Projects per year
Personal profile
Research interests
Language not merely a means for representing the world, but also for constructing it and acting within it: in a sense, language is magic. Words do things.
I'm particularly interested in the relationship between words and social structure, between talk and our relationships to other people. How do we form new relationships? Make friends, fall in love, get married? What is the role of talk in creating emotions, forging social bonds, and creating and sustaining desire?
My doctoral dissertation focused on Japanese professional matchmakers and their ideologies of conversation. How do you create a good first impression on another person through talk? How do you incite in that other person the desire to see you again, and maybe even marry you? How are these communicative performances gendered—or not? And what kind of marriage relationship do matchmakers and their clients expect to create through talk, from the introductory meeting through to the proposal? In upcoming research, I plan to look at the language strategies used in Japanese online dating profiles, as well as expanding my research to include a comparative focus on other parts of Asia.
I've also, in the past, written about things like acoustic phonetics and language ideologies in sexual minority communities.
Research interests
Language not merely a means for representing the world, but also for constructing it and acting within it: in a sense, language is magic. Words do things.
I'm particularly interested in the relationship between words and social structure, between talk and our relationships to other people. How do we form new relationships? Make friends, fall in love, get married? What is the role of talk in creating emotions, forging social bonds, and creating and sustaining desire?
My doctoral dissertation focused on Japanese professional matchmakers and their ideologies of conversation. How do you create a good first impression on another person through talk? How do you incite in that other person the desire to see you again, and maybe even marry you? How are these communicative performances gendered—or not? And what kind of marriage relationship do matchmakers and their clients expect to create through talk, from the introductory meeting through to the proposal? In upcoming research, I plan to look at the language strategies used in Japanese online dating profiles, as well as expanding my research to include a comparative focus on other parts of Asia.
I've also, in the past, written about things like acoustic phonetics and language ideologies in sexual minority communities.
Education/Academic qualification
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Sep 2005 → May 2014
External positions
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Projects 2015 2020
Integrating Online Dating into Society: Japan as a Case Study
3/20/18 → 12/31/20
Project: Research project
Matchmaking Goes Online: A Preliminary Study of Online Dating in Japan
3/1/15 → 2/29/16
Project: Research project
Research Output 2008 2018
Matchmaking and the Value of Marriage in Neoliberal Japan
Alpert, E. R., 2018.Research output: Contribution to conference › Paper
Heterosexuality, Gender, and Difference: ‘Love Hunting’ Online in Japan
Alpert, E. R., 2017.Research output: Contribution to conference › Paper
Cool but not Sexy: "Cool Japan" and Demographic Crisis
Alpert, E. R., 2016.Research output: Contribution to conference › Paper
Gender and Kinship in Japanese Professional Matchmaking: Households versus Relationships
Alpert, E. R., 2015.Research output: Contribution to conference › Paper
The Personal Is Professional: Learning to Make Matches in Japan
Alpert, E. R., 2015.Research output: Contribution to conference › Paper