Pilar Valenzuela

Dr. Pilar Valenzuela

Professor
World Languages and Cultures, Wilkinson College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences
Office Location: DeMille Hall 120 B
Office Hours: Mo, Tu 2:30-3:30 and by appointment
Phone: (714) 997-6516
Website: http://www.pilarvalenzuela.com/
Scholarly Works:
Digital Commons
Education:
Pontifical Catholic University of Peru, Bachelor of Arts
University of Oregon, Master of Arts
University of Oregon, Ph.D.

Biography

Pilar Valenzuela earned a B.A. in Hispanic Linguistics and Literature and a Diploma in Anthropology from the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, as well as an M.A. and Ph.D. in Linguistics from the University of Oregon. Her doctoral research on Shipibo-Konibo was supported by a three-year fellowship from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. Her dissertation, Transitivity in Shipibo-Konibo Grammar, received the Mary R. Haas Book Award from the Society for the Study of the Indigenous Languages of the Americas.

A specialist in the Indigenous languages of the Peruvian Amazon, Valenzuela’s research brings together linguistic description and documentation, functional-typological and historical-comparative linguistics, language contact, and Amazonian Spanish. She has conducted extensive fieldwork on several Indigenous languages of the region. Her scholarship has made significant contributions to the description and comparative study of Panoan and Kawapanan languages. Another major strand of her research examines the distinctive characteristics of Peruvian Amazonian Spanish and the effects of long-term contact among Spanish, Quechua, and Indigenous Amazonian languages.

Valenzuela’s research has received substantial external support, including two major grants from the National Science Foundation: a Documenting Endangered Languages grant for the documentation of Shiwilu and Shawi, and a second NSF grant focused on the documentation and computational analysis of Amahuaca.

At Chapman, Valenzuela held the prestigious Wang-Fradkin Professorship for Scholarly Excellence (2006–2008) and received the 2012 Global Engagement Research Award from Chapman University Research and Sponsored Programs Administration, as well as Faculty Excellence Awards for scholarly and creative activity in 2013 and 2017. Her international distinctions include appointments as Distinguished Visiting Professor and guest scientist at universities in Australia and the Netherlands. In Peru, she was appointed Extraordinary Visiting Professor at the Universidad Nacional Intercultural de la Amazonía (UNIA) in 2018.

Her publications include books and pedagogical works, numerous articles and book chapters on Amazonian languages, linguistic typology, language history, and Peruvian Amazonian Spanish, and co-edited volumes published by Oxford University Press and Brill.

A defining dimension of Valenzuela’s career is her long-term collaboration with Indigenous communities and educators in the Peruvian Amazon. For more than three decades, she has supported intercultural bilingual education, Indigenous teacher training, the development of pedagogical materials and writing systems, and community-based efforts to maintain and revitalize endangered languages. This work seeks to strengthen intergenerational language transmission, expand educational opportunities in Indigenous languages, and support the linguistic and cultural vitality of Amazonian communities.

