Previous speakers and workshop facilitators: 

Co-chairs: Melissa Gomes (Linguistics), Sara de Blas Hernandez (Spanish and Portuguese), and Andrea Ramirez Barajas (Psychology)

In-person meetings are at Kerr Hall 273

Spring 2024:

1. April 29th (In-person, 12:15pm-1:15pm PT):

Gabe Dupre (UC Davis, philosophy Department)

• "Has Distributional Semantics Rested on a Mistake"

• Blog post coming soon! 

2. May 13th (In-person, 12-1pm PT): 

Cheryl Yin (Carleton College, Anthropology)

• "How Not to Talk to Monks: Dysfluency in the Buddhist Monk Resgister among Cambodians" 

• Blog post coming soon!

Winter 2024:

1. January 22nd (In-person, 12-1pm PT): 

Robert Bayley (UC Davis; Linguistics)

• "Social Conditioning of Subject Pronoun Expression"

• Click here to read a blog post about Dr. Bayley's talk!

2. February 5th (Zoom, 12-1pm PT): 

Xiangying Jiang (Duolingo)

• "From academia to industry: A learning scientist at Duolingo"

3. February 12th (In-person, 12-1pm PT)

Rebecca Zhu (Standford) 

• "Learning about, and from, language and pictures"

• Click here to read a blog post about Dr. Zhu's talk!

4. February 26th (In-person, 1:30-2:30pm PT)

Julia Mernard-Warwick (UC Davis, Linguistics)

• "Linguistic landscape of multilingual Algeria"

Fall 2023:

5. October 16th (In-person 12pm-1pm PT): 

Trip Strawbridge (Santa Clara University)

• • "If they jumped of a bridge...": The influence of social networks on language learning in study abroad

  • Click here to read a blog post about Dr. Strawbridge's talk!

6. October 30th (Zoom, 12-1pm PT): 

Katie Ireland (University of Georgia)

• • TLDR: A Corpus-Based Analysis of Social Application Contracts

  • Click here to read a blog post about Dr. Ireland's talk!

7. November 13th (In-person, 12-1pm PT): 

Eleonora Beier (UC Davis; Psychology)

• • The role of temporal prediction in guiding attention through time during language comprehension

  • Click here to read an upcoming post about Dr. Beier's talk!

Co-chairs: Nicholas Aoki (Linguistics), Roxanne Elliott (Education), and Ana Ortega Pérez (Spanish and Portuguese)

Spring 2023:

1. April 10th (Zoom, 1:30-2:30pm PT): 

Michelle Cohn (UC Davis; Linguistics)

• • Voice assistant- vs. human-directed? Speech style differences as a window to social cognition. 

  • Click here to read a blog post about Dr. Cohn's talk!

2. April 24th (Zoom, 10-11am PT): 

Aleese Block (UC Davis; Linguistics)

• • Cue weighting and enhancement in systems of contrast: vowel quantity in Norwegian

3. May 1st (Sproul 912, 1:30-2:30pm PT): 

Ingrid Sub Cuc (UC Davis; Native American Studies)

• • 'Rutzib'axik Qach'ab'äl': Piloting the Application of Heritage Language Learning Methodologies in Two Kaqchikel Speaking Communities in Guatemala

Winter 2023:

4. January 23rd (Sproul 912, 1:30-2:30pm PT): 

Valeria Zunino Edelsberg (UC Davis; Education)

• • Responsive feedback on writing for emergent bilingual students

  • Click here for a link to Valeria's presentation slides.

  • Click here to read a blog post about Valeria's talk!

5. February 13th (Sproul 912, 1:30-2:30pm PT): 

Margarita Jimenez-Silva, Ed.D. (UC Davis; Education)

• • Translanguaging to Empower and Engage Young Latinas and Parents In a Saturday Science Program

  • Click here for a link to Dr. Jimenez-Silva's presentation slides. 

