Dr Brook Bolander | People | School of English | Faculty of Arts

Adjunct Associate Professor

Dr Brook Bolander

MA Bern; PhD Basel

Adjunct Associate Professor

Dr Brook Bolander

MA Bern; PhD Basel

PROFILE

Dr. Brook Bolander joined the School of English at HKU in August 2015. Prior to that she was a Junior Fellow at FRIAS (Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies), Germany (2014–2015), and a doctoral- and post-doctoral assistant at the Universities of Zuerich (2012– 2014), Basel (2008–2012) and Bern (2007–2009), Switzerland. She completed her doctoral dissertation (summa cum laude) on language and power in blogs in 2012. In addition to research on computer-mediated communication (disagreements, agreements and power in blogs, identity on Facebook; and methodology in computer-mediated communication), she has worked on language-related inequalities in education (particularly on Basil Bernstein) and on global English, particularly on questions of language ideology and policy, and on the role and importance of English for the transnational Ismaili Muslim community. This latter research has led her to do ethnographic research in Pakistan and Tajikistan, as well as online, and in the British Library and National Archives, England, and to her position as a visiting fellow at the American University of Central Asia, Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan (2013). A fourth major area of interest is in sociolinguistic theory and in applications of social theory to sociolinguistics. These four major areas are reflected both in her publications and teaching, for example, a 2013 monograph Language and Power in Blogs (John Benjamins) and a 2017 special issue (with Till Mostowlansky) on Language and Globalization in South and Central Asian Spaces (for the International Journal of the Sociology of Language). She is also the coordinator of the School's Language and Communication Programme, and on the editorial board of Pragmatics (2017). Together with Adam Jaworksi, she co-edits the book series Oxford Studies in Sociolinguistics (Oxford University Press).

Courses developed and taught

Language and religion
Qualitative research methods in sociolinguistics online and offline
“Community” in sociolinguistics

PUBLICATIONS

Books and special issues

Bolander, Brook and Till Mostowlansky (eds.). 2017. Language and Globalisation in South and Central Asian Spaces. Special issue of the International Journal of the Sociology of Language 247.

Locher, Miriam, Brook Bolander and Nicole Höhn (eds.). 2015. Relational Work in Facebook and Discussion Boards/Fora. Special issue of Pragmatics 25.1.

Bolander, Brook. 2013. Language and Power in Blogs. (Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 237). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Journal articles and book chapters

2017
Bolander, Brook. 2017. Scaling value: transnationalism and the Aga Khan’s English as a “second language” policy. Language Policy. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10993-017-9435-5

Bolander, Brook and Miriam A. Locher. 2017. Conflictual and consensual disagreement. In Pragmatics of Social Media (Handbook of Pragmatics 11), ed. by Christian R. Hoffmann and Wolfram Bublitz. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

Locher, Miriam and Brook Bolander. 2017. Facework and identity. In Pragmatics of Social Media (Handbook of Pragmatics 11), ed. by Christian R. Hoffmann and Wolfram Bublitz. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

Bolander, Brook & Till Mostowlansky. 2017. “Language and globalisation in South and Central Asian spaces”. In special issue of “Language and Globalisation in South and Central Asian Spaces”, ed. by Brook Bolander & Till Mostowlansky. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 247.

Bolander, Brook. 2017. “English, Motility and Ismaili Transnationalism”. In special issue of “Language and Globalisation in South and Central Asian Spaces”, ed. by Brook Bolander & Till Mostowlansky. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 247

2016
Bolander, Brook. 2016. English and the transnational Ismaili Muslim community: Identity, the Aga Khan, and infrastructure. Language in Society 45(4).

