91直播

Erika Hoffmann-Dilloway

(she/her/hers)

  • Professor of Anthropology

Areas of Study

Education

  • BA, Oakland University, 2000
  • MA, University of Michigan, 2003
  • PhD, University Michigan, 2008

Biography

Erika Hoffmann-Dilloway鈥檚 research addresses the flexible multi-modal nature of communicative practices as well as the social factors that facilitate or limit that flexibility. She explores these dynamics through ethnographic work with deaf signers in Nepal, Malta, Germany, and the US, as well as by experimenting with the modalities and genres through which anthropological research can be produced and shared.

Spring 2026

Introduction to Linguistic Anthropology 鈥 ANTH 204

Language, Disability, and Sensory Ecologies 鈥 ANTH 322

Practicum in Anthropology - Full 鈥 ANTH 391F

Practicum in Anthropology - Half 鈥 ANTH 391H

Internships in Teaching - Full 鈥 ANTH 415F

Internships in Teaching - Half 鈥 ANTH 415H

Linguistics Portfolio 鈥 LING 500

Fall 2026

Intro Linguistic Anthropology 鈥 ANTH 104

Graphic Anthropology 鈥 ANTH 357

Practicum in Anthropology - Full 鈥 ANTH 391F

Practicum in Anthropology - Half 鈥 ANTH 391H

Internships in Teaching - Full 鈥 ANTH 415F

Internships in Teaching - Half 鈥 ANTH 415H

Advanced Topics in Linguistic Anthropology 鈥 ANTH 427

Publications include:

  • Hoffmann-Dilloway, Erika and Promina Shrestha (2025). 鈥淗ow Did We Meet?鈥: Experiments with Ethnographic Comics in Nepal. Journal of American Folklore, Volume 138, Number 550, Fall 2025, pp. 458-467
  • Hoffmann-Dilloway, Erika and Anne Pfister (2024). Language Access and Deaf Activism in Mexico and Nepal. In, Riley, Kathleen, Bernard C. Perley, and Inmaculada M. Garc铆a S谩nchez (Eds.) Language and Social Justice: A Global Perspective. Bloomsbury Publishers.
  • Hoffmann-Dilloway, Erika and Kristen Snoddon (2023). Sign Languages. Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Anthropology.
  • Hoffmann-Dilloway, Erika and Annabelle Xerri (2022). #Deafmum: A Deaf Maltese Activist鈥檚 Strategies for Addressing Hearing Parents of Deaf Children. Practicing Anthropology.
  • Hoffmann-Dilloway, Erika (2021). Shadows and Mirrors: Spatial and Ideological Perspectives on Sign Language Competency. The Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 31(3): 320-334.
  • Das, Sonia N., Christina P. Davis, and Erika Hoffmann-Dilloway (2021). Judith T. Irvine and the Social Life of Scholarship. The Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 31(3): 316-319
  • Das, Sonia N., Christina P. Davis, and Erika Hoffmann-Dilloway (Eds.) (2021). Special Issue: Essays in Honor of Judith T. Irvine. The Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 31(3).
  • Hoffmann-Dilloway, Erika (2021). Media of Medium: Language Boundaries and Multimodal Semiotic Ecologies in Nepali Schools for Deaf Students. In Davis, Christina and Chaise LaDousa (eds.) Language Medium and Difference: Schools and Society in South Asia, 71-92. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • Hoffmann-Dilloway (2021). Images of Language and Imagistic Language in Nepal's Older and Vulnerable Deaf Person's Project. Semiotic Review
  • Hoffmann-Dilloway, Erika (2020). Writing What we Feel: Written Sign Language Literacy and Intersomaticity in a German Classroom. In Kusters, Green, Harrelson, and Snodden (Eds.), Sign Language Ideologies in Practice, 197-218. Mouton De Gruyter.
  • Hoffmann-Dilloway, Erika (2020). Figure (of Personhood) Drawing: Scaffolding Signing and Signers in Nepal. Signs in Society 8(1): 35-61.
  • Hoffmann-Dilloway, Erika (2018). Linguistic Anthropology in 2017: It Could be Otherwise. American Anthropologist 120 (2): 278-290.
  • Hoffmann-Dilloway, Erika (2018). Feeling your Own (or Someone Else鈥檚) Face: Writing Signs from the Expressive Viewpoint. Language and Communication 61: 88-101.
  • Hoffmann-Dilloway, Erika (2016). Signing and Belonging in Nepal. Gallaudet University Press.
  • Hoffmann-Dilloway, Erika (2013). (Don鈥檛) Write My Lips: Interpretations of the Relationship between German Sign Language and German across Scales of SignWriting Practice. Signs and Society 1(2): 243-272.
  • Hoffmann-Dilloway, Erika (2011). Ordering Burgers, Reordering Relations: Gestural interactions between hearing and d/Deaf Nepalis. Pragmatics 21(3): 373-391.
  • Hoffmann-Dilloway, Erika (2011). Writing the Smile: Language ideologies in, and through, sign language scripts. Language and Communication 31(4): 435-355.
  • Hoffmann-Dilloway, Erika (2011). Lending a Hand: Competence Through Cooperation in Nepal鈥檚 Deaf Associations. Language in Society 40(3): 385-306.
  • Hoffmann-Dilloway, Erika (2010). Many Names for Mother: The Ethno-linguistic Politics of Deafness in Nepal. South Asia: The Journal of South Asian Studies 33(3): 421-441.
  • Hoffmann-Dilloway, Erika (2008). Metasemiotic Regimentation in the Standardization of Nepali Sign Language. The Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 18(2): 192-213

Professor Hoffmann-Dilloway was elected to the position of President-Elect for the and assumed the role in November 2025. She will serve in that capacity through November 2027 and then serve as President for another two-year term.


Professor Hoffmann-Dilloway, together with Professor Angela Reyes from Hunter College, have been awarded funding from the Wenner-Gren Foundation for a workshop titled, 鈥淭he Question of Nature in Linguistic Anthropology: Language Within and Beyond the Human.鈥 The workshop will be held at 91直播 in Spring 2026.


Professor Hoffmann-Dilloway received a Fulbright Scholar Grant to conduct research in Nepal in 2022鈥23.


Professor Hoffmann-Dilloway鈥檚 book, (Gallaudet University Press, 2016), was awarded an honorable mention for the 2017 Society for Linguistic Anthropology Edward Sapir Book Prize.

The Sapir Book Prize was established in 2001 and is awarded to a book that makes the most significant contribution to our understanding of language in society, or the ways in which language mediates historical or contemporary sociocultural processes.

Notes

Erika Hoffmann-Dilloway Now President-Elect of the聽Society for Linguistic Anthropology

Professor of Anthropology Erika Hoffmann-Dilloway became president-elect of the in November 2025. She will serve in this capacity through November 2027, then will become president of the society for another two-year term. Among her duties, she will be responsible for organizing and hosting the organization's biennial conference.

Erika Hoffmann-Dilloway Publishes

Associate Professor of Anthropology Erika Hoffmann-Dilloway published "" in Signs and Society.

Erika Hoffmann-Dilloway Gives Invited Lecture

Associate Professor of Anthropology Erika Hoffmann-Dilloway gave an invited lecture titled "Figure (of Personhood) Drawing: Pictorial Representations of Signing and Signers in Nepal" on February 15, 2019 at The University of Michigan.

News