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My approach to discourse focuses on how people do things with language—that is, how does language have effects? How is language used in the course of communication? My work is grounded largely in rhetoric (e.g. Burke, 1969; Royster, 2000), sociolinguistics (e.g., Duranti & Goodwin, 1992), linguistic anthropology (e.g., Duranti, 1997; Wortham & Rymes, 2005), and linguistic pragmatics (Blommaert & Verschueren, 1995; Levinson, 1983).

The central issue driving my work is that of difference: how do people in the midst of discourse production or interaction with others come to recognize and make sense of differences? Key to approaching this question is the issue of “contextualization” (Gumperz, 1992)—that is, how interactants draw on aspects of others’ utterances or texts to infer interpretations of and responses to utterances and texts. Meaning is not inherent in utterances or texts (that is: they are not rule-bound). Rather, meaning emerges over the course of interaction/use/communication. So what a particular utterance or text “means” is not necessarily evident at the moment of interaction or utterance—effects of language use often do not become apparent until some later point.

Using this grounding, I have developed the notion of difference as a “marker.” I argue that perceptions of difference emerge through language and function similarly to what Wortham (2001) calls “indexical cues,” elements of an utterance that point to (“index”) interpretive frames or relevant aspects of the context. Markers of difference, like “indexical cues,” point to or highlight aspects of context—in this case, differences—that are relevant for understanding relationships or positions being established between interactants (or between interactants and texts). Along with my interest in differences in interaction, I am interested in how writing and acts of writing mediate engagements with difference.

My analyses of students’ talk, writing, and interaction in a first-year writing classroom at a major Midwestern university have focused on narratives and disagreements as key sites for the display and engagement of difference. I have also performed critical rhetorical analyses of institutional diversity rhetorics as a way of uncovering underlying assumptions about diversity and difference. My work offers implications for researchers interested in understanding how to represent the conflicting and competing nature of self and identity in relation to others in ways that capture the dynamism of such activity. Teachers and researchers will also find valuable my contributions to understanding how interactions around and with writing can promote ethically responsible stances towards the Other and authentic engagement with diversity issues.