Trained as a linguistic and cultural anthropologist, my research program investigates the intersection of language ideologies and cultural production across diverse sociocultural contexts and mediated environments.
An Anthropology of Audiovisual Creativity
My primary research centers on the linguistic and creative practices collectively known as peiyin (voice acting, voiceover, dubbing). In Taiwan’s commercial media industries, peiyin professionals strategically navigate the politics of representation, blending linguistic dexterity with cultural and ideological nuance.
I am currently revising and updating my first book project, The Voice Factory: The Politics of Language and Acoustic Aesthetics in Taiwan’s Mandarin-Voiceover Production. Grounded in longitudinal ethnographic fieldwork in Taipei since 2016, this monograph introduces the framework of “an anthropology of audiovisual creativity.” It conceptualizes peiyin as a collaborative sound-image form of creative production, encompassing inter- and intralingual transfer, ideological expression, audio-pictorial reappropriation, and commercial strategy.
The manuscript examines multiple domains—industrial development, scriptwriting sessions, dubbing recordings, voice acting training, fan-oriented events, and business meetings. Parts of this research appear in peer-reviewed journals (Chen 2022, 2025).
Dubbing Mandarin (Peiyin Qiang)
In parallel with my ethnographic fieldwork, I have assembled a media corpus of Mandarin-dubbed productions spanning the 1960s through the 2020s. This corpus enables close linguistic analysis of what I call “Dubbing Mandarin”—a specialized media register commonly referred to as the “dubbing accent” (peiyin qiang). While my book project focuses on the creative politics of dubbing, this strand of research foregrounds the structural features of the dubbese, including syntax, phonology, phonetics, morphology, and pragmatics. Preliminary findings were recently presented at Global Asias 2025.
Raciolinguistics of the Sinophone World
Beyond my primary project on voice production, I collaborate with researchers across the Pacific to address linguistic racism and xenophobia within and against the broadly categorized group often labeled as “the Chinese (huaren).” This work spans diverse contexts, including Taiwan (Chen 2018) and Singapore (Lim, Chen, & Hiramoto 2021), as well as mediated spaces such as TikTok and X (Twitter).
Presentation of Self in Everyday Conversations
More recently, I have also launched several smaller-scale projects that extend my interest in linguistic creativity to mundane, everyday contexts. One project employs conversation analysis and the ethnography of speaking to investigate student life within liberal arts institutions, focusing on the intersection of language, identity, and institutional culture (Chen and Manning, in prep; Chen and Budman, in prep).
Immersive Media and Ethnographic Framing
A related methodological line of inquiry examines 360-degree video and virtual reality as tools for reconsidering how ethnographic framing works. This strand grew out of my fieldwork in Taipei recording studios, where I have filmed dubbing sessions with both conventional 180-degree and 360-degree cameras, and it now extends to everyday interactional settings in the United States, where I work with a team of student research assistants. A paper drawing on this material is in preparation (Chen, in prep), and the work also informs methods training at Hamilton.
Mediated Textuality
Building on my research on audiovisual media as sound-image bundles, I have developed a new project examining the textuality of social media videos to understand how short-form social media videos circulate as fragmented assemblages that enable intertextual creativity and political meaning-making. In collaboration with Carter Higgins, I analyze how such disintegration—rather than cohesion—becomes the ground for layered referentiality, aesthetic remix, and emergent social commentary (Chen and Higgins, under revision).
Platformed Desire and Mediated Intimacy
Together with Carter Higgins, I have developed an ongoing project on how digital platforms mediate sexuality, desire, and intimacy. One paper, “#grindrlife” (Chen and Higgins, in prep), analyzes user-generated narratives as metapragmatic reflections on platformed encounters, tracing how intimacy and recognition are negotiated through discourse. A second paper, “Simulating the Self” (Chen and Higgins, in prep), theorizes how platforms like Grindr produce legibility and desire through classificatory logics and self-auditing practices.
