speakers

Meet the seminar speakers below!

isabel alonso

Isabel Alonso is an Associate Professor in the Department of Modern Languages and Methodology at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (UAM), where she has worked since 1997 under different employment contracts. Her research interests include critical and multimodal discourse analysis across genres and languages, mainly English and Spanish. The significance of her scholarly contribution lies in her ability to combine critical, functional and socio-cognitive approaches to the study of language in order to deepen understanding of how discourse practices shape, sustain and challenge power dynamics across social contexts.

She has authored more than 70 academic publications, including books and chapters in edited volumes published by SPI-indexed publishers such as John Benjamins, Springer, Peter Lang, Mouton de Gruyter, Síntesis and Comares. She has also edited journal special issues, including in Computer Assisted Language Learning and RAEL, and published articles in prestigious journals such as Text & Talk, Journal of Pragmatics, Language & Communication and Discourse & Communication, among others. She has presented her research at more than 100 national and international conferences and has participated as a researcher in 29 nationally and regionally funded research and educational innovation projects.

Throughout her research career, she has served as principal investigator of two R&D projects funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO) (FFI2016-77540-P and PID2020-119102RB-I00), leading an international team of ten discourse analysts.

kasper boye

Kasper Boye is professor of linguistics at the University of Copenhagen. Taking a functional-cognitive and usage-based approach to language structure, his main research interests include grammaticalization, linguistic categories, layered semantic structure, and complementation. Kasper Boye is the author of Epistemic meaning: A crosslinguistic and functional-cognitive study (De Gruyter Mouton 2012) and has co-edited Language usage and language structure (De Gruyter Mouton 2010, with Elisabeth Engberg-Pedersen) and Complementizer semantics in European languages (De Gruyter Mouton 2016, with Petar Kehayov).

marta carretero

Marta Carretero is Professor at the Complutense University, Madrid, where she lectures in semantics, pragmatics and functional linguistics. Her research concentrates on modality, evidentiality and appraisal in English or from a contrastive English-Spanish perspective, including approaches to theoretical issues and descriptive work on discourse types such as film reviews, financial discourse, opinion articles, and newspaper discourse on COVID-19 and migration. She also authors studies on concrete modal and evidential words and expressions, especially adverbs and nouns. She has published papers in Journal of Pragmatics, Functions of Language, Languages in Contrast, Word and Applied Corpus Linguistics, among other journals. She is co-editor of five books, including English Modality: Core, Periphery and Evidentiality (2013) and Evidentiality Revisited: Cognitive Grammar, Functional and Discourse-Pragmatic Perspectives (2017). She has continuously participated in research projects funded by Spanish ministries, and is currently co-director of the RACISMMAFF project (PID2021-125327NB-I00), funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation and FEDER, and its follow-up proof-of-concept project TRANSF-EDCRITIC (PDC2025-164888-I00).

anda-lucía Ciltán

Anda-Lucía Ciltán is Lecturer in the Language and Linguistics Unit of the Department of English Studies, Faculty of Philology, Complutense University of Madrid. She holds a joint-supervision double PhD in English Linguistics and Philology from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid and the University of Bucharest. Her research field comprises pragmatics and intercultural linguistics, but also language attitudes, SLA (second language acquisition) and FLT (foreign language teaching).

She is a member of the research group FUNCAP (Functional Linguistics English-Spanish and its Applications) and of the project Stance strategies in immigration and racism-related discourse: analysis and applications in affective learning practices (RACISMMAFF, PID2021-125327NB-I00), funded by The Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (2022-2026). She is also currently a researcher in the INNOVA project Palabras que dividen: una propuesta docente para el análisis de los mecanismos lingüístico-discursivos de la polarización en el discurso público, funded by UCM (2026-2027) and the coordinator of the ApS project D-TRANS: De la reflexión a la acción – detectar, desactivar y transformar el racismo discursivo, funded by UCM (2025-2026).