Recent Creative, Scholarly Work and Publications

Zariquiey, Roberto and Pilar Valenzuela (eds.). The grammar of body part expressions: A view from the Americas. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Roberto Zariquiey and Pilar M. Valenzuela. Introduction. In Roberto Zariquiey and Pilar Valenzuela (eds.), The Grammar of Body-Part Expressions: A view from the Americas, 1-13. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Valenzuela, Pilar M. Plant and animal body-part terms in Shiwilu grammar: Classification, nominalization, and incorporation. In Roberto Zariquiey and Pilar Valenzuela (eds.), The Grammar of Body-Part Expressions: A view from the Americas, 373-400. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Roberto Zariquiey and Pilar M. Valenzuela. Body-part nouns, prefixation, incorporation, and compounding in Pano and Takana: Evidence in favor of the Pano-Takana Hypothesis. In Roberto Zariquiey and Pilar Valenzuela (eds.), The Grammar of Body-Part Expressions: A view from the Americas, 441-466. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Valenzuela, Pilar M. Nominal incorporation in Shiwilu (Kawapanan): Nouns, classifiers and the deceased marker =ku’. In Anne Storch and R.M.W. Dixon (eds.), Linguistics as Art, Language as Joy, 397–422. Leiden: Brill.
Valenzuela, Pilar and Sanderson Castro Soares de Oliveira. Degrees of Temporal Remoteness in Pano: Contribution to the cross-linguistic study of tense. LIAMES, Campinas, SP, vol 22: 1-44.
Roberto Zariquiey, Javier Vera, Simon J. Greenhill, Pilar Valenzuela, Russell J. Gray and Johann-Mattis List. 2023.Untangling the evolution of body-part terminology in Pano: conservative versus innovative traits in body-part lexicalization. Interface Focus. 132022005320220053
Valenzuela Bismarck, Pilar, Luis Márquez Pinedo, Javier Ramírez Bardales, and Evaristo López Magín. Non Joi Kano Wishá. Gramática Pedagógica Shipibo-Konibo. Lima: Ministerio de Educación del Perú, 2017.
Valenzuela, Pilar M. and Antoine Guillaume. 2017. “Estudios sincrónicos y diacrónicos sobre lenguas Pano y Takana: una introducción, Estudios Pano y Takana: Fonología, Morfología y Sintaxis, Amerindia 39:1-48.
Guillaume, Antoine and Pilar M. Valenzuela (eds.). 2017. Estudios Pano y Takana: Fonología, Morfología y Sintaxis, special issue of Amerindia, n. 39, two volumes.
Valenzuela, Pilar M. 2016. “Simple” and “Double” Applicatives in Shiwilu (Kawapanan).” Studies in Language 40, 3:513-550.
Valenzuela, Pilar, Meneleo Careajano, Emérita Guerra, Julia Inuma and Fernando Lachuma. Kirka’ Llawer’lla’la’ Ñak: Diccionario Shiwilu-Castellano y Castellano-Shiwilu. Lima: Federación de Comunidades Nativas de Jeberos (FECONAJE).
“Argument Encoding and Pragmatic Marking of the Transitive Subject in Shiwilu (Kawapanan).” International Journal of American Linguistics, 77: 91-120.
“Contribuciones para la reconstrucción del proto-cahuapana: Comparación léxica y gramatical de las lenguas jebero y chayahuita.” In W.F.H. Adelaar, P. Valenzuela Bismarck & R. Zariquiey Biondi (eds.), Estudios en lenguas andinas y amazónicas. Homenaje a Rodolfo Cerrón-Palomino. Lima: Fondo Editorial Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, pp. 271-304.
W.F.H. Adelaar, P. Valenzuela Bismarck & R. Zariquiey Biondi (eds.), Estudios en lenguas andinas y amazónicas. Homenaje a Rodolfo Cerrón-Palomino. Lima: Fondo Editorial Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú.
“Argument Encoding and Pragmatic Marking of the ‘Ergative’ in Shiwilu (Kawapanan).” International Journal of American Linguistics, 77: 91-120.
“Multi-verb predicates and transitivity harmony in Shipibo-Konibo.” In P. C. Muysken & A. Y. Aikhenvald (eds.), Multi-verb Constructions: A view from the Americas. Studies in the Indigenous Languages of the Americas, pp. 185-212. Amsterdam: Brill.
“Applicative constructions in Shipibo-Konibo (Panoan).” International Journal of American Linguistics, 76: 101-144.
“Ethnic-racial reclassification and language revitalization among the Shiwilu from Peruvian Amazonia.” International Journal for the Sociology of Language, vol. 2010, 202: 117-130.
“Ergativity in Shipibo-Konibo.” In S. Gildea & F. Queixalós (eds.) Ergativity in Amazonia, Typological Studies in Language 89, pp. 63-94. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Aspectos de la Morfología Shipibo-Konibo. In R. Arzápalo & Z. Estrada (eds.) Estudios de lenguas amerindias 2: contribuciones al estudio de las lenguas originarias de América, pp. 257-280. Hermosillo, Mexico: Universidad de Sonora. (peer-reviewed)
“Acusatividad y marcacion "opcional" del ergativo en shiwilu (Kawapana).” La structure des langues amazoniennes I. Amerindia 32: 205-221. Paris: A.E.A.
“Pano ethnonyms and linguistic human rights.” UniverSOS, Revista de Lenguas Indígenas y Universos Culturales, n. 5, 57-63.
“El testimonio de una mujer shipiba: una experiencia de colaboración intercultural” (keynote speech). In Luis Miranda (ed.), Actas del V Congreso Internacional de Investigaciones Lingüístico-Filológicas. Lima: UNESCO, Academia Peruana de la Lengua, Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos y Universidad Ricardo Palma, pp. 111-134.

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