Kathryn Woolard

Kathryn Ann Woolard (born 1950 in Wellsville, New York) is a Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, San Diego. She specializes in linguistic anthropology, with particular interests in language ideologies and sociolinguistic issues in Catalonia. Woolard received a Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of California at Berkeley.

Woolard served as the president of the Society for Linguistic Anthropology, a section of the American Anthropological Association, from 2009 to 2011.

Woolard studies social relations and language use from an anthropological perspective, viewing language as a tool for communication, a means of social action, and a way of understanding the world. From this point of view, Woolard's analyses can be framed within current critical sociolinguistics, as her work integrates sociolinguistic theory and social theory. Within this perspective, the ideas that individuals and groups have about language and linguistic practices are understood as expressions of different views of society and social organization. Other scholars associated with critical sociolinguistics include Pierre Bourdieu and Mikhail Bakhtin.

Based on ethnographic investigation, Woolard analyzes the place of authority and authenticity in people's understanding of language and social order, particularly as these concepts are understood in Catalonia related to changes in the national language project and the status of Catalan and Castilian in contemporary Catalonia after thirty years of political autonomy within Spain.

Selected works

• 1989. Double Talk: Bilingualism and the Politics of Ethnicity in Catalonia. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
• 1992. Identitat i contacte de llengües a Barcelona. Barcelona: Edicions de la Magrana. (in Catalan)
• Bambi Schieffelin, Kathryn Woolard and Paul Kroskrity (eds). 1998. Language Ideologies: Practice and Theory New York: Oxford University Press.
• Susan Gal and Kathryn Woolard. 2001. Languages and Publics: The Making of Authority. Manchester: St. Jerome Publishing.