She has presented multiple papers at international conferences and, in addition to authoring books and book chapters, she has published numerous articles with publishers such as Peter Lang Publishing and Dykinson, among others.

elena domínguez romero

Elena Domínguez Romero is Associate Professor of English Language and Linguistics at the Complutense University of Madrid, Spain. Her recent research focuses on stance in political and media discourse, with broader interests in applied linguistics and teaching innovation. She currently co-leads the research project Stance Strategies in Immigration and Racism-Related Discourse: Analysis and Applications in Affective Learning Practices (RACISMMAFF, funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation and FEDER funds, PID2021-125327NB-I00), as well as its follow-up proof-of-concept project TRANSF-EDCRITIC (PDC2025-164888-I00). She has also participated in three other funded research projects on stance, evidentiality and modality in European languages: EUROEVIDMOD (FFI2011-23181), EVIDISPRAG (FFI2015-65474-P) and STANCEDISC (PGC2018-095798-B-I00). Her involvement in teaching innovation projects is equally extensive.

mercedes gonzález vázquez

Mercedes González-Vázquez is Lecturer of Galician Language at the University of Vigo. She graduated in Galician-Portuguese and Spanish Philology from the University of Santiago de Compostela. Her doctoral research focused on modality, and she has continued working on modal verbs, evidential expressions and epistemic stance in Galician and Spanish. As a result of this work, the publication of her books The sources of information: Typology, Semantics and Pragmatics of Evidentiality (2006) and From irony (‘retranca’) to indirectness: An analysis of the linguistic characteristics associated with the stereotyped image of the Galician speaker (2023) are to be highlighted. She has participated as researcher at the Spanish Corpus projects “BDS” and “ARTHUS” (University of Santiago de Compostela), in the evidentiality projects “EUROEVIDMOD”, “EVIDISPRAG” and in the stance projects “STANCEDISC” and “RACISMAFF” (Complutense University in Madrid).

encarnación hidalgo Tenorio

Encarnación Hidalgo-Tenorio is a Professor of English Linguistics at the University of Granada, Spain. Her main research area is Corpus-based Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), focusing primarily on the notions of representation and the exercise of power in public discourse. In her publications, she has applied and, at times, refined some established theories. This is the case with the so-called “female genderlect”; Halliday’s taxonomy of “processes” and “roles”; and categories such as “evidentiality”, “modality” and “evaluation”. While exploring these aspects, she has combined qualitative with quantitative research to unravel some details of multimodal communication, and collaborate in teams with a clear interdisciplinary vocation that includes political scientists, computer engineers, psychiatrists and discourse analysts. In the last decade, she has shown interest in analysing various types of texts such as political discourse, online communication or interviews with abused women; she is also is working on the lexicogrammar of polarisation, radical discourse, hate speech and misinformation, which has taken shape in the Nutcracker algorithm.

marcin kosman

Marcin Kosman holds MA degrees in Discourse Studies, Translation and Intercultural Communication, and Psychology. His PhD (with honors) dissertation focused on the electoral campaigns of the Confederation Liberty and Independence. He is presently the principal investigator of the project “The Discursive Construction of Migration and Security. The Perspective of Poland in a Cross-European Dimension,” funded by the National Science Centre and partly conducted at the University of Antwerp. His main research interests include right-wing discourse, political linguistics, mixed methods research techniques, legitimacy in political discourse, and political communication. He has published in leading journals at the intersection of linguistics, media studies, and political science: East European Politics, Journal of Language and Politics, Language & Communication, Journal of Contemporary European Studies, and Problems of Post-Communism. He is also the recipient of the START Scholarship for the best Polish scholars under thirty (2025) and the Minister’s Scholarship for Outstanding Young Scientists (2025–2028).

victoria martín de la rosa

Victoria Martín de la Rosa is Associate Professor in the Department of English Studies at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid. Her recent research focuses on exploring the role of conceptual mechanisms such as image schemas and critical metaphor analysis within journalistic and political discourse. She examines how these conceptual frameworks shape public understanding, influence narratives, and frame key societal issues such as immigration, where issues of polarization, and ideological conflict become especially prominent. Her scholarly contributions include articles published in international peer-reviewed journals and chapters featured in edited volumes. She has also co-edited scholarly volumes on evidentiality and modal thinking in European languages.

