Research

Primary Interests: language variation and change, psycholinguistics, typology, language acquisition, language contact, morphosyntax, negationMain Methods: artificial language learning, survey analysis, corpus analysis

Negation Ordering Biases


While an apparent tendency for negative markers to appear before the verb has been observed in typology, language acquisition, and language emergence, it remains uncertain what factors may motivate such a preference. In my dissertation, I am investigating whether there are biases in learning, communication, and processing which could explain the typological tendency for negation to be marked preverbally.

  • Burgess, D. (2022). Investigating the Presence of Neg-First Biases in Learning and Communication. In J. Culbertson, A. Perfors, H. Rabagliati & V. Ramenzoni (Eds.), Proceedings of the 44th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society. PDF

Moving Beyond "Nativeness" In (Psycho)Linguistics Research

In collaboration with colleagues at the University of Michigan, I advocate for linguistics researchers to move away from "native speaker" as a term and construct, and use more nuanced terminology and language experience measures in (psycho)linguistics research.

  • Cheng, L. S. P., Burgess, D., Vernooij, N., Solís-Barroso, C., McDermott, A., & Namboodiripad, S. (2021). The Problematic Concept of Native Speaker in Psycholinguistics: Replacing Vague and Harmful Terminology With Inclusive and Accurate Measures. Frontiers in Psychology. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.715843

Revitalizing Attitudes towards Creole Languages

In collaboration with the Cognition, Convergence, and Language Emergence Research Group at UM, this project aimed to investigate how colonial history and language ideologies have shaped language labeling practices in Creole-speaking communities as well as among linguistics researchers. This project culminated in a workshop which facilitated connection and conversation between speakers of Creole languages and professional linguists, with the aim of producing recommendations for teaching about Creole languages. We have submitted a book chapter summarizing our methods and findings.

Past Projects

  • Environmental Activism and Minoritized Languages on Social Media. Our cross-disciplinary research team, funded by the U of M Humanities Collaboratory Proposal Development Grant, examined the online intersections between environmental activism and minoritized languages in three locations: the Cabo Verde Islands, Nigeria, and Japan.

  • Copy Tag Questions in Early Modern English. My undergraduate thesis investigated the historical development of copy tag questions in English (e.g., You can't do that, can you?) through a corpus study of Early Modern English plays.