Sandra Annear Thompson (born July 6, 1941) is an American

linguist Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Lingu ...

specializing in

discourse analysis Discourse analysis (DA), or discourse studies, is an approach to the analysis of written, vocal, or sign language use, or any significant semiotic event. The objects of discourse Analysis (discourse, writing, conversation, communicative event) ...

typology Typology is the study of types or the systematic classification of the types of something according to their common characteristics. Typology is the act of finding, counting and classification facts with the help of eyes, other senses and logic. Ty ...

, and

interactional linguistics Interactional linguistics (IL) is an interdisciplinary approach to grammar and interaction in the field of linguistics, that applies the methodology of Conversation Analysis to the study of linguistic structures, including syntax, phonetics, phonol ...

. She is Professor Emerita of Linguistics at the

University of California, Santa Barbara The University of California, Santa Barbara (UC Santa Barbara or UCSB) is a public land-grant research university in Santa Barbara, California with 23,196 undergraduates and 2,983 graduate students enrolled in 2021–2022. It is part of the U ...

(UCSB). She has published numerous books, her research has appeared in many linguistics journals, and she serves on the editorial board of several prominent linguistics journals.

Education

Thompson received her BA in linguistics from

Ohio State University The Ohio State University, commonly called Ohio State or OSU, is a public land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio. A member of the University System of Ohio, it has been ranked by major institutional rankings among the best pub ...

in 1963. She earned her MA in linguistics in 1965 and her

PhD PHD or PhD may refer to: * Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), an academic qualification Entertainment * '' PhD: Phantasy Degree'', a Korean comic series * '' Piled Higher and Deeper'', a web comic * Ph.D. (band), a 1980s British group ** Ph.D. (Ph.D. al ...

in 1969, both from Ohio State.

Career

From 1968–1986, Thompson taught at the

University of California, Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the Californ ...

(UCLA). Since 1986, she has held a position at UCSB. Thompson is known for her large body of research on Mandarin grammar, much of which she has conducted in collaboration with UCSB colleague Charles Li. Their 1981 book ''Mandarin Chinese: A Functional Reference Grammar'' is widely cited and often compared to

Yuen Ren Chao Yuen Ren Chao (; 3 November 1892 – 25 February 1982), also known as Zhao Yuanren, was a Chinese-American linguist, educator, scholar, poet, and composer, who contributed to the modern study of Chinese phonology and grammar. Chao was born a ...

's ''A Grammar of Spoken Chinese'' (1968). That work, along with her earlier work in Chinese resultative verb compounds, was a major contribution to the study of Chinese morphosyntax, and stood apart from contemporary research in that it devoted attention to the internal structure of Chinese compound words, whereas other research focused on the syntactic nature of compound words. Packard, Jerome (1997). "Introduction." ''New Approaches to Chinese Word Formation: Morphology, Phonology and the Lexicon in Modern and Ancient Chinese''. In ''Trends in Linguistics: Studies and Monographs'' 105, ed. Werner Winter. New York: Mouton de Gruyter. pp. 17–18. She has also conducted research on discourse and grammar, collaborating with linguists such as

Paul Hopper Paul J. Hopper is an American linguist of British birth. In 1973, he proposed the glottalic theory regarding the reconstruction of the Proto-Indo-European consonant inventory, in parallel with the Georgian linguist Tamaz Gamkrelidze and the Russ ...

on topics including transitivity and

emergent grammar Interactional linguistics (IL) is an interdisciplinary approach to grammar and interaction in the field of linguistics, that applies the methodology of Conversation Analysis to the study of linguistic structures, including syntax, phonetics, phonol ...

. With Christian Matthiessen and

Bill Mann William C. "Bill" Mann (died August 13, 2004, aged 69) was a computer scientist and computational linguist, the originator of Rhetorical Structure Theory (RST) and a president of the Association for Computational Linguistics (1987–1988). He is esp ...

she developed rhetorical structure theory. Her interest in discourse led her to be involved in collecting data for the Santa Barbara Corpus of Spoken American English. Thompson and Charles Li also carried out extensive documentation of the

Wappo The Wappo ( endonym: ''Micewal'') are an indigenous people of northern California. Their traditional homelands are in Napa Valley, the south shore of Clear Lake, Alexander Valley, and Russian River valley. They are distantly related to the ...

language, and, with Joseph Sung-yul Park, published a reference grammar of the language in 2006.

Honors and awards

Thompson was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1988. She was President of the International Pragmatics Association from 1991-1994. She was named a Fellow of the Linguistic Society of America in 2007. In 2017, she was given the International Pragmatics Association's

John J. Gumperz John Joseph Gumperz (January 9, 1922 – March 29, 2013) was an American linguist and academic. Gumperz was, for most of his career, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley. His research on the languages of India, on code-switching ...

Life-Time Achievement Award at the 15th International

Pragmatics In linguistics and related fields, pragmatics is the study of how context contributes to meaning. The field of study evaluates how human language is utilized in social interactions, as well as the relationship between the interpreter and the int ...

Conference in Belfast. A volume of essays in her honor was published in 2002. The book ''Building Responsive Action'' written together with Barbara Fox and Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen received the best book award from the International Society for

Conversation Analysis Conversation analysis (CA) is an approach to the study of social interaction, embracing both verbal and non-verbal conduct, in situations of everyday life. CA originated as a sociological method, but has since spread to other fields. CA began with ...

in 2018.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Thompson, Sandra Linguists from the United States Living people University of California, Santa Barbara faculty 1941 births Ohio State University College of Arts and Sciences alumni Women linguists Fellows of the Linguistic Society of America