What degree are you working on? How long have you been studying in this program?
I have been working on my PhD in Linguistics since 2019.
What are your research interests and/or career goals?
Broadly speaking, I am interested in language acquisition and multilingualism, across a variety of populations, including L2 and L3 learners as well as heritage speakers. More specifically, I am interested in the development of bi- and multilingual linguistic competence in the realm of argument structure. Additionally, I am interested in Romance syntax, including passive voice constructions and absolute clauses. Ultimately, I would like to remain in academia as a professor.
What are you working on right now?
I am currently working on my dissertation proposal, which builds on the work of my second qualifying paper. My dissertation will examine Spanish and Korean heritage speakers’ knowledge of resultative constructions like “John hammered the metal flat”, which vary in their syntax and semantics cross-linguistically in subtle and interesting ways. I presented my preliminary work in this area this past summer at the Heritage Language at the Crossroads conference in Turkey, the Heritage Language Research Institute in Los Angeles, and the Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages in Paris.
Why should someone study Linguistics at Illinois?
Studying linguistics at Illinois has helped me to grow immensely as a scholar. The department places a strong emphasis on research and the faculty works tirelessly to help students develop and hone their research skills.
contact: mwg4 AT illinois DOT edu
posted: 9/1/2023