I am an Associate professor in the Spanish and Applied Linguistics programs. I hold a PhD (2003) in Hispanic Linguistics from the University of Toronto. My areas of expertise are sociolinguistics and second language acquisition.
My general area of research is in multilingualism. In particular, I am interested in language ideologies and identities among speakers of minority and indigenous languages. I have been working with indigenous language speakers in Mexico since 2003, examining the many complex factors that influence language sustainability. I am part of an ongoing SSHRC-funded project on the Totonacan languages of Mexico (led by David Beck), where my role is to carry out ethnographic research on the ideologies underlying the use and loss of these languages. I am also part of a SSHRC-funded initiative (led by Martin Guardado and Jorge Lemus) looking at language revitalization in El Salvador. Additionally, I am a member of an interdisciplinary research team at the University of Alberta (with Martin Guardado, Evangelia Daskalaki, and Rika Tsushima) studying the acquisition and the maintenance of heritage languages in Alberta.
I teach a variety of senior-level undergraduate courses in Spanish language and linguistics, as well as graduate-level courses in applied linguistics. I have supervised a number of MA and PhD students on different topics in second language acquisition and sociolinguistics. I have also supervised several undergraduate honours students as well as several winners of the Faculty of Arts Undergraduate Researcher Award. In 2017, I was a visiting professor in the Masters program in Indoamerican Linguistics at the Centre for Research and Advanced Studies in Social Anthropology (CIESAS) in Mexico City.
Major theories and issues in second language acquisition and bilingualism research. (Course is cross-listed with MLCS 620). Credit will only be granted for one of LING 620 or MLCS 620. Prerequisite: Consent of Department.
Winter Term 2021Major theories and issues in past and present second language acquisition research. Course is cross-listed as LING 620. Credit will only be granted for MLCS 620 or LING 620. Prerequisite: LING 101 or equivalent and consent of Department.
Winter Term 2021Sound system of Spanish: phonetics, phonology, evolution of the language. Special attention to the pronunciation differences from English. Prerequisite: SPAN 300 or 306 or consent of Department.
Winter Term 2021