About me

Welcome! My name is Robert Xu (he/him). I am a PhD candidate in linguistics at Stanford University. Grounded in sociophonetics and linguistic anthropology, my research asks how stylistic expressions place individuals in society. My dissertation focuses on the embodied linguistic styles of prominent personae in Beijing. I find novel ways to understand complex prosodic structures in stylistic practices, and show that social differences and change emerge once linguistic use is situated in interactional engagement. My dissertation is supervised by Penny Eckert, Rob Podesva, and Qing Zhang. 

At Stanford I am associated with Rob Podesva's Interactional Sociophonetics Lab, Meghan Sumner's Phonetics Lab, and the Voices of California Project.

In my previous life as a phonetician and psycholinguist, I study prosody, perception, and bilingualism with Peggy Mok at The Chinese University of Hong Kong.

Feel free to contact me at: robxu@stanford.edu or connect with me on  Linkedin.