Her research works at the intersection of rhetoric, anthropological linguistics, and cultural studies. She is particularly interested in the discursive production of working-class identity and culture, the subject of her recently published book– A Place to Stand: Politics and Persuasion in a Working Class Bar (Oxford University Press, 2002). Her work on language, class, and culture extends to problems of adult literacy education, and she has published essays and articles in scholarly journals including College Composition and Communication and Pedagogy , as well as chapters in edited collections.