Research and CV

Curriculum Vita  [PDF] and Link to Google Scholar

If you would like a copy of an article or a chapter, email me at karen.Tracy@colorado.edu

Overview

Karen Tracy is Professor Emeritus of Communication at the University of Colorado. She is a Distinguished Scholar in the National Communication Association and a Fellow in the International Communication Association. Tracy is a discourse analyst who studies institutional talk, particularly in justice, academic, and governance sites. She is the author of Colloquium: Dilemmas of Academic Discourse (1997); Challenges of Ordinary Democracy: A Case Study of Deliberation and Dissent (2010); and Discourse, Identities, and Social Change in the Marriage Equality Debates (2016). She is also a coauthor of the texts, Grounded Practical Theory: Investigating Communication Problems (2021 with R. T. Craig) and Everyday Talk, Building and Reflecting Identities (2002, 2013 with J. Robles) and 100+ journal articles, book chapters, and conference proceedings. Tracy has been professionally involved in a variety of leadership roles in communication associations as well as the language/discourse and argument communities.

EDUCATION

 Ph.D. in Communication Arts, University of Wisconsin, Madison, 1981.

M.A. in Speech Pathology, Bowling Green State University, 1974.

B.S. in Speech Pathology, Pennsylvania State University, 1972.

POSITIONS

 University of Colorado, Boulder

Professor Emeritus of Communication (2018-); Chair (2013-2017)

 Professor (1997-2017); Associate Professor (1990-1997)

Associate Director, Office of Faculty Affairs (2019-2020)

Publications Since 2015

Books

Craig, R. T. & Tracy, K. (2021). Grounded practical theory: Investigating communication problems. San Diego, CA: Cognella.

Tracy, K. (2016). Discourse, identity, and social change in the marriage equality debates. New York: Oxford University Press.

Tracy, K (General Editor), Ilie, C, & Sandel, T. (Associate Editors). (2015). The International Encyclopedia of Language and Social Interaction.  Boston: John Wiley & Sons. [3-volume, 1600-page, ~200 entries].

Articles & Chapters

Tracy, K. (2025). Political discrimination or reasonable conduct? Motive-implicative discourse moves in a civil trial’s closing arguments. In M. Szczyrbak (Ed.), More than (Just) words: Legal and non-legal narratives in the courtroom and beyond (pp. 49-72): DeGruyter Mouton.

Tracy, K. (2024). “Race trouble”: Competing accounts in a trial about anti-white racism. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 43, 1, 14-36. https://doi.org/10.1177/0261927x231201402

Tracy, K., & Reijven, M. (2023). Pursuing and resisting argumentative projects in Q&A sequences during jury trials. Journal of Pragmatics, 215, 178-188. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2023.08.001

Tracy, K. (2023). How US judges manage a dilemma in narrating their careers. Discourse & Communication, 17(2), 221-237. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1177/17504813221133016

Tracy, K. (2022). Preliminary jury instructing: a dilemmatic communication practice. Text & Talk. https://doi.org/doi:10.1515/text-2021-0115

Harwood, J., & Tracy, K. (2021). Language--AND--social psychology: Epilogue. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 40(1), 172-178. https://doi.org/10.1177/0261927X20962846 [invited]

Tracy, K. (2020). Delivering justice: Case study of a small claims court’s website. International Journal of Speech, Language and the Law. 27 (2). https://doi.org/10.1558/ijsll.41592

Tracy, K., & Craig, R. T. (2019). Decision announcements in small claims court: A recurring judge dilemma. Language and Dialogue, 9 (1), 65-83. doi:10.1075/ld00032.tra

Tracy, K., & Hodge, D. (2018). Judge discourse moves that enact and endanger procedural justice Discourse & Society, 29(1), 63-85. doi:10.1177/0957926517726112

Tracy, K., & Caron, M. (2017). How the language style of small-claims court judges does ideological work. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 36, 3, 321-342. doi: 10.1177/0261927X16652191

Tracy, K. (2016). Discourse analysis: Bridging frameworks or cultivating practices? Journal of Multicultural Discourses, 11(4), 360-366. doi: 10.1080/17447143.2016.1226317 [invited]

Tracy, K. (2022). Foregrounding practices: Cultivating stronger groups and teams. In S. J. Beck, J. Keyton, & M. S. Poole (Eds.), The Emerald handbook of group and team communication (pp. 533-544). Emerald.

 Tracy, K. (2020). Design and interactional challenges of informal justice practices in the US. In H. D. O’Hair and M. J. O’Hair (Eds.,) Handbook of Applied Communication Research (PP. 781-797). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley.

Tracy, K. (2020). Judicial questioning: How context shapes facework strategies. In D. Archer, K. Grainger, & P. Jogodzinski (Eds.), Politeness in professional contexts PP. 249-270). Amsterdam: John Benjamims.

 Tracy, K., & Hodge, D. (2019). Discourse features of disputing in small claims hearings. In J. O’Driscoll & L. Jeffries (Eds.), Routledge handbook of language in conflict (pp. 271-285). London: Routledge.

Tracy, K. (2017). Facework in political exchanges. In J. Culpeper, M. Haugh, & D. Kádár (Eds.), Palgrave handbook of linguistic politeness (pp. 739-758). London: Palgrave Macmillan.

Tracy, K. (2015). Editor's introduction. In K. Tracy, C. Ilie & T. Sandel (Eds.), International encyclopedia of language and social interaction (pp. xxv-xlvi). Boston: Wiley-Blackwell.

Hughes, J. M. F., & Tracy, K. (2015). Indexicality. In K. Tracy, C. Ilie & T. Sandel (Eds.), International encyclopedia of language and social interaction (pp. 788-793). Boston: John Wiley & Sons.

Parks, R., & Tracy, K. (2015). Discourses of religion. In K. Tracy, C. Ilie & T. Sandel (Eds.), International encyclopedia of language and social interaction (pp. 456-465). Boston: John Wiley & Sons.

Tracy, K. (2015). Grounded practical theory: Theorizing communicative practices. In D. Braithwaite & P. Schrdot (Eds.), Engaging theories in interpersonal communication (pp. 241-252). Los Angeles Sage.