Language and Ethnic Identity

My book (University of Pennsylvania 2015) and other papers focus on the political nature of languages. Why do governments recognize some languages but not others? What are the social and economic consequences of linguistic recognition? I explore these topics in my Ethnic Politics and Southeast Asian Politics courses. I am currently the vice-president of IPSA's RC-50 (Language and Politics).

Pronouns and Politics

​Language of Migrant Networks

I have a book manuscript looking at the languages used within migrant communities and how these networks affect political incorporation levels . I study the Chinese in Central-Eastern Europe. My surveys of the Chinese migrants are the largest to have ever been done in the region. I was previously a Fulbright US Scholar (Romania) and a CAORC Multi-Country Fellow (Bulgaria and Hungary). I teach about the Chinese diaspora in my East European Politics course.

I am also interested in the intersection of politics and pronouns. I have a coauthored paper - using both survey data and an experiment - looking at whether individuals speaking a non-gendered language (e.g., Hungarian) are more likely to hold gender parity attitudes and whether this maps onto women's rights at the national level. I also have two other papers that use big data to  look at the use of pronouns by executives. One is about the use of "we" as a measure of increasing personalization; and the other is about the electoral patterns of pronoun usage. 

amy h. liu​

Associate Professor

Department of Government, University of Texas at Austin

158 . 21st Street, Stop A1800, Austin, TX 78712-1704

Tel: +1 512 232 7249; Email: firstname.lastname @ austin.utexas.edu