Michelle Murray Yang

Dr. Murray Yang is an Assistant Professor Communication Studies who teaches Fundamentals of Speech Communication and First Year Seminar. She also oversees Belmont’s speech lab.

Her scholarly work centers upon intercultural rhetoric as it relates to political communication. Specifically, she’s interested in how China is understood, interpreted, and portrayed by policy makers and media outlets within the United States. Earning her Masters (2007) and Ph.D. (2011) in rhetoric from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, she has studied and analyzed significant moments in U.S.-Sino relations. Her thesis examined the period of rapprochement between the United States and China through a rhetorical analysis of the speeches and toasts presented by President Richard Nixon and the Chinese leadership during Nixon's 1972 trip to China. Her dissertation focused on contemporary U.S.-Sino relations by rhetorically analyzing Western media coverage of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. Dr. Murray Yang’s work has appeared in the Quarterly Journal of Speech and Rhetoric & Public Affairs, and she is a member of the National Communication Association.