Rebecca Dinkel

Rebecca Dinkel’s research centers in linguistic and visual anthropology and Mesoamerican indigenous studies. This includes the study of discourse analysis, corpus linguistics, syntax, semantics and semiotics, the role of media technologies in communication, language maintenance and change and the relationship between image and language.

Her current research projects examine Mesoamerican indigenous languages, and their history and culture. Her dissertation, entitled, The Materiality of Metaphor in Mayan Hieroglyphic Texts: Metaphor in Changing Political Climates documents variation of political metaphors in pre-Columbian Mayan texts to examine the relationship between language (broadly), grammar, image, and media technologies and these relationships’ roles in linguistic and historical change. She also is active in documenting the grammar of clause linkage types in Copala Triqui, an indigenous language from Oaxaca, Mexico. Rebecca is also extending the methodologies of these research projects to new contexts. She is examining the relationship between political metaphors in both language and image during the COVID-19 pandemic and these metaphors’ roles in the production of truth.