My research is concerned with language use in popular media, and how that language use relates to broader sociocultural ideologies. In particular, I focus on fictionalized speech styles, how they are produced, consumed, and perceived, and the relationship that these styles have with characters (kyara) and personae. Recent projects include an exploration into the use of non-conventional katakana script as a means of visually constructing the Other, as well as a cross-genre analysis of young lady-speech (o-jōsama kotoba) and its relationship with gender, sexuality, and class. In addition to expanding my research in these areas, I also plan to explore how fictionalized speech styles function outside of fictional narratives as communicative tools in social interaction.
2022-present Project Assistant Professor, Tokyo College, the University of Tokyo
2021-2022 Project Researcher, Tokyo College, the University of Tokyo
2019-2020 Hosei International Fund Fellow, Department of Digital Media, Hosei University
2019 Ph.D. in Japanese Linguistics, the Ohio State University
2016 M.A. in Japanese Linguistics, the Ohio State University
2014-2015 Inter-University Center for Japanese Language Studies
2013 B.A. in Linguistics and Honors Interdisciplinary Studies in East Asian Languages, University of Georgia
Refereed Articles
Dahlberg-Dodd, H. E. (2022). Katakana and the Mediatized Other: Script Variation in Fantastical Narratives. Japanese Studies 42(1): 61-79. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/10371397.2022.2027749
Dahlberg-Dodd, H. E. (2020). O-jōsama kotoba and a stylistics of same-sex desire in Japanese yuri narratives.” In J. Welker (ed.), Mechademia: Second Arc 13(1): 6-23.
Dahlberg-Dodd, H. E. (2020). Script variation as audience design: Imagining readership and community in Japanese yuri comics. Language in Society 49: 357-378.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0047404519000794
Dahlberg-Dodd, H. E. (2019). The author in the post-internet age: Fan works, authorial function, and the archive. Transformative Works 30. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3983/twc.2019.1408
Dahlberg-Dodd, H. E. (2018). Voices of the hero: Dominant masculine ideologies through the speech of Japanese shōnen protagonists. Gender and Language 12(3): 346-371.
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1558/genl.32536
