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Research Profiles

Alphabetical list of research profiles at L2TReC. Please click on the alphabet links below and zip down to where you want to see. 

 

Mary D.   Burbank

Mary D. Burbank is a Career Line Professor and Director of the Urban Institute for Teacher Education in the College of Education. Her research, teaching, and service reflect her commitments to identifying pathways to higher education for traditionally underrepresented individuals.


Viola   Green

She holds an M.A. in Language Pedagogy from the University of Utah and is currently a Ph.D. student in French Linguistics at the University of Texas at Austin. Her research concerns psycholinguistics, second language acquisition and bilingualism. The focus of her doctoral thesis pertains to acquisition of formulaic language, such as binomial collocations and idioms. This is a cross-linguistic project that aims to investigate native and non-native intuitions about the phonological aspects of formulaic language. She will be gathering data over the next months under the auspices of L2TReC. 


Jane   Hacking

Jane Hacking is one of L2TReC's Co-Directors. She holds a PhD in Slavic Linguistics from the University of Toronto and is an Associate Professor of Russian. Her current research interests are primarily in the area of L2 phonology. "I am working on a project exploring the differences between how native Russian speakers and advanced learners of Russian produce Russian consonants. The other research project currently underway is with Dr. Rachel Hayes-Harb in the Department of Linguistics. We are investigating the acquisition of lexical stress in Russian by English speakers. I am also participating in the larger L2TReC effort to create a digital corpus of L2 learner language," Hacking said about her research interests.                


Anne Lair

Anne Lair Anne Lair holds a Ph.D. in French culture and literature from the Ohio State University. She currently teaches French in the Department of Languages and Literature where she also coordinates the French language program (lower level courses). Her research focuses on how culture leads to literacy, which is at the core of the 7th and 8th grade French DLI curricula. Another important aspect of her research is on symbolism of food in France, through literature and film.


Tülay    Örücü

This study reports on an action-based research project. There are two sections of a English grammar class taught by the same teacher. One section is a f2f traditional class while the other one is hybrid. Students are assigned to sections based on the normal registration process for students who are placed in the course. The research is quasi-experimental and designed to answer three different questions: 1) is there a significant difference in student performance on course outcomes between students f2f and hybrid courses as measured by the pre-and post tests for the course, 2) what are the perceived advantages and disadvantages for teachers between the f2f and hybrid formats, and 3) what do English language learners see as the perceived advantages and disadvantages between English grammar and hybrid formats. 


Fernando   Rubio

Fernando Rubio is one of L2TReC's Co-Directors and Associate Professor of Spanish. Professor Rubio helped launch L2TReC in 2012. "I am generally interested in the acquisition of Spanish as a second/foreign language, particularly the influence of different learning contexts on acquisition. My most recent project looked at the effect on fluency of a technology-enhanced pedagogical approach. I am currently preparing to launch a research project that will result in the creation of a large corpus of L2 learner language in a variety of languages," Rubio said about his research interests.


Bruce   Smith

Bruce Smith is a Professor in the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders. “My general research interests pertain to first and second language speech production. My current research concerns speech production characteristics of native English-speaking adults and adult speakers learning English as a second language, to determine how various temporal, spectral, and kinematic properties contribute to non-native speakers’ accents.”


Johanna   Watzinger-Tharp

Johanna Watzinger-Tharp is Associate Dean for the College of Humanities and Associate Professor for the Department of Linguistics and the Department of Languages & Literature. "My research is situated at the intersection of sociolinguistics and L2 pedagogy. I investigate features of current German, in particular the spoken colloquial standard, and then incorporate findings into L2 teaching and teacher education. An ongoing project is to produce a handbook of variation in current German for L2 learners and teachers. More recently, I have examined Utah's dual language immersion programs, specifically demographics, and initial student achievement data," Watzinger-Tharp said about her research interests.


Aleksandra   Zaba

Aleksandra Zaba is the L2TReC’s Research Analyst. She supports and oversees the planning and execution of research-related projects within the Center. “My main research interest is the learnability of various linguistic structures across languages. My PhD dissertation investigated the learnability of various sound patterns by adults in a foreign (artificial) language. Subsequently, during my postdoc, I focused on first language acquisition phonology and morphology in monolingual German and German-Spanish bilingual children. Examples of my recent projects include corpus based production studies and in-lab perception experiments with bilingual children, as well as an in-lab perception study with adult second language learners. My main focus in the L2TReC is currently on a research project that involves the development of a large electronic multilingual learner corpus.

Last Updated: 7/6/21