About
The impetus of my research is to understand how adults who have already mastered one or more languages become fluent in a completely new language. I am keenly interested in understanding how multilinguals maintain fluency throughout their lives and how their multiple languages interact based on key principles from psycholinguistic theory.
To address these questions, I collaborate with traditionally-instructed second language (L2) learners and multilingual speakers with minimal or no language instruction. These diverse communities have allowed me to study the interconnected facets of language acquisition.
My work on classroom-instructed L2 learners brings together three key areas: (i) the development of L2 fluency in study-abroad contexts; (ii) the examination of language use across various learning environments; and (iii) the role of audiovisual input in L2 learning. In exploring L2 fluency, I delve into how cognitive abilities, such as lexical access, attention control, and working memory, influence second-language speech development. Additionally, I examine the role of hesitation phenomena as processing mechanisms in the development of syntactic complexity.
I additionally investigate the effects of language-immersion contexts, namely the roles of language use and interaction, in second-language linguistic development. This interest has led me to develop Experience Sampling Methods, such as the Daily Language Questionnaire. Collaborating with colleagues on audiovisual-input research designs, we explore the extent to which textually enhanced captions contribute to the acquisition of novel grammatical structures and vocabulary items.
I am also a core member of an interdisciplinary collaboration examining the relationship between language and cultural identity. This project, entitled From Africa to Patagonia: Voices of displacement, investigates the Patagonian Boers, a community with roots in the South African Boers who settled in Patagonia, Argentina, during the twentieth century. Through this collaborative effort, I have studied bi-directional effects (L1-to-L2 influence, L2-to-L1 influence) in hesitation phenomena such as filled pauses.
As my research journey continues to evolve, I increasingly recognize the importance of collaboration in uncovering connections between seemingly unrelated projects. By working together, we can demystify complex topics and reveal the intricate interconnections that unite our diverse research endeavors.
