PhD Linguistics, University at Buffalo (2015)

MA Language Documentation and Description, SOAS (2010)

BA German and Linguistics, University of Oxford (2009)

(2019–present) Junior Professor, Institut für Afrikanistik und Ägyptologie, Universität zu Köln

(2016–2019) Postdoctoral Research Associate, VariKin Project, Department of Anthropology & Archaeology, University of Bristol

(2015–2016) Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow, Asien-Afrika-Institut, Universität Hamburg

I am interested in the diversity of ways in which humans use language to mediate their relationships with others, particularly at the fine-grained level of everyday interaction. My research to date has mostly focused on language and social relations among Datooga-speakers of Tanzania, with whom I have conducted almost two years of linguistic and ethnographic fieldwork. My current project explores how Datooga-speaking children are socialised into kinship relations through everyday linguistic and bodily practice.

I also have an active interest in language documentation and description and am in the process of creating a video corpus of spontaneous interaction in Datooga. 

• Beyond split case marking: Participant coding strategies in East African languages (Project B02 in SFB Prominence in Language, co-PL Birgit Hellwig; 2025-2028)
• Framing Futures (Project C05 in CRC Future Rural Africa; co-PL Thomas Widlok; 2022-2026)
• Linguistic approaches to the documentation of indigenous ecological knowledge: A mobile training workshop. Volkswagen Foundation, ‘Knowledge for Tomorrow - Cooperative research projects in sub-Saharan Africa’. Co-PL Chrispina Alphonce, The University of Dodoma. (2022–2023)
• Split case marking and constituent order variation in East Africa (Project B02 in SFB Prominence in Language; co-PL Birgit Hellwig; 2021–2025)
• Children’s feedback signals (UzK Key Profile Area Skills und Structures in Language and Cognition)

Journal Articles

• Mitchell, Alice. 2024. “I’m Bigger!”: Size Terms and Seniority in Datooga Children’s Interaction. Nordic Journal of African Studies 33(4). 374–389. (Open access)
• Knab, Joachim, Alice Mitchell, Sabrina Msangi & Thomas Widlok. 2024. Framing Difference in Age and Generation in Africa: Introduction to the Special Issue. Nordic Journal of African Studies 33(4). 257–268. (Open access)
• Mangena, Tendai & Alice Mitchell. 2023. Hauntings of the metaphysical empire? Anthroponomic patterns in contemporary Zimbabwe. Critical African Studies. Routledge 15(3). 309–324.
• Sam Passmore, Wolfgang Barth, Simon Greenhill, Kyla Quinn, Catherine Sheard, Paraskevi Argyriou, Joshua Birchall, Claire Bowern, Jasmine Calladine, Angarika Deb, Anouk Diederen, Niklas P Matsäranta, Luis Henrique Araujo, Rhiannon Schembri, Jo Hickey-Hall, Terhi Honkola, Alice Mitchell, Lucy Poole, Péter Rácz, Sean Roberts, Robert M Ross, Ewan Thomas-Colquhoun, Nicholas Evans, Fiona M Jordan. 2023. Kinbank: A global database of kinship terminology. PLoS One 18(5): e0283218. (Open access.)
• Mitchell, Alice and Péter Rácz. 2021. Children’s knowledge of a name-based avoidance register: A quantitative study among Datooga of Tanzania. American Anthropologist 123(2). 389–400. (Open access.)
• Mitchell, Alice and Fiona M. Jordan. 2021. The ontogeny of kinship categorization. Journal of Cognition and Culture 21. 152–177. (Open access.)
• Mitchell, Alice and Fiona M. Jordan. 2021. Kinship, seniority, and rights to know in Datooga children’s everyday interaction. Journal of Pragmatics 181. 49–61. (Open access.)
• Mitchell, Alice. In press. Documenting difference: Interactional approaches to the documentation of special registers. In Rich Sandoval and Nicholas Williams (eds.), Interactional approaches to language documentation (Language Documentation & Conservation SP).
• Blythe, Joe, Jeremiah Tunmuck, Alice Mitchell, and Péter Rácz. 2020. Acquiring the lexicon and grammar of universal kinship. Language 96(3). 661–695.
• Fleming, Luke, Alice Mitchell, and Isabelle Ribot. 2019. In the name of the father-in-law: Pastoralism, patriarchy, and the sociolinguistic prehistory of eastern and southern Africa. Sociolinguistic Studies 13(2–4). 171–192.
• Mitchell, Alice. 2018. Allusive reference and other-oriented stance in an affinal avoidance register. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 28(1). 4–21.
• Mitchell, Alice. 2015. Words that smell like Father-in-law: A linguistic description of the Datooga avoidance register. Anthropological Linguistics 57(2). 195–217
• Childs, G. Tucker, Jeff Good, and Alice Mitchell. 2014. Beyond the ancestral code: Towards a model for sociolinguistic language documentation. Language Documentation & Conservation 8. 168–191.

Books

• Hollington, Andrea, Alice Mitchell and Nico Nassenstein (eds.) 2024. Anthropological Linguistics: Perspectives from Africa. Benjamins.
• Lovegren, Jesse, Alice Mitchell, and Natsuko Nakagawa. 2015. The Wala language of Malaita, Solomon Islands. Canberra: Asia-Pacific Linguistics, Australian National University.

Book Chapters

• Mitchell, Alice. 2025. Pointing for time-of-day reference in Datooga. In Eric Norman Dzwiza-Ohlsen (ed.), Deixis - Zeigen - Pointing. Interdisziplinäre Perspektiven, 217–242. Darmstadt: WBG. (Open access)
• Mitchell, Alice and Nicola Zimmerman. 2024. Mouths, tongues, and ears: Source concepts for ‘language’ across Africa. In Hollington, Andrea, Alice Mitchell and Nico Nassenstein (eds.) Anthropological Linguistics: Perspectives from Africa, 83–103. Benjamins.
• Mitchell, Alice and Anne Storch. 2022. The Unspoken. In Svenja Völkel and Nico Nassenstein (eds.), Approaches to language and culture, 217-236. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
• Mitchell, Alice. 2021. Phasal polarity in Barabaiga and Gisamjanga Datooga (Nilotic): Interactions with tense, aspect, and participant expectation. Raija Kramer (ed.), The expression of phasal polarity in African languages, 419–441. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
• Mitchell, Alice. 2020. “Oh, bald father!”: Kinship and swearing among Datooga of Tanzania. Nico Nassenstein & Anne Storch (eds.), Swearing and cursing: Contexts and practices in a critical linguistic perspective, 79–102. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
• Mitchell, Alice and Ayu’nwi Neba. 2019. Special-purpose registers of language in Africa. In H. Ekkehard Wolff (ed.), The Cambridge Handbook of African Linguistics, 513–534. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Mitchell, Alice. 2017. The pragmatics of a kinship term: The meaning and use of íiyá ‘mother’ in Datooga (Nilotic). In Raija Kramer & Roland Kießling (eds.), Mechthildian Approaches to Afrikanistik: Advances in language based research on Africa. Festschrift für Mechthild Reh, 287–301. Cologne: Rüdiger Köppe.