Bolander, Brook. 2016. “English Language Policy as Ideology in Multilingual Khorog, Tajikistan”. In Discursive Approaches to Language Policy, ed. by Elisabeth Barakos and Johann W. Unger. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

2015
Bolander, Brook, and Miriam A. Locher. 2015. “‘Peter is a dumb nut’: Status Updates and Reactions to Them as ‘Acts of Positioning’ in Facebook”. Pragmatics 25.1, 99-122. Special issue on “Relational “Work in Facebook and Discussion Boards/Fora”, ed. by Miriam A. Locher, Brook Bolander and Nicole Höhn. DOI: 10.1075/prag.25.1.05bol

Locher, Miriam A., and Brook Bolander. 2015. “Humor in Microblogging: Exploiting Linguistic Humor Strategies for Identity Construction in Two Facebook Focus Groups. In Participation in Public and Social Media Interactions, ed. by Marta Dynel and Jan Chovanec. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 135–155. DOI: 10.1075/pbns.256.06loc

Locher, Miriam A., Brook Bolander and Nicole Höhn. 2015. “Introducing Relational Work in Facebook and Discussion Boards”. Pragmatics 25.1, 1-21. Special issue on “Relational “Work in Facebook and Discussion Boards/Fora”, ed. by Miriam A. Locher, Brook Bolander and Nicole Höhn. DOI: 10.1075/prag.25.1.01loc

2014
Bolander, Brook, and Miriam A. Locher. 2014. “Doing Sociolinguistic Research on Computer- Mediated Data: A Review of Four Methodological Issues.” Discourse, Context & Media 3, 14–26. DOI: 10.1016/j.dcm.2013.10.004

Locher, Miriam A., and Brook Bolander. 2014. “Relational Work and the Display of Multilingualism in two Facebook Groups”. In Face Work and Social Media, ed. by Kristina Bedijs, Gudrun Held and Christiane Maaß. Münster: Lit-Verlag, 157-191.

2009–2013
Bolander, Brook. 2009. “On the Relevance of Bernstein for German-Speaking Switzerland.” Multilingua 28.2–3, 195–228. Special issue on “Re-examining Bernstein”, ed. by Jenny Cook-Gumperz.

Bolander, Brook, and Richard J. Watts. 2009. “Re-Reading and Rehabilitating Basil Bernstein.” Multilingua 28.2–3, 143–175. Special issue on “Re-examining Bernstein”, ed. by Jenny Cook-Gumperz.

Bolander, Brook, and Miriam A. Locher. 2010. “Constructing Identity on Facebook.” In Performing the Self. Swiss Papers in English Language and Literature 24, ed. by Karen Junod, and Didier Maillat, 165–188. Tübingen: Narr. http://retro.seals.ch/digbib/view2?pid=spe-001:2010:24::174

Bolander, Brook. 2012. “Disagreements and Agreements in Personal/Diary Blogs: A Closer Look at Responsiveness.” Journal of Pragmatics 44, 1607–1622. Special issue on “Theorising disagreement”, ed. by Jo Angouri, and Miriam A. Locher. DOI: 10.1016/j.pragma.2012.03.008

Reviews

Bolander, Brook. 2016. Review of Christopher Jenks, Aditi Bhatia and Jackie Lou, eds., 2015, The Discourse of Culture and Identity in National and Transnational Contexts. Journal of Pragmatics 94, 12-14. DOI: 10.1016/j.pragma.2016.01.002

Bolander, Brook. 2015. Review of Rani Rubdy and Lubna Alsagoff, eds., 2013, The Global-Local Interface and Hybridity. Exploring Language and Identity. Bristol: Multilingual Matters. English World-Wide 36.1, 125–133. DOI: 10.1075/eww.36.1.06bol

Public media publications

Bolander, Brook. 2016. “Pierre Bourdieu”. CESMI (Central Eurasian Scholars and Media Initiative) My Take On (BBC Central Asian Services and CESMI). http://cesmi.info/wp/?p=1348

Bolander, Brook. 2015. “English or Russian? Language Ideologies in Multilingual Khorog, Tajikistan”. Soyuz. Anthropology News. http://www.anthropology-news.org/index.php/2015/04/15/english-or-russian/

Bolander, Brook. 2014. “Reading Dostoyevsky in English: A Who Dunnit in Khorog, Tajikistan”. CESMI (Central Eurasian Scholars and Media Initiative) My Take On (BBC Central Asian Services and CESMI). http://cesmi.info/wp/?p=973

Encyclopaedia entries

Bolander, Brook. 2017. Language and identity in Facebook. In Encyclopedia of Language and Education: Language and Technology, ed. by Steven Thorne. Springer International Publishing.

E-MAIL

bolander@hku.hk