Skip to Content
Report an accessibility problem
Tyler Peterson

Tyler Peterson

Assistant Professor, Department of English, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

t.peterson@asu.edu

480-727-9127

Department of Engiish
Arizona State University
PO Box 871401
Tempe, AZ 85287-1401

Titles

  • Assistant Professor, Department of English, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

Biography

Tyler Peterson's personal and professional roots are in the Pacific northwest of Canada. He did his dissertation with Lisa Matthewson on the Gitksan language (Tsimshianic) at the University of British Columbia. He is an assistant professor in the Department of English at Arizona State University. Although his professional home is in an English department, his work focuses on the documentation, revitalization, and maintenance of endangered Indigenous languages, primarily in the Americas and Oceania. He has a special interest in exploring how everyday technology and contemporary media can be used as a tool for language documentation and engaging the language learner, as well as developing teaching resources in these areas. His research as a linguist involves the theoretical and empirical approaches to the study of meaning (semantics and pragmatics). Previous to my position at ASU, he was visiting lecturer at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. In this part of the world, he has a number of currently active language documentation and research projects that brings his interests together. One of these projects is on the Cook Islands Māori, which includes a component dedicated to language revitalization, maintenance and literacy.

Being situated in Arizona, he has experience working with the Indigenous communities and languages in the U.S. Southwest. He was the interim program coordinator of the Native American Masters Program (NAMA). NAMA is a specialized master's of arts degree that is oriented towards training Indigenous language educators and activists in linguistics, language maintenance, revitalization and policy. In addition to his various research projects in linguistics, he is also active in outreach, teaching and developing curricula for the American Indian Language Development Institute (AILDI), an independent program within the College of Education at the University of Arizona. AILDI is one of the longest continually running organizations dedicated to providing critical training to Indigenous language educators and community activists.

Education

  • PhD, Linguistics, University of British Columbia, 2010
  • BMus, Music Theory (minor Russian literature), University of British Columbia, 1999