Alexia Fawcett
Alexia Fawcett is a linguist specializing in community-based language documentation with speakers of Indigenous languages of the Americas. She conducts research on linguistic structure, most recently and extensively focusing on spatial language in Wao Terero (spoken in the Amazon region of Ecuador).
Biography
Fawcett’s research stems from community-based language documentation, maintenance, and revitalization work with speakers of Indigenous languages of the Americas. She is interested in the conceptualization of space, place, and landscape and conducts research to understand the linguistic encoding of these ideas in Wao Terero (spoken in the Northwest Amazon). Her recent work has gone beyond standard video documentation methods, using action camera (GoPro) video to facilitate the simultaneous (and multimodal) analysis of spoken language, manual gesture, gaze, and body position while interacting with the land.
Fawcett holds a BA in Anthropology and Linguistics from Bryn Mawr College and a MA in Linguistics from the University of California, Santa Barbara. Her doctoral dissertation work was funded by the National Science Foundation. She is a visiting faculty member at Bennington for the 2024-2026 academic years.