Yoolim Kim

I am an Assistant Professor of Linguistics in the Department of Cognitive Science & Linguistics at Carleton College. 

I received my Ph.D. in 2019 in Linguistics from the University of Oxford. I was a postdoctoral researcher at the Minds and Traditions research group within the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History (now the Max Planck Institute for Geoanthropology) as well as a research fellow within the Korea Institute at Harvard University. I also also a Visiting Lecturer at Wellesley College. 

Broadly, my research focuses on heritage learners of language (and second language learners more generally), and the unique ways in which they learn, understand, and use language. I'm also interested in Korean, in particular honorifics, motion verbs, and the intersection of the two. I'm also a Hangul-enthusiast, and am interested in the relationship between written and spoken language. 

News

April 2025

Sofia Rubio's (Wellesley '23) research has now been published in Applied Linguistics. Read here!

Lillian Phillips' (Wellesley '25) research on methods of crowdsourcing data on diverse language use on college campus is under review!

March 2025

We presented some student-led research on perspectival shift in motion verb 'come' in Korean at GLOW 47 in Frankfurt. Well done, Hanygeol Park (Wellesley, '27)!

Caroline Jung's (Wellesley, '25) research has now been published in Journal of Language, Identity & Education. Read here!

January 2025

Some more student-led research has been accepted for publication! Sofia Rubio's (Wellesley, '23) research on Kyrgyz script has been accepted for publication in Applied Linguistics. Congratulations Sofia!

In other news, our research on Glyph has now been published in Journal of Memory and Language!

November 2024

I'm pleased to share that student-led research on heritage learners of Korean (particularly on how they view themselves compared to how they view others as heritage speakers) has been accepted for publication in the Journal of Language, Identity & Education! Congratulations Caroline Jung (Wellesley, '25) and B'ella Ixmata Schaaff (Wellesley, '25)! 

May 2024

I'll be presenting some research with Carolyn Anderson at Experiments in Linguistic Meaning (ELM, hosted by the Penn Linguistics Department) next month. In the meanwhile, I'll be giving a Faculty Lecture at Wellesley Reunion. I'll also be updating this website later this summer. Stay tuned!

September 2023

I'll be presenting with Carolyn Anderson (Computer Science, Wellesley) at Comparative Punctuation Worldwide in Regensburg, Germany on our research examining differences in processing of parentheticals between English and Korean readers. 

February 2022

I am pleased to announce that our new applet Glyph has launched. It's part of larger project to classify letter shapes found in the world's writing systems, but instead of using the more traditional route of laboratory-based data collection, we're using a crowdsourcing method through gamification. We're hoping to reach a wider audience and capture more realistic data. You can learn more about it here.