Discourse and Materiality of Fun: Toys, Figurines, Trading Cards, and Video Game
My research, personal interests, and sustained participation in ACG (Anime, Comics, and Games) cultures have converged in this expanding side project on the discourse and materiality of “fun.” Focusing on toys, figurines, trading cards, and video games originally released in the 1990s—and more recently reprinted, revived, or revamped—I examine how these objects circulate in everyday discourse, particularly among players and collectors who narratively reconstruct what it means to “have fun.” Through such narratives, I explore how experiences of play—both in childhood and adulthood—serve as key sites for the construction, maintenance, and reactivation of subjecthood.
Ethnolinguistics of Kalinga in the Philippines
In Summer 2025, I joined a Japanese-led ethnoarchaeological project (PI: Dr. Masashi Kobayashi, Kanazawa University) on rice harvesting and cooking practices in Kalinga, Philippines, where I served as the sole cultural anthropologist. While collaborating with archaeologists to participate in and film harvesting activities and associated rituals, I independently designed and carried out the ethnolinguistic component of the project. This involved working closely with village elders to document Guina-ang Kalinga and to investigate potential sociolinguistic evidence for the cultural significance of rice in Kalinga life.
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Invited Lectures, Workshops, and Discussions
2026.5 “Taigi on Track: Colonial Afterlives and Voice Labor in Taiwan’s Dubbing Mediascape.” UCLA-NTNU Taiwan Studies Initiative 2026 Annual Conference, University of California, Los Angeles, CA.
2025.04 “‘Accent or Not’: Language Politics in Dubbing.” Guest lecture for Literature & Creative Writing (LIT 344W: ’earing Accents), Hamilton College.
2024.02 “Sinitic Polypoly: Taiwan’s Dubbing Industry and Sociolinguistic Landscape.” Guest lecture for Asian Studies (ASIAN 63: History of the Chinese Language), University of Wisconsin-Madison.
2023.11 “Parameterization of Voices in Taiwan’s Dubbing Performance.” Invited Presentation for “Language Work in the Movies: A Round Table,” Department of English, University of Bern, Switzerland.
2022.3 “Disembodiment in Taiwanese Voice Acting Peiyin.” Presentation at Discourse Lab, Department of Anthropology, UCLA.
2020.7 “Learning How to “Speak”: Language Socialization of Peiyin Novices through Shaming (學會怎麼「說話」：論羞恥感對於配音新手的語言社會化的影響).” Institute of Ethnology, Academia Sinica, Taiwan. [Talk given in Mandarin Chinese].
2020.2 “The Sociolinguistics of Voice-Over Production.” Invited talk at National University of Singapore, Singapore. (Cancelled due to COVID-19)
2019.5 “Language, Voice, and Sound: Introduction to an Anthropology of Voice.” Invited talk at the Institute of Anthropology, National Tsinghua University, Taiwan.
2017.6 “From ‘Cool Japan (クールジャパン)’ to Glocalization: An Introduction to Cultural Production.” Guest lecture for Anthropology (ANT S175: Japan through Time and in its Places), UCLA.
2017.4 “Dubbing as a linguistic practice: examining standard language ideologies in Taiwan’s voice-over industry.” Presentation at Discourse Lab, Department of Anthropology, UCLA.
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Conference Presentations
(2026.11) “Figures of Longing: Antique Toy Collecting and the Chronotopic Reconstruction of Play.” Anthropological Association (AAA) 2026 Annual Meeting, St. Louis, MO.
2026.09 “#grindrlife: Modulated Sociality, Narrated Intimacies, and Mediated Desires on Grindr.” Lavender Languages & Linguistics 32, University of Edinburgh, UK. *Co-Authored presentation with Carter Higgins (Hamilton College).
2026.4 “Postcolonial Soundstage: Heritage Performance and Authority in Taiwan’s Dubbing Industry.” The 23rd European Association of Taiwan Studies (EATS) Annual Conference, University of Portsmouth, UK.
2025.11 “Dubbing Taiwan: Voice, Identity, and the Paradoxes of Decolonization in Taiwan’s Voiceover Production.” Anthropological Association (AAA) 2025 Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA.
2025.11 “Voicing Heritage: Negotiating Taiwanese Identity and Colonial Ideologies in Taiwan’s Dubbing Industry.” World Anthropological Union (WAU) 2025 Congress, Antigua, Guatemala.
