
Research
I study the language of sociocultural health issues through the combination of prosodic, corpus, and discourse-analytic approaches.
My applied sociolinguistic research aims to advance our understanding of the role language plays in the sociocultural construction of health issues in written and spoken discourses. My current work unpacks the language of pain in the context of the American opioid crisis, focusing on the two most prominent settings in which the epidemic is addressed: policies and medical interactions. Specifically, I draw on phonetic and corpus-based discourse analytic approaches to uncover the language policymakers use in fighting the crisis and how physicians and patients discursively negotiate, reinterpret, and enact such policies in consultations. Thus, my study offers both a top-down (policies) and bottom-up (interactions) perspective into how communities linguistically address the crisis.
I am also investigating the role of race, gender, privilege, and cultural perceptions of pain in everyday discourses surrounding opioids. Specifically, I look at how pain is linguistically represented by patients and how these representations influence physicians’ prescribing practices. This line of questioning provides insight into structural and institutional inequities embedded within medical interactions and the discursive approaches to potentially mitigate them.
I had my start in research examining the complex participation frameworks between the elderly with dementia and their caregivers. Often, the elderly with dementia co-construct their utterances with their caregivers to convey messages, a communicative practice that makes linguistic exploration even more relevant. At the time, I was an undergraduate at UCLA, learning that at the core of every paper I write must be knowledge creation.
For my master’s thesis at UC Davis, I combine phonetic and sociolinguistic inquiries to examine patients’ voice quality when describing their chronic pain, narrating symptoms, and requesting opioids. Unlike bruises or cuts, chronic pain symptoms are not always visible, so patients have to rely on speech to describe their suffering to physicians. Similarly, physicians must rely on patients’ verbal descriptions of pain and suffering to make important pain management decisions. This study expands the breadth of phonetic analysis within the domain of discourse analysis, informing discussions surrounding the illocutionary role of the lower vocal tract in expressing emotions.
My dissertation brings my body of work full circle—employing both qualitative and quantitative approaches to dissect the linguistic representation of the opioid epidemic in the two most prominent areas in which this cultural issue is discussed: governing policies and their enactments within doctor-patient interactions.
My other research interests include language variation, language and gender, language socialization, language documentation, and Filipino.
Publications
Torres, P.J., (2023). Face-saving strategies and the burden of opioid policy enactments: When physicians’ compliance makes patients non-compliant. Journal of Pragmatics 205, 122–136 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2023.01.001
Torres, P.J., (2022). Modality and interpretive spaces in policies. In B.A. Diaz & R.W. Schrauf (Eds). Applying linguistics in health research, education, and policy: Bench to bedside and back again. 141-168. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110744804-006 Links: De Gruyter Mouton.
Torres, P. J., (2022). The Nation’s Fix: The Language of the Opioid Crisis (Order No. 29212652). Available from Dissertations & Theses @ University of California; ProQuest Dissertations & Theses A&I. (2708236876). Links: Proquest
Torres, P.J., (2021). The role of modals in policies: The US opioid crisis as a case study. Applied Corpus Linguistics. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.acorp.2021.100008 Links:Elsevier | Kudos
Torres, P. J., Henry, S. G., & Ramanathan, V. (2020). Let’s talk about pain and opioids: Low pitch and creak in medical consultations. Discourse Studies 22(2). 174-204. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461445619893796 Links: Sage Publication | Kudos | PubMed | ePuB Download link
Henry S.G., White A.E., Magnan E.M., Hood-Medland E.A., Gosdin M., Kravitz R.L., Torres P.J., & Gerwing J. (2020) Making the most of video recorded clinical encounters: Optimizing impact and productivity through interdisciplinary teamwork. Patient Education and Counseling. 103(10). 2178-2184. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pec.2020.06.005 Links: ScienceDirect
Torres, P. J., (2015) “Iráhü táu ában funátu kápa” (“The Boy with a Red Cape”), The International Journal of Garifuna Creative Writing 3(1).
Conference Presentations
Discourse and Public Policy Organized Session
97th LSA Annual Meeting
Conference Presentation
2022 Linguistic Society of America (LSA) Annual Meeting
🧷 Elizabeth Dayton Award in Sociolinguistics
🧷LSA
2022 Annual Meeting Award Winners have been announced! Congratulations and thank you to these linguists for their service to the Society and the field. Meet the recipients here: https://t.co/m5sM9nFElj
— Linguistic Society of America (@LingSocAm) October 27, 2021
Patients use a lower pitch and "creaky voice" when talking with doctors about pain and #opioids, @ucdavis linguistics study finds. “Being more attentive to shifts in the patient’s speech can help physicians navigate the conversation better.” — @petertorres https://t.co/WhG5pSr8rh
— UC Davis Letters and Science (@UCDLandS) November 17, 2021
New interdisciplinary research from #UCDavis analyzes doctor-patient conversations about #opioid use and #addiction. @UCD_CHPR @UCDLandS @UCDavisHealth @UCDavisMedCntr @petertorres https://t.co/tdDCS1g6vt
— UC Davis Research (@UCDavisResearch) November 16, 2021
Webinar
Linguistic Society of America (LSA)
Join the Language editor @andries_coetzee, associate editors of the Public Policy section Cukor-Avila & Ramanathan, and others in a Webinar THIS FRIDAY to learn more about the role that linguistics plays in our collective understanding of public issues:https://t.co/sbdP0Fykxp
— Linguistic Society of America (@LingSocAm) June 2, 2021
Conference Presentation
2021 American Association for Applied Linguistics (AAAL) Annual Meeting
Short Presentation/ Lightning Talk
2020/2021 Advancing Pain Relief Symposium
Conference/Panel Presentation
2021 Linguistic Society of America Annual Meeting
(Virtual Conference)
Presentation
2020 Brazilian Association of Linguistics' Linguistweets (First International Twitter Conference on Linguistics)
#linguistweets #lt2015 My presen-tweet-ion today is about the double plurals in English-Tagalog code-switching as you see in the image. I will avoid the use of jargons but feel free to ask questions!
Pl=Plural
S=Singular
NP=Noun Phrase pic.twitter.com/7wEZf4TY2r— Peter Joseph Torres (@petertorres) December 5, 2020

