Penelope Brown

Penelope Brown (born 1944) is an American anthropological linguist who has studied a number of aspects of cross-linguistic, sociolinguistic, and cross-cultural studies of language and cognition. She was the co-developer of the theory of politeness, a key topic in 20th century sociolinguistics, which was first published in 1978 (republished with a new introduction, corrections, and a new bibliography in 1987[1]) that she co-authored and with her research collaborator and husband, linguist Stephen Levinson.[2][3]

Brown earned a BA in Psychology from Carleton College 1965 and an M.A. in Anthropology and Linguistics from the University of Iowa in 1970. She earned a PhD in Anthropology from the University of California, Berkeley in 1979 under the supervision of John J. Gumperz. She earned the Stirling Prize for Best Work in Psychological Anthropology in 1992.[4] Brown worked in the field for a number of years with Tzeltel Maya speakers in Mexico, and has also worked in Rossel Island in Papua New Guinea.[5] She is currently an emeritus member of the Language Acquisition Department at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in Nijmegen.