Back, Michelle

Visiting Assistant Professor
Office: HMNSS 2417A
michele.back@ucr.edu

Education

• University of Wisconsin-Madison, Ph.D. in Second Language Acquisition.
  Doctoral Dissertation: We Did the Wrong Dance: Ecuadorian Musicians Negotiating Language and Identity in a Transnational Community (2009).
  Directed by Prof. Richard F. Young.
• University of California, Berkeley, M.A. in Hispanic Languages and Literatures (1995).
• University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, B.A. in Spanish (1992).

Biography

Michele Back’s research focuses on identity, community and maintenance of indigenous languages among multilingual speakers. Her dissertation examined a group of Andean folkloric musicians and the role that their transnational experiences played in maintaining their native language, Ecuadorian Quichua. Currently she is investigating ideologies of Quechua and Spanish in Peru through an analysis of blogs and radio call-in shows, as well as the use and maintenance of Peruvian Quechua in customer service phone transactions. Her other research interests include identity and language acquisition in study abroad settings and reasons for taking less commonly taught languages. She teaches Spanish linguistics and Portuguese for Spanish speakers.

Curriculum Vitae | Back to Faculty