Research

Active Projects and Interests

Sociolinguistics

Variation in word-final /z/ production — Using fieldwork data, I am investigating the language contact situation in the Philippines by looking at Philippine English (a post-colonial English variety). I am using  variationist sociolinguistics, specifically relative to the understanding the variable phenomenon of  word-final /z/ production. Linguistic factors (e.g., morpheme type, preceding/following sound) and social factors (e.g., sex, highest educational attainment) are included in the analysis. Moreover, the data are composed of demographics that will help explore the effects of ethnicity, identity, and migration in the English spoken in the Philippines.

Phonetics/Phonology

Onomatopoeia in lesser known languages — This is a long term project that started during pandemic (2020) and headed by researchers in Slovakia. In order to better understand the function of onomatopoeias in each language, each language expert used a newly developed categorization method for onomatopoeias and described the phonological, morphological, syntactic, and semantic structures of these sound imitative words. [UPDATE: Volume is coming out April 1st. EDIT: It is now out!]

Older Projects

Phonetics/Phonology

Cross-linguistic temporal differences — This project compared acoustic time points between English and Tagalog.


Cebuano emphatic vowel length — The project described length distinctions on emphasized adjectives.

Spanish in Boston

Language contact in Spanish speakers in Boston — This project looked at the sociolinguistic factors of pronoun variation in Spanish ellos.

English as Second Language

Extrinsic motivation in ESL learning — This undergraduate project investigated the interaction of EM's to macro skills.