Research

My research goals are twofold; to further explore crosslinguistic and intralinguistic variation in the realms of semantics and morphology, and to examine and develop new tools for gathering semantic data in order to maintain ethical, informed, and broadly representative data collection in the field. I believe that the study of endangered languages will be particularly necessary to accomplish these goals, and will therefore play a leading role in the continuation of my research. My interests in the realm of semantics extend not only to the employ of psycholinguistic methods in investigating semantic processing but also to the use of empirical semantics in sociolinguistic analysis, a hitherto understudied domain. My research interests have primarily focused in Hispanic linguistics and language change, particularly in the areas of phonetics, semantics, and lexical change.

Current Projects

Semantic Variation in Argentine Spanish

The purpose of this research is to investigate, analyze, and propose an explanation for changes in the use and definition of various gendered descriptive terms of English by university students from 1990 to 2020. I hope to gain an understanding of how the gendered descriptive terms of English have changed in the last thirty years by comparing anonymized student interview data from 1990 compiled by Professor Emerita Madeleine Mathiot to anonymized student survey data compiled by myself through this study.

Semantic and Lexical Change in Gendered Slang: 1990-2020

The objectives of this research are trifold. First, to determine if there is semantic variation in the usage of verbs of cutting and breaking between the cordobés and rioplatense dialects of Spanish, both spoken in Argentina. Second, to discover if a possible semantic distinction between these dialects follows the same lines as the phonetic variation that is already well documented between these dialects. Finally, to explore what other factors, besides regional variation, contribute to any semantic differences that exist among the participating speakers.

Past Projects

For my undergraduate research, completed in 2019, I performed an acoustic analysis of the cordobes dialect of Argentine Spanish. Using primary data from participant interviews, I discovered further evidence of the documented linguistic process of lleísmo, whereby younger speakers of the language were realizing the voiced alveolar fricative as a voiceless alveolar fricative, while older speakers maintained voicing.