Grad Students receive CARLA Summer Research Assistantships

Hispanic and Lusophone Literatures, Cultures & Linguistics winners of the CARLA Summer 2021 Graduate Research Assistant Competition:

Vivian Franco Díaz will work on the research project titled The Impact of Task Complexity and Language Proficiency on the Written Production of Second-Generation Spanish Heritage Speakers under the supervision of Dr. Mandy Menke. This research project examines how a task’s characteristics and implementation can influence speakers’ linguistic performance. The study will contribute to the field of heritage language acquisition by examining how Spanish heritage speakers’ language use varies according to the different cognitive demands imposed by a task. The study will also explore how performance can differ according to speaker proficiency level. See a recording of her recent presentation here.

Yoko Hama and James Ramsburg will both work on the research project titled Acquisition of Discourse Markers and Fillers in L2 Spanish and Their Usage in Spontaneous Conversation under the supervision of Dr. Mandy Menke. The purpose of the study is to conduct a linguistic investigation of how native English speakers acquire the use of discourse markers and fillers in their L2 Spanish, as well as observe and record their spontaneous conversations in order to linguistically analyze communicative strategies among English-Spanish bilingual speakers utilizing conversation analysis.

Hispanic and Lusophone Literatures, Cultures & Linguistics Graduate Research Assistants for Projects Sponsored by CARLA:

James Ramsburg will assist Dr. Paesani and Dr. Mandy Menke on the Foreign Language Literacies research project by updating the project's bibliography, classifying and organizing multiliteracies activities for an online database, and contributing to a glossary of multiliteracies terms in teacher-friendly language. He will also assist with related research projects.

Full list of recipients listed on CARLA's Newsletter