Sonya Rao

Linguistic and Legal Anthropologist

    • About me

      I document the difficult work people do to understand each other in multilingual legal spaces.

      I am a legal and linguistic anthropologist who examines courtrooms as workplaces, and courtroom professionals as communication workers. I write about the labor organizing of legal interpreters and the impact of private management of language services on public institutions. In my work, I search for evidence that points to constructing more effective, equitable working environments for courtroom professionals, and better language services for the people who rely on them.

       

      I observe Immigration Courts, where people work together to secure respondents' linguistic comprehension of proceedings, and legal professionals' semantic comprehension of the interpretation for the respondent. Respondents in Immigration Court represent a great diversity of linguistic cultures, as do those who interpret for them, represent them, and review their cases. Such diversity is met with a variety of professional training, experience, and perspectives on language, all under the pressure of limited time and resources.

       

      Cross-linguistic courtroom communication is complicated and difficult work, but it is also crucial. For many individuals in immigration proceedings, linguistic comprehension of courtroom talk is a matter of life and death. Despite the efforts of many, the legal ideal of an invisible language barrier does not always manifest. My research investigates how interpreters and legal professionals apply varying strategies to achieve understanding. These strategies cross conventional notions of power and professionalism, as well as varying beliefs about what linguistic comprehension looks and sounds like.

       

      While my ethnographic research focuses on language access rights and Immigration Courts, my broader theoretical interests include language ideologies, linguistic labor, and political economy under neoliberalism.

       

      Research is generously funded by the National Science Foundation Program in Law and Social Sciences, the Social Science Research Council, the UC Consortium on Social Science and the Law, and the University of California, Los Angeles, and the UCLA Bedari Kindness Institute.

    • Education

      University of California, Los Angeles

      2013- Present

      Dissertation Title: Privatizing Language Work: Interpreters, Race and Access in Los Angeles Immigration Court

       

      Dissertation Committee:
      Paul Kroskrity, Department of Anthropology
      Norma Mendoza-Denton, Department of Anthropology
      Jessica Cattelino, Department of Anthropology
      Ingrid Eagly, UCLA Law School

       

       

      Fellowships and Grants

      National Science Foundation Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant,

      Law and Social Sciences Program

       

      UC Consortium on Social Science and the Law Summer Fellowship

       

      Graduate Research Mentorship Fellowship, UCLA

       

      UCLA Bedari Kindness Institute

       

      UCLA Edward A. Bouchet Honors Society

       

      UCLA Department of Anthropology Student Research


      Graduate Summer Research Mentorship Award, UCLA


      UCLA Department of Anthropology Student Research Grant


      SSRC-Mellon Mays Dissertation Enhancement Grant

       

      Graduate Summer Research Mentorship, UCLA

       

      SSRC-Mellon Mays Pre-Doctoral Research Development Grant


      Oakes and Louise Ames Prize for Outstanding Honors Study, Finalist, Connecticut College


      Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship

      Selected Presentations

      "Externalities of Privatized Language Services and Organized Responses: U.S. Immigration Court Interpreters 2015-2018.”

      Workshop Participant, Law and Society Association Meetings, online workshop hosted by Migration and Citizenship Interest Group. Spring 2020

       

      “Language Access in Immigration Courts: Ensuring Dignity for Language Workers and Litigants.”
      Panelist, Law and Society Association Meeting, Washington, D.C. Spring 2019.


      “Handling Requests for Emergency Language Services Ethically: Professionalism for Linguists in the Legal Arena.”

      Panelist, Georgetown University Roundtable: Linguistics and the Public Good, Washington, D.C. Spring 2019.

       

      “Contributions of Life History to the Study of Linguistic Labor.”

      Panel Organizer, Co-Chair and Panelist American Anthropological Association Meeting, San Jose, California. Fall 2018.

       

      “Invisible Linguistic Labor in Moments of Calm and Crisis: Los Angeles Immigration Court and Beyond.”

      Robert and Mabel Groseclose Endowed Lecturer and Guest Instructor
      Whitman College, Walla Walla, Washington Fall 2018.

