Trường Đại học Khoa học Xã hội và Nhân văn - ĐHQGHN

1. SUMMARY

Full name: Jack Sidnell

Department of Anthropology, University of Toronto Mississauga | jack.sidnell@utoronto.ca | https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7546-872X

Jack Sidnell is Full Professor of Anthropology at the University of Toronto. His research spans linguistic anthropology, conversation analysis, and the history of language reform in Vietnam. He has conducted fieldwork in Vietnam, India, the Caribbean, and South America, and has published widely on social interaction, language ideology, interlocutor reference, and the semiotics of language.

2. EDUCATION

1998 — Ph.D. Anthropology, University of Toronto

1993 — M.A. Anthropology, University of Toronto

1992 — B.A. Anthropology, University of Toronto

3. APPOINTMENTS

2015–present — Full Professor, Anthropology, University of Toronto Mississauga

2009–present — Cross-Appointed, Graduate Faculty, Linguistics, University of Toronto

2004–2015 — Associate Professor, Anthropology, University of Toronto Mississauga

1998–2002 — Assistant Professor, Anthropology, Northwestern University

4. SELECTED GRANTS AND FELLOWSHIPS

2026–2029 — ARC Discovery Project, Reason-giving in the wild, Australian Research Council. Partner Investigator with N.J. Enfield. (860k AUD)

2025–2030 — SSHRC Insight Grant, Educating Effective Elegance in Contemporary Vietnam. (93k CAD)

2024 — Chancellor Jackman Research Fellowship in the Humanities, University of Toronto.

2022–2024 — SSHRC Insight Development Grant, (Re)making language: Linguistic ideology, public discourse and social reform in early 20th century Vietnam. (43k CAD)

2010–2013 — SSHRC Standard Research Grant, Repair and Understanding in Vietnamese Talk-in-Interaction. (134k CAD)

5. BOOKS

2022 — Consequences of Language: From Primary to Enhanced Intersubjectivity. MIT Press. (with N.J. Enfield)

2017 — The Concept of Action. Cambridge University Press. (with N.J. Enfield)

2010 — Conversation Analysis: An Introduction. Blackwell.

2005 — Talk and Practical Epistemology: The Social Life of Knowledge in a Caribbean Community. John Benjamins.

6. EDITED VOLUMES

2023 — Signs of Deference, Signs of Demeanour: Interlocutor Reference and Self-Other Relations across Southeast Asian Speech Communities. NUS Press. (with Novi Djenar)

2014 — Cambridge Handbook of Linguistic Anthropology. Cambridge University Press. (with N.J. Enfield and Paul Kockelman)

2013 — Handbook of Conversation Analysis. Blackwell. (with Tanya Stivers)

2013 — Conversational Repair and Human Understanding. Cambridge University Press. (with Makoto Hayashi and Geoffrey Raymond)

7. SELECTED ARTICLES AND CHAPTERS ON VIETNAM AND SOUTHEAST ASIA

2027 — Marxism and the semiotics of language. Annual Review of Anthropology.

2025 — Revolutionizing perspective. Anthropological Quarterly 98(4): 631–660.

2025 — Speaking for oneself: Language reform and the Confucian legacy in late colonial Vietnam. In Freedoms of Speech. University of Toronto Press.

2024 — How to speak to the masses, parts I and II. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 34(1): 4–44.

2023 — The inconvenience of tradition: Phan Khôi's pragmatism and language reform. Journal of Vietnamese Studies 18(3): 56–97.

2021 — Generic reference and social ontology in Vietnamese conversation. Language in Society 50(4): 533–555.

2020 — Shifting referential perspective in Vietnamese speech interaction. Journal of the Southeast Asian Linguistics Society, Special Publication 6. (with Hy Van Luong)

2019 — Vietnamese interlocutor reference, linguistic diversity and semiotic mediation. Paradigmi 37(3): 467–490.

2013 — The problem of peers in Vietnamese interaction. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 19(3): 618–638. (with Merav Shohet)

8. WORK IN PROGRESS

Revolutionary Genres: Communist Language Reform and Class Consciousness in 20th Century Vietnam. Book manuscript.

9. SELECTED INVITED LECTURES

2025 — Semiotic reflexivity and self-reference in Vietnamese. School for Advanced Research, Santa Fe.

2024 — Revolutionary genres. Colloquium, Université de Montréal.

2022 — How to speak to the masses. Colloquium, University of Texas, Austin.

10. EDITORIAL AND PROFESSIONAL SERVICE

Founding Series Editor — Studies in the Anthropology of Language, Sign and Social Life, University of Toronto Press (2020–present)

Associate Editor — Language in Society (2014–2020)

Editorial boards — Language in Society; Functions of Language; Research on Children and Social Interaction; Anthropological Linguistics, Mouton de Gruyter; Foundations of Human Interaction, Oxford University Press.

Grant review — SSHRC Insight Grant Committee, Anthropology and Archaeology (2025–present); ERC Starting Grants Panel SH4 (2025–2033).

11. LANGUAGES

English — Native speaker

Vietnamese — Advanced fluency in speaking, reading, and writing

French — Intermediate reading and writing