Anne Delaney

Anne Delaney

Anne Delaney is a sociolinguist for JSTOR Daily, offering monthly musings on the interplay of language and culture, and how social and cultural factors influence our communication.

Since 2018, she has been location-independent, working in nine countries, observing, learning, and teaching language. Anne currently lives a life by design in Sintra, Portugal and the United States. With an extensive background in professional English language coaching, talent development, and a vibrant client practice with her firm, Excelsior English, she explores where language lives at life’s many contextual intersections.

One businessman bowing and one businessman with his hand out

The Accents of Our Bodies: Proxemics as Communication

American language educator Max Kirch suggests that adopting the nonverbal habits of another culture gives one’s behavior a "foreign accent."

An illustration of a mechanical watch mechanism

Chronemics and the Nonverbal Language of Time

Through the lens of chronemics, we can examine why time appears to have a different essence at, well, different times.

Major levels of linguistic structure

Filler Words and Floor Holders: The Sounds Our Thoughts Make

So, well, okay, um, like, you know, right?

Two open mouths with water ripples emanating out towards each other

Words on the Way In: A Retrospective

The first installment of a new column on living language: talking about COVID (talk)

Editors' Picks

James Baldwin and Nikki Giovanni in Conversation

In 1971, two legends of Black letters discussed Black manhood, white racism, the role of the writer, and the responsibility to teach.

Science & Technology

Can We Build a Better Facebook?

Is it time to turn our back on Facebook? And if so, what social network could possibly replace it?

Science & Technology

The Anatomists of Ancient Alexandria

Cultural forces under the Ptolemaic dynasty briefly allowed scholars like Herophilus to practice dissection—and possibly vivisection—on human subjects.

Politics & History

The Genocide Before the Shoah

For a century, Jews in Turkey have maintained a strategic silence when it comes to recognizing the Armenian genocide. Could that be changing?

Politics & History

Wilhelm Reich: Twice Burned

A psychoanalyst and physician, Reich fled the Nazis only to be detained by the US as an “enemy alien” during World War II. And then came the sexual revolution.