Mary Bary - Work

Peer Reviewed Journal Articles

See citation data on Google Scholar here.

Benzaia, L., Jarvis, S., Akbary, M. & Park, L. (2024). Investigating the relationship between L2 proficiency and Miranda rights comprehension: A partial replication of Pavlenko et al. (2019). International Journal of Speech, Language & the Law, 31(2), 291-327. https://doi.org/10.3138/ijsll-2024-0018

Akbary, M., Benzaia, L., Jarvis, S. & Park, L. (2023). Evaluating the utility of elicited imitation as a measure of listening comprehension in the context of forensic linguistics. Research Methods in Applied Linguistics, 2(3). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rmal.2023.100067

Akbary, M. & Jarvis, S. (2023). Lexical diversity as a predictor of genre in American TV shows. Digital Scholarship in Humanities, 38(3), 921-936. https://doi.org/10.1093/llc/fqad004

Omidian, T., Akbary, M., & Shahriari, H. (2019). Exploring factors contributing to the receptive and productive knowledge of phrasal verbs in the EFL contexts. WORD 65(1), 1-24. https://doi.org/10.1080/00437956.2019.1567040

Akbary, M., Shahriari, H., & Hosseini Fatemi, A. (2016). The value of song lyrics for teaching and learning English phrasal verbs: a corpus investigation of four music genres. Innovation in Language Learning and Teaching, 1-13. https://doi.org/10.1080/17501229.2016.1216121

University Teaching Experience

NORTHERN ARIZONA UNIVERSITY

Summer 2025 Program in Intensive English (PIE) Workshops (Instructor)

Summer 2024 ENG 548 (1244-1137), Fundamentals of Second Language Teaching (Instructor)

Spring 2024 ENG-707 (1241-9123), Seminar on Forensic Linguistics (TA)

THE UNIVERSITY OF UTAH

Summer 2023 GLOBL 2230-001, Global Citizenship (Instructor)

Summer 2023 GLOBL 910-001, English for Academic Purposes 1 (Instructor)

Fall 2022 LING 1200-002, Intro to the Study of Language (TA)

Spring 2022 LING 3600-001, Cross-Cultural Communication (TA)

Fall 2021 LING 3600-001, Cross-Cultural Communication (TA)

Summer 2021 LING 3500-090, Intro English Grammar (Instructor)

Spring 2021 ENGL 1200-001, Introduction to Study Language (TA)

Fall 2020 EAS 1040-002, Grammar & Editing Nouns (Instructor)

Summer 2020 LING 3500-090, Intro English Grammar (TA)

Guest Lecture

Akbary, M. (2024, Spring). Guest lecture in ENG 707, Section 001, and Seminar on Forensic Linguistics, Elicited Imitation Test-Based Model for Predicting Miranda Warning Comprehension, English Department, Northern Arizona University

Akbary, M. (2022, Fall). Guest lecture in LING 6150, Forensic Linguistics, Contract Interpretation with Corpus Linguistics, Linguistics Department, The University of Utah

Akbary, M. (2022, Fall). Guest lecture in LING 6150, Forensic Linguistics, Corpus Linguistics and Plain Meaning, Linguistics Department, The University of Utah

Akbary, M. (2022, Fall). Guest lecture in LING 6150, Forensic Linguistics, Introduction to the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA), Linguistics Department, The University of Utah

Conference Presentations

Benzaia, L., Jarvis, S., Akbary, M., & Christison, M. (2025, March). Exploring broad and narrow comprehension of the Miranda warning. Presented at 2025 Conference of the American Association for Applied Linguistics (AAAL), Denver, Colorado.

Jarvis, S., Egbert, J., Akbary, M., Demir, Y., Grixoni, F., Kendro, K., Cunningham, C., & Eggington, B. (2024, October). Improving the Comprehensibility of Jury Instructions through Empirical Linguistic Methods. Presented at the 9th Annual Law and Corpus Linguistics Conference, Brigham Young University, UT.

Akbary, M., Benzaia, L., Jarvis, S. & Park, L. (2024, March). Investigating the relationship between L2 proficiency and Miranda rights comprehension. Presented at 2024 Conference of the American Association for Applied Linguistics (AAAL), Houston, Texas.

Akbary, M., Benzaia, L., & Jarvis, S. (2023, March). Oral paraphrasing and elicited imitation as tests of listening comprehension in a legal context. Presented at 2023 Conference of the American Association for Applied Linguistics (AAAL), Portland, Oregon.

Akbary, M., & Jarvis, S. (2022, April). Decoding TV genres: A new classification model. Presented at UUSCIL 2022, Salt Lake City, Utah.

Akbary, M., & Jarvis, S. (2021, July). Exploring lexical diversity in contemporary American television: An automated classification of TV genres. Presented at Corpus Linguistics 2021, Limerick, Ireland.

Akbary, M., & Shahriari, H. (2016, March). Phrasal verbs and their role in selecting music for teaching English as a foreign language. Presented at LIF 2016 Conference: From theory to practice: New directions in ELT and Applied Linguistics, Istanbul, Turkey.

Scholarships and Grants

2025 Patricia Mapes Andersen English Scholarship (B), English Department, College of Arts and Letters, Northern Arizona University

2025 Patricia Mapes Andersen English Scholarship (A), English Department, College of Arts and Letters, Northern Arizona University

2025 Graduate Student Association of Applied Linguistics (GSAAL) Conference Award, Northern Arizona University

2025 Graduate Student Government Travel Award, Northern Arizona University

2024 Graduate Student Association of Applied Linguistics (GSAAL) Conference Award, Northern Arizona University

2023 Graduate Student Travel Assistance, Graduate School, The University of Utah

2023 Departmental Conference Grant, The University of Utah

2023 The University of Utah Graduate Fellowship

2022 Departmental Conference Grant, The University of Utah

2022 Robert G. Hunter Graduate Fellowship, The University of Utah

2021 Departmental Conference Grant, The University of Utah

2021 Departmental Conference Grant for International Association of Forensic Linguists, The University of Utah

2020 Graduate Fellowship, The University of Utah

Specialized Training

2023 TESOL Certificate, The University of Utah

2023 Diversity, Equity & Inclusion, The University of Utah

Corpora

I compiled a 4.2 million-word corpus of American TV shows. It is balanced by word count and running time, with texts from four genres: drama, reality TV, sitcoms, and talk shows. (If you would like to discuss potential collaborations, feel free to reach out.)