2025.05 “Lucrative Plurality: Commodifying Variations in Taiwan’s Dubbing Production.” Society of Linguistic Anthropology 3rd Meeting, University of Chicago, IL.
2025.02 “Ethnolinguistics of ‘Dubbing Mandarin (peiyin qiang)’ in Taiwan.” Global Asias 3rd Annual Conference, University of California, Irvine.
2024.11 “Parameterization of Affect-Encoded Voices in Taiwan’s Dubbing Performance.” American Anthropological Association (AAA) 2022 Annual Meeting, Tampa, FL.
2022.10 “Shamed into Linguistic Insecurity: Language Socialization of Voice-Acting Novices in Taiwan.” American Anthropology Association (AAA) 2022 Annual Meeting, Seattle, WA.
2022.11 “Socialization into ‘Dubbing Mandarin’: Struggles of Voice-Acting Novices in Taiwan.” East Asian Anthropological Association (EAAA) 2022 Meeting, Taipei, Taiwan.
2021.11 “Animating Characters with and through Voices: Performative Animativity in Taiwanese Voice Acting.” American Anthropological Association (AAA) 2021 Annual Meeting, Baltimore, MD.
2021.6 “Toward an anthropology of trans-creativity: An ethnographic study of dubbing professionals who trans-create the filmic soundscape.” Sociolinguistics Symposium (SS) 23. The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China. *Online due to COVID-19.
2020.11 “Shamed into Linguistic Insecurity: Language Socialization of Voice-acting Novices in Taiwan.” East Asian Anthropological Association (EAAA) 2020 Annual Meeting, Institute of Ethnology, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan. (Conference canceled).
2019.11 “Acoustic labor and auditory pleasure: The push and pull factors in the making of Taiwan’s dubbing media.” American Anthropological Association (AAA) 2019 Annual Meeting, Vancouver, Canada.
2019.6 “From monopoly to polypoly: The story of Mandarin in Postwar Taiwan’s dubbing industry.” The 16th International Pragmatics Conference (IPrA), the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, China.
2019.4 “The politics of representation in and through the making of Mandarin dubbing in postwar Taiwan.” Sinophone Studies: Interdisciplinary Perspectives and Critical Reflections, University of California, Los Angeles. Los Angeles, CA.
2019.3 “When cultural production meets standardization project: The making of Mandarin in the Postwar Taiwanese dubbing industry.” Association for Asian Studies (AAS) Annual Meeting, Denver, CO.
2017.12 “Playing with voices: an inspection of code-switching in Taiwan’s voice-over industry.” American Anthropological Association (AAA) 2017 Annual Meeting, Washington, D.C.
2017.6 “‘Standard Mandarin’ as an ideologically construed language: A case of Taiwan’s voice-over industry.” The 29th North American Conference on Chinese Linguistics (NACCL-29), Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ.
2016.11 “The ‘benign’ standard language ideology: Animation dubbing and its sociolinguistic implications and significances in Taiwan.” American Anthropological Association (AAA) 2016 Annual Meeting, Minneapolis, MN.
2016.6 “Re-/Constructing linguistic identities and boundary through map drawing.” Sociolinguistics Symposium (SS) 21, Universidad de Murcia, Spain.
2016.4 “Ideologies and identities as ‘different’ Mandarin-speaking people: Folk conceptualization of Taiwan Mandarin and boundary maintenance.” Language, Indexicality and Belonging, Linguistic Anthropology Conference, University of Oxford, United Kingdom.
2016.4 “Visualizing language ideologies: The interplay between perceptual linguistic geography of Mandarin and identity construction.” American Association for Applied Linguistics (AAAL), Orlando, FL.
2015.10 “Language ideologies on maps: Linguistic geographic perceptions of Mandarin Varieties and Taiwanese identities.” Culture, Language and Social Practice IV Conference, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO.
2015.6 “Redefining Taiwan Mandarin: language ideologies of Taiwan in change.” North American Taiwan Studies Association (NATSA) 21th Conference, Harvard University, Boston, MA.
2011.7 “Manga, the zeitgeist of the twenty-first century.” ISEP 2010-2011 Student Research Colloquium. Tokyo Gakugei University, Tokyo, Japan.