Research Background
My inquiries into Tibetan cultural worlds began at the age of 17, when I attended a study abroad program in India and began to learn the intricacies of South Asian languages–first through Hindi, then Nepali, and then multiple varieties of Tibetan! Studying Anthropology at Wellesley College (B.A. 2013), I deepened my connections to transnational Tibetan communities. Inspired to understand how these communities’ voices were changing across time and space, I focused my research on Sino-Tibetan languages while completing my specialization in Linguistic Anthropology at New York University (M.A. 2015, M.Phil. 2016, Ph.D. 2019).
“The true locus of culture is in the interaction of specific individuals and…in the world of meaning which each one of these individuals may unconsciously abstract for [themselves]…”
— Edward Sapir (1949)
Scholarship in Canada
Since moving to Canada in 2019, I have examined diverse Sino-Tibetan languages spoken in British Columbia (along with several feline sidekicks)! I am currently examining heritage language acquisition among Chinese-Canadian and Tibetan-Canadian children, with a particular interest in Pemakoe (Tshangla) and Central Tibetan languages.
I teach at the University of British Columbia Okanagan, where you can find my courses in Linguistic Anthropology.
Shannon M. Ward, Ph.D. 