Contest/Presentation
UC Davis Gradslam Competition
🧷 Top 10 Finalist (Final round cancelled due to Corona Virus)
🧷 Feature

Contest/Presentation
2019 Linguistic Society of America's 3MT (Three-Minute Thesis Competition)

Conference Poster
2019 LSA Linguistic Institute
Come listen to Peter Torres talk about drugs! Pro tip: Target about 150 Hz in your pitch frequency if you are aiming to obtain opiods from your doctor. #lingstitute2019 pic.twitter.com/zg30ZJcs6u
— 2019 LSA Summer Linguistic Institute (@LSA2019) July 14, 2019

Panel/Workshop
2019 Linguistic Society of America Institute
🧷 Workshop: Local in Language Policy
Panel discussion: The Local in Language and Public Policy #LanguagePolicy #lingstitute2019 pic.twitter.com/S3ap2p4HYx
— Lisa Gonzalves (@LisaTheLinguist) June 28, 2019
Conference Presentation
6th Annual UC Davis Symposium on Language Research
(Remote Participation)
Conference Presentation
2018 American Anthropological Association Annual (AAA) Meeting
Contest/Presentation
5th Annual UC Davis Symposium on Language Research: Most Innovative Panel
Conference Presentation
24th Annual Conference on Language, Interaction, and Culture (CLIC)

Conference Poster
Georgetown University Roundtable on Languages and Linguistics (GURT): Approaches to Discourse
Contest/Presentation
UC Davis Gradslam

Conference/Presentation
22nd Annual Conference on Language, Interaction, and Culture (CLIC)