Lucien is a socio-cultural linguist and pragmatician who’s interested in the ways in which languages, particularly Korean, mark social and cultural meanings in a multimodal fashion.

He has particular expertise in researching the ways in which languages mark politeness and impoliteness in multimodal ways, and investigates the influence of identity on the way that second-language learners of Korean acquire politeness forms and other social categories.

His research shows that learners with advanced competence in Korean and/or who have lived in Korea for extended periods of time use honorifics in characteristic ways that reflect their identities, roles and relationships in Korean society.