KiraÌýHall
- Distinguished Professor
- Chair, Department of Linguistics
- DEPARTMENTS OF LINGUISTICS AND ANTHROPOLOGY
Affiliated Faculty Positions
Department of Media Studies
Department of Women & Gender Studies
Directorships
Culture, Language, and Social Practice (CLASP) Program
Autistic Life and Language (ALL) Project
Kira Hall is Distinguished Professor in the at the °Ç¸ç³Ô¹Ï, with a courtesy appointmentÌýin the . As a sociocultural linguist, her work is situated at the intersection of linguistic anthropology and sociolinguistics, two closely related fields focused on the relationship between language and society. Her interdisciplinary commitment to both of these fields is reflected in the academic positions she has held since earning her PhD at the University of California, Berkeley in 1995, which include positions in the Department of English at Rutgers-Camden, the Department of Anthropology at Yale, and the Department of Linguistics at Stanford. Between 2019 and 2021, she served as President of the , the section within the American Anthropological Association dedicated to the study of language in social life.Ìý
Dr. Hall's research explores how identity is socially constructed through interaction, utilizing the specialized lens of ethnographic discourse analysis. Her work is concerned with how identity emerges within hierarchies of gender and sexuality, and how it transforms under globalization. A central pillar of her scholarship is her longterm ethnographic fieldwork in northern India. This research investigates the class-based language practices of Hindi-, English-, and Hinglish-speaking communities identifying with nonnormative systems of gender and sexuality, including hijras, kotis, gay men, lesbians, and trans men. Over the last decade, Dr. Hall's broader research agenda has expanded to address topics that include language and embodiment, gesture and ideology, the politicization of gender and sexuality discourses, autism in language and social life, and neurodiverse sociocultural linguistics.
Dr. Hall's publications include the foundational volumes Gender Articulated: Language and the Socially Constructed Self (with Mary Bucholtz, Routledge 1995), Queerly Phrased: Language, Gender, and Sexuality (with Anna Livia, Oxford 1997), and The Oxford Handbook in Language and Sexuality (with Rusty Barrett, Oxford Handbooks Online), along with three volumes published in India recognizing the life and work of Hindi poet, linguist, and folklorist Ved Prakash Vatuk: Essays in Indian Folk Traditions (Archana 2007), Studies in Inequality and Social Justice (Archana 2009), and Lifelong Search for Home: Collected English Poems of Ved Prakash Vatuk (New World 2023). Her research has received support from a variety of external funding agencies, including American Institute of Indian Studies, Fulbright-Hays, National Endowment for the Humanities, National Science Foundation, and Wenner-Gren Foundation.Ìý
Dr. Hall is also a recognized teacher, mentor, and educator. At CU °Ç¸ç³Ô¹Ï, her teaching awards include the Collaborative Access & Innovation Award (2026), the Best Should Teach Gold Award (2021), the ASSETT Outstanding Teacher with Technology Award (2013), the °Ç¸ç³Ô¹Ï Faculty Assembly Excellence in Teaching Award (2009), and the Outstanding Faculty Advisor Award (2004). In 2026, Dr. Hall received the Arnold Zwicky Award from the Linguistic Society of America in recognition of her career contributions in teaching, research, and service to the study of language and sexuality.