معرفی
M'Balia Thomas is an Associate Professor in the Department of English at the University of Arizona, affiliated with the College of Humanities. She teaches in the undergraduate English program, the MATESL graduate program, and the SLAT PhD program, contributing significantly to applied linguistics and language education.
Her research centers on language, ideology, and social justice, with specialization in arts-based research, discourse analysis, and the Digital Humanities. She investigates how popular cultural texts and media representations reflect and reproduce linguistic ideologies that marginalize non-native and non-standard English speakers. Her work emphasizes testimonial injustice, resistance, and the creative linguistic practices used by marginalized communities to reclaim agency.
Through the TILAR Lab (Testimonial Injustice, Language, Arts, and Resistance), she leads interdisciplinary research that uncovers systemic silencing in newspapers, broadcast media, and social media. Her recent publications reveal a strong trajectory in narrative inquiry, text world theory, and critical pedagogy, often drawing from fictional or viral cultural texts (e.g., Harry Potter, memes) to explore deeper educational and linguistic issues.
Her scholarly output demonstrates consistent engagement with themes of resistance, voice, and epistemological justice across education, media, and linguistic practice. She employs diverse qualitative methodologies including thematic analysis, discourse analysis, narrative inquiry, and rhetorical-stylistics, contributing to both theoretical and applied domains in applied linguistics.
Dr. Thomas actively mentors graduate students through PhD and master’s programs in SLAT and MATESL, though specific advisees are not listed. She has led curriculum development in culturally responsive TESOL pedagogy and engages in collaborative research projects that bridge language, arts, and social justice. Her work is supported by institutional affiliations and research initiatives at the University of Arizona.
The lab she leads, TILAR, serves as a hub for critical inquiry into language-based injustice, using digital tools and arts-based methods to analyze and disseminate findings that challenge dominant narratives about language and identity.