sergio monforte del valle

PhD in Basque Linguistics and Philology (UPV/EHU, 2020). I defended my thesis entitled Basque particles -a, al and ote in questions: syntax, microvariability and interpretation. I studied in the same field at the Faculty of Letters of Vitoria-Gasteiz: Master of Basque Linguistics and Philology (UPV/EHU, 2015) and Bachelor of Basque Philology (UPV/EHU, 2013). I currently investigate strategies for expressing speaker stance in Basque — such as modal particles, sentential adverbs, and structures conveying expressivity and incredulity — using data from academic, journalistic, and dialectal corpora and adopting cross-linguistic and diachronic perspectives.

natalia mora

Natalia Mora-López is an assistant professor at the Complutense University of Madrid, where she has taught English for Specific Purposes (ESP) since 2017. She previously taught in different higher education institutions like Valencian International University, International University of La Rioja, CEU San Pablo University and Nebrija University, as well as in vocational studies for 10 years. Additionally, she has worked as a computational linguist, translator and proofreader for different national and international companies.

Her research focuses on ESP and teaching innovation, evaluative language, positioning and the expression of opinion in digital media. She has participated in numerous national and international conferences. She has published papers in different journals and book chapters with prestigious publishers (John Benjamins, Routledge and Peter Lang, among others).

lara moratón-gutiérrez

Lara Moratón-Gutiérrez holds a Phd in Corpus and Computational Linguistics from Complutense University. Her research interests cover functional analysis of English (in comparison with Spanish), using computational and corpus-based methodologies, natural language understanding or linguistics applied to accessibility in new technologies. From 2009 until 2021 she combined her studies and teaching at the Complutense University with her work as a computational linguist in different companies: Fonetic, Molino de Ideas, Nimbus or Samsung, among others. She held positions of responsibility in the areas of Natural Language Understanding and Natural Language Generation for IVR (Interactive Voice Response Systems) and Voice Assistants (Chatbots). She also led the Localization team at Samsung Electronics for Spanish, Basque, Catalan and Galician for 8 years, with which she obtained several awards for the quality of their work. In recent years, she has become interested in bringing linguistics closer to the world of accessibility through new technologies, participating in various projects (recording podcasts, Fundación ONCE) and national and international conferences (Zerocon21, Aging Bilbao).

begoña núñez perucha

Begoña Núñez-Perucha is Senior Lecturer in the Department of English Studies: Linguistics and Literature at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid. Her research interests lie in the field of discourse analysis from a critical and interdisciplinary perspectives. More specifically, her research has focused on the intersection of Critical Discourse Analysis and Cognitive Linguistics as well as Critical Discourse Analysis and Gender Studies. Within these interdisciplinary areas of research, she has addressed the relation between discourse strategies, cognitive mechanisms and the sociocultural/ ideological context in several types of discourses: narratives of discrimination and abuse, political discourse, media communication, and advertising discourse.

dolores porto

M. Dolores Porto is a Senior Lecturer in English Linguistics at the Universidad de Alcalá (Spain). Her research interests, framed in the field of Cognitive Linguistics, focus on the close relationship between mind and language and how different cognitive processes affect understanding and discourse interpretation, with a particular interest in the role of conceptual metaphors in these processes. More recently, she has focused on the analysis of multimodal discourse from a socio-cognitive perspective. She has worked on several research projects on digital and public discourses, and published widely on the framing of multimodal news, digital narratives and social media. Among her most recent publications, “Constructing threat through proximization in digital news” (2025, co-authored, in Discourse and Society 2025), “Polarisation: the new super word; Meanings and current uses in English and Spanish” (2025, co-authored, in Journal of Corpora and Discourse Studies) and “Polarized Discourse: Language, Cognition and Social Practice” (2026, De Gruyter Mouton), co-edited with Isabel Alonso-Belmonte and Manuela Romano.