       

      “Professional Cross-Linguistic Communication: Working with Interpreters.”

      Invited Panelist
      Annual Bouchet Conference on Diversity in Education: The Urgency of Civic Responsibility: Building a Movement to Leverage Scholar-Activism in the Academy. New Haven, Connecticut. Spring 2017.

       

      Selected Publications

      Published Work

      “Communicating in Times of Crisis.” Anthropology News website, August 16, 2018. DOI: 10.1111/AN.947.

       

      Forthcoming Publications

      “Linguistic Lives as Working Lives: Conducting Lingual Life Histories for the Labor Movement.” Accepted September 2020 by the Journal of Anthropological Research.

       

      Under Review

      “The Distribution of Linguistic Labor: Professional Roles in Los Angeles Immigration Court.” Submitted October 2020 to Language and Communication.

      Required reading in Language and Culture, Fall 2018, Whitman College; Rachel George, Assistant Professor
      Language and Identity, Fall 2018 UCLA Anthropology, Edwin Everhart, Lecturer

       

      Research and Work Experience

      Beyond my own research, I have served as a Graduate Student Researcher for several sociolegal scholars and anthropologists. Most recently, I worked under Professor M. Kamari Clarke, a legal anthropologist whose work on human rights and international criminal law tribunals has impacts across disciplines. I have worked as a Graduate Student Researcher for Professor of Anthropology Jessica Cattelino, Department of Anthropology, UCLA. I assisted in research at the UCLA Downtown Labor Center, working under Professor Noah Zatz, UCLA Law School. In these roles I have conducted ethnographic research, grant development and writing, and conference planning and coordination.

       

      I presently serve as the Liaison for the Haines Digital Lab, a center for scholars of interaction. In this role I ensure students and professors have access to software that supports data analysis for their research, and create educational materials to help them get the most out of the software and resources we offer.

    • teaching

      Teaching Philosophy

      Individual life experiences with language are equally important to my teaching as to my research. In my years teaching, I have observed that students are quick to recognize instances of linguistic inequality in their lives and in the lives of those who are close to them. I have designed coursework to leverage these insights, prompting students to design original ethnographic interviews to create language biographies of individuals in their lives. While constructing analytic arguments about original, students engage in the social histories that shaped their subject's linguistic life history.

       

      My approach to teaching linguistic anthropology is to pedagogically anchor instruction about language in lessons of social inequality. Group class discussions locate the role of language within ethnographically concrete instances of familiar social inequalities. At the same time, lectures center on of the impact of social hierarchy on linguistic practice and structure itself. In this way, the same ethnographic examples introduce abstract concepts about the structure of language and interaction. The approach bridges a common curricular gap between linguistic and socio-cultural anthropology, as well as making connections across disciplines. Altogether, my course design focuses on revealing the connections between the fine mechanics of language to socio-political realities on a global scale.

      Teaching Experience

      UCLA Department of Anthropology, Lecturer 

      Language and Identity

      Culture and Communication


      Undergraduate Research Center, Graduate Mentor Summer 2016

      Mellon Mays Undergraduate Intensive Writing and Research Training Program

       

      UCLA Department of Anthropology, Teaching Fellow Fall 2017- Spring 2019 

      Language and Youth Subcultures
      Gender and Language in Society
      Anthropology of Food
      Ethnography of Communication
      Culture and Communication
      Evolution of Language


      UCLA Department of Anthropology, Teaching Associate Fall 2015- Spring 2016

      Language and Culture

      Culture in Society

      Culture and Communication

       

      UCLA Department of Anthropology, Teaching Assistant Fall 2014- Spring 2015

      Culture and Communication
      Human Evolution
      Culture and Communication

       

      UCLA Department of Anthropology, Reader Fall 2014- Summer 2015

      Culture and Communication
      Language in Culture
      Citizenship and Migration

    • Contact

      I interview a variety of language and legal professionals about their experiences with language, and I'd like to hear your story.

      sonyarao@ucla.edu
      Submit

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