Fall 2022:

6. October 3rd (Zoom, 1-2pm PT): 

Diana Ruggiero, PhD (University of Memphis; World Languages and Literatures)

• • The World of Languages for Specific Purposes: From Research to Teaching Medical Spanish through Community Engagement

  • Click here for a link to Dr. Ruggiero's presentation slides.

  • Click here to read a blog post about Dr. Ruggiero's talk!

7. October 17th (Zoom, 12:30-1:30pm PT): 

Kristin Predeck, PhD (Knowledge Engineer at Amazon)

• • Linguists in tech: what roles to explore, how to interview

  • Click here for a recording of the talk (This recording is only accessible to individuals affiliated with UC Davis and will be automatically deleted on 1/23/23).

8. October 31st (Sproul 912, 12-1pm PT): 

Georgia Zellou, PhD (UC Davis; Linguistics)

• • Clear speech in Tashlhiyt Berber: The perception of typologically uncommon word-initial contrasts by native and naive listeners

  • This work was conducted in collaboration with Dr. Mohamed Lahrouchi (Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS) and Université Paris 8) and Dr. Karim Bensoukas (Mohammed V University in Rabat).

  • Click here to read a blog post about Dr. Zellou's talk!

Co-chairs: Sophia Minnillo (Linguistics), Beverly Cotter (Psychology), and Ana Ruiz Alonso Bartol (Spanish & Portuguese) 

Spring 2022:

1. April 4th: Kyle Patterson (UC Davis; French and Italian)

• • Meaningful Gaming Tools in the Classroom: Beyond Gamification

2. April 18th: Tamara Gómez Carrero (University of Valladolid; Estudios Ingleses Avanzados (Advanced English Studies))

• • What do eye movements reveal about Spanish grammatical gender in codeswitching?

3. May 22nd: Dian Yu (UC Davis; Computer Science)

• • Attribute Representation With Neural Language Models

4. May 16th: Dr. Carrie Bonilla (George Mason University; Modern and Classical Languages)

• • Incorporating Second Language Acquisition Research in Language Placement Test Development

5. June 2nd: Xinye Zhang and Professor Bob Bayley (UC Davis; Linguistics)

• • From Proposal to Publication: How to Form Your Idea into a Journal Article

Winter 2022:

1. January 26th: Kristin Predeck (UC Davis; German)

• • Exploring Acoustic and Perceptual Similarity of German and American English Vowels

2. February 2nd: Peter Torres (UC Davis; Linguistics)

• • Professional Development Workshop: What You Need to Know About Teaching and Diversity Statements in One Hour

3. February 9th: Katie Sendek (UC Davis; Psychology)

• • The Effects of Emotional Language on Predictive Processing in L2

4. February 23rd: Dr. Ethan Kutlu (University of Iowa; Psychological and Brain Sciences, Linguistics)

• • Perception in Context: How Multilingualism Is A Door To New Horizons But a Gatekeeper For Some

5. March 9th: César Hoyos (UC Davis; Spanish and Portuguese)

• • Exploring emotional aspects of translanguaging in the L2 and heritage language learners of Spanish

Fall 2021:

1. October 5th: Eleonora Beier (UC Davis; Psychology)

• • Prosodic Focus in Speech Directed Towards Human vs. Voice-AI Interlocutors

2. October 19th: Online Teaching Group (UC Davis; Spanish and Portuguese, Linguistics, French and Italian)

• • Transitioning to Emergency Online Teaching: The Experience of Spanish Language Learners and Teachers at UC Davis

3. November 2nd: Dr. Dana Ferris (UC Davis; Education, Linguistics)

• • Language & Self-Efficacy: How First-Year University Students View Themselves as Writers

4. November 16th: Madison Barker (UC Davis; Psychology)

• • The Object, The Whole Object, And Nothing But The Object: Speakers Prioritize Whole-Object Semantics in Scene Descriptions

5. November 30th: Dr. Carmen González (UC Davis; Spanish and Portuguese)

• • Language and Ideology: Metaphors in Political Discourse

Co-chairs: Skyler Reese (Linguistics) and Lillian Jones (Spanish & Portuguese) 

Spring 2021:

1. April 19th: Chloe Brotherton (UC Davis; Linguistics)

• • Nasty Woman, Pronouns, and Labels: Connections between Feminist and LGBTQIA Language Ideologies and Policies

2. May 3rd: Claudia Sánchez-Gutiérrez, Kenji Sagae, Agustina Carando, Sam Davidson, Paloma Fernández Mira, and Sophia Minnillo (UC Davis; Linguistics, Computer Science, Spanish and Portuguese)

• • COWS-L2H: How team work brings the best out of corpus research

Winter 2021:

1. January 14th: Abram Jones (UC Davis; Continuing and Professional Education)

• • Task-Based Language Teaching: Theory and Practice

2. January 28th: Pablo Robles García (University of Toronto Mississauga; Language Studies)

• • Optimizing vocabulary learning in the L2 Spanish Classroom

3. February 11th: Lindsey Clouse (Black Hills State University; English)

• • "Bad" English on Screen: How Hollywood Depicts Stigmatized Dialects

Fall 2020:

1. October 22nd: Masoud Jasbi (UC Davis; Linguistics)

• • Critical Thinking, Science, & Language

2. November 5th: Margaret Merrill (UC Davis; Academic Technology Services)

• • "Parlez-vous instructional design?": Stories and lessons learned from an instructional designer with a PhD in Second Language Acquisition

3. November 19th: Maximiliano Agustin Wilson (Laval University in Quebec; Neuroscience)

• • The behavioral and brain changes in reading aloud during aging

4. December 3rd: Ciara Anderson (UC Davis; Linguistics)

• • "Hey Alexa, what job opportunities are available to linguists in Conversational AI?"

Co-chairs: Peter Joseph Torres (Linguistics) and Daniela Cerbino (Spanish & Portuguese) 

Fall 2019:

1. October 11th: Georgia Zellou (UC Davis; Linguistics)

• • Everything you wanted to know about the academic job market (but were afraid to ask)

2. October 25th: Claudia Sánchez Gutiérrez (UC Davis; Spanish and Portuguese)

• • Wearing (and managing) the many hats of academic life

3. November 8th: Cati De los Ríos (UC Berkeley; Education)

• • Learning from Los Músicos: Exploring the Translingual Literate Lives of Transnational Youth

4. November 15th: Thapelo Otlogetswe (UC Davis; Linguistics)

• • Developing a Setswana Monolingual Dictionary

5. November 22nd: Jack Hawkins (UC Davis; Linguistics)

• • On Bilingualism and Language Change

Co-chairs: Glen Heinrich-Wallace (Linguistics) and Cory Osburn (Spanish and Portuguese) 

Spring 2019:

1. April 23rd: Michelle Cohn (UC Davis; Linguistics)

• • Exploring human-voice AI interaction: the role of acoustic expressions of emotion

2. May 7th: Hugo Mailhot (UC Davis, Computer Science)

• • Workshop: Working as a Linguist outside of Academia: "Being the Linguist in the Room"

Winter 2019:

1. February 4th: Cory Osburn and Glenn Wallace (UC Davis; Linguistics)

• • Workshop: Student-led information session on the qualifying exam (QE)

2. February 11th: David Corina (UC Davis; Linguistics)

• • Cross-modal plasticity in children with cochlear implants

3. March 4th: Emily Morgan (UC Davis; Linguistics)

• • N400 Evidence for Parallel Lexical Predictions

Fall 2018:

1. October 23rd: Claudia Sánchez Gutiérrez (UC Davis; Spanish and Portuguese)

• • Workshop: Discuss how to suss out articles from journals you're not familiar with and best practices for finding the references you need

2. November 6th: Travis Bradley (UC Davis; Spanish and Portuguese)

Co-chairs: Claire Henderson (Linguistics) and Marta Llorente Bravo (Spanish and Portuguese) 

Spring 2018:

1. April 19th: Robert Blake (UC Davis; French and Italian)

• • Online Language Learning: Tools and Tricks

2. May 3rd: Fernanda Ferreira (UC Davis; Psychology)

• • Integrating Integration and Prediction in Psycholinguistics

3. May 17th: Georgia Zellou (UC Davis; Linguistics)

• • Workshop: Abstract writing

Winter 2018:

1. January 18th: Carlee Arnett (UC Davis; German and Russian)

• • Using Animations to Teach the German Passive

2. February 15th: Vai Ramanathan (UC Davis; Linguistics) and Claudia Sánchez Gutiérrez (UC Davis; Spanish and Portuguese)

• • Workshop: Women in Academia

3. March 1st: Justin Spence (UC Davis; Native American Studies)

• • Linguistic and Narrative Perspectives on California Dene Migrations

4. March 8th: Julia Menard-Warwick (UC Davis; Linguistics)

• • Inclusionary and Exclusionary Interpretation Practices at Bilingual Parent Meetings

Fall 2017:

1. October 17th: Robert Bayley (UC Davis; Linguistics)

• • Frequency effects in syntactic variation: Evidence from subject personal pronoun variation in U.S. Spanish and Mandarin Chinese

2. October 31st: Eugênia Fernandes (UC Davis; Spanish and Portuguese)

• • Idioms in Brazilian Portuguese: lexicalization and grammaticalization based on a continuum analysis

3. November 14th: Vai Ramanathan (UC Davis; Linguistics)

• • Workshop: Job searching and employment as a language researcher

4. November 28th: Claudia Sánchez-Gutiérrez (UC Davis; Spanish and Portuguese) and Hugo Mailhot (UC Davis; Computer Science

• • MorphoLex: A morphological database for English and French words

Co-chairs: Benjamin Gomes (Linguistics) and Aaron Yamada (Spanish and Portuguese) 

Spring 2017:

1. April 19th: Luna Filipović (UC Davis; Language and Cognition)

• • How language affects what we say and remember: Spanish and English through a forensic linguistic lens

2. May 3rd: Justin Davidson (UC Berkeley, Spanish and Romance Linguistics)

• • "Endogenous Change, Contact-Induced Change, and the Burden of Proof: Exploring "Natural" and "Unremarkable" /s/-Voicing in the Spanish-Catalan Setting"

3. May 10th: Meredith Tamminga (University of Pennsylvania; Linguistics)

• • How much do individuals vary?

4. May 24th: Robert Blake (UC Davis; Linguistics)

• • What makes online language courses tick?

Winter 2017:

1. January 25th: Jordi Torras (CEO of Inbenta)

• • Talk on Natural Language Processing

2. February 22nd: Noriko Ishihara (UC Davis; Linguistics)

• • Agency in Language Teaching: Translingual Practice and Identity Negotiation

3. March 1st: Miguel Ángel Fuentes Cortés (Visiting Student from La Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile)

• • Patrones funcionales-valorativos en informes de arbitraje de artículos de investigación (talk was in Spanish)

4. March 8th: Robert Bayley (UC Davis; Linguistics)

• • Dialectology in a Multilingual North America

5. March 15th: Emily Moline (UC Davis; Linguistics)

• • Emergent Adult L1 Literacy: Findings from a Case Study

Fall 2016:

1. October 11th: Kenji Sagae (UC Davis; Linguistics)

• • Syntactic parsing of child language and automatic assessment of grammatical development

2. October 25th: Travis Bradley (UC Davis; Spanish and Portuguese)

• • The Evolution of Judeo-Spanish Palatals: Using Optimality Theory to Model Phonological Change and Microvariation

3. November 10th: Betty Leaver (Defense Language Institute in Monterey)

• • Task-Based Instruction

4. November 22nd: Agustina Carando (UC Davis; Spanish and Portuguese)

• • Innovative usages in the Spanish of the United States: The role of English

Co-chairs: Caitlin Tierney (Linguistics) and Melissa Vega-