anna ruskan

Anna Ruskan is Associate Professor at the Department of English Philology at Vilnius University. Her research focuses on stance, evidentiality, epistemic modality, discourse markers, corpus linguistics, contrastive linguistics, academic discourse, and media discourse. She has participated in national and international projects related to stance, modality, evidentiality and discourse markers (i.e. Realizations of modality and evidentiality in Lithuanian; Discourse markers in Lithuanian: a synchronic and diachronic study; Evidentiality: A discourse-pragmatic study of English and other European languages; Stance and subjectivity in discourse: Towards an integrated framework for the analysis of epistemicity, effectivity, evaluation and inter/subjectivity from a critical discourse perspective). Her publications include articles on epistemic qualifications, stance, discourse markers, and contrastive linguistics.

marta sánchez cócera

Marta Sánchez Cócera works as a lecturer at the Department of English Studies, Complutense University of Madrid (Spain), where she teaches English Language and Linguistics. Her research primarily explores the intersection of digitally mediated communication and (sexual) violence against women, employing a combination of corpus-assisted and critical discourse-analytic approaches. More broadly, her research interests include the linguistic expression of emotion, evaluation and ideology in discourse from functional, cognitive and pragmatic perspectives. Her work in these areas has appeared in reputable journals such as the Alicante Journal of English Studies, as well as in edited volumes including Discourse, Gender and Violence: Insights from news and social media texts (2024).

anna socka

Anna Socka is Associate Professor at the Department of German Philology at the University of Gdańsk, Poland. Her research concentrates on modality and evidentiality, especially in interrelationship with aspectuality and other linguistic categories in German and Polish. She recently published Satzadverbien und Modalverben als Marker der Reportativität im Deutschen und Polnischen (Peter Lang, 2021). She has participated as researcher in the projects EVIDSPRAG (Complutense University in Madrid) and DiasPol “The Development of the Polish Aspect System in the Last 250 Years against the Background of Neighbouring Languages” (Univ. of Warsaw, Poland, and University of Mainz, Germany), among others.

AUDRONĖ ŠOLIENĖ

Audronė Šolienė is Associate Professor at the Department of English Philology of the Faculty of Philology in Vilnius University, Lithuania. She has lectured on a variety of subjects including English Grammar, Phrase Structure Grammar, Corpus Linguistics, Semantics, Contrastive Analysis, and Subjectivity across Languages, Varieties, Discourses and Genres. In 2013 she defended her PhD thesis titled “Realisations of Epistemic Modality in English and Lithuanian: Parameters of Equivalence”. Her primary research interests lie in the fields of contrastive linguistics, corpus linguistics, epistemic modality, evidentiality, stance and subjectivity, discourse markers as well as translation. The scholar was involved in a number of national and international research projects focussing on the issues of modality, evidentiality, (inter)subjectivity, and discourse markers.

maite taboada

Maite Taboada is Distinguished Professor in the Department of Linguistics and Associate Member of the Cognitive Science Program and the School of Computing Science at Simon Fraser University. She is a linguist working at the intersection of discourse analysis and computational linguistics. Her research interests within linguistics include discourse relations and evaluative language. In computational linguistics, she has worked on sentiment analysis, automatic moderation of online comments, and the language of misinformation. Her lab, the Discourse Processing Lab at SFU, has built the Gender Gap Tracker, an online tool to monitor the number of men and women quoted in Canadian mainstream news media.

JUAN RAFAEL ZAMORANO-MANSILLA

Juan Rafael Zamorano-Mansilla obtained his PhD in English Literature and Linguistics in 2006 from the Complutense University of Madrid. His thesis, titled The generation of tense and aspect in English and Spanish, is a contrastive analysis taking a systemic-functional approach to language. He has been teaching as full-time, non-tenure-track lecturer in the department of English Studies at the Complutense University of Madrid since 2010. His publications revolve around corpus linguistics, contrastive analysis English-Spanish, and tense, modality and evidentiality. He has participated in various projects on modality and corpus annotation, and is currently a member of the FUNCAP research group. His teaching covers different subjects in the areas of English as a foreign language and linguistics applied to the English language.

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