also studies how stories are told and how families talk to each other.
In the USA, Professor Ochs has researched many interesting topics. She has studied how knowledge is created in a physics lab and how people with autism interact. She also looked at how families teach their children about right and wrong through conversations. This last study was part of her work as the director of the Center on Everyday Lives of Families for ten years. In 1998, Professor Ochs received a special award called the MacArthur Fellow for her important studies on language.
Awards and Honors
Elinor Ochs has received many awards for her groundbreaking work:
- 2000: Honorary Doctorate from Linkoping University, Sweden. This is a special degree given to honor her achievements.
- 1998: MacArthur Fellows Program. This is a very prestigious award, sometimes called a "genius grant," given to talented individuals.
- 1998: American Academy of Arts and Sciences Fellow. She was chosen to be part of this respected group of scholars.
- 1996: Helsinki University Rector’s Medal of Distinctive Scholarship.
- 1984: John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellow.
- 1973: New Hall, University of Cambridge Fellow.
- 1973: Honorary master's degree from the University of Cambridge.
- 1966: Phi Beta Kappa. This is an honor society for students who excel in their studies.
Books and Publications
Professor Ochs has written and edited many influential books about language and communication:
- The Handbook of Language Socialization, edited with Alessandro Duranti and Bambi B. Schieffelin, 2011. ISBN: 978-1-4051-9186-9
- Living Narrative: Creating Lives in Everyday Storytelling, with Lisa Capps, 2001. ISBN: 978-0-674-00482-5
- Constructing Panic: The Discourse of Agoraphobia, with Lisa Capps, 1997. ISBN: 978-0-674-16549-6
- Interaction and Grammar, edited with Emanuel A. Schegloff and Sandra A. Thompson, 1996. ISBN: 978-0-521-55828-0
- Culture and Language Development: Language Acquisition and Language Socialization in a Samoan Village, 1988. ISBN: 9780521348942
- Language Socialization Across Cultures, edited with Bambi B. Schieffelin, 1986. ISBN: 978-0-521-33919-3
- Acquisition of Conversational Competence, with Bambi B. Schieffelin, 1983. ISBN: 0710094590
- Developmental Pragmatics, edited with Bambi Schieffelin, 1979. ISBN: 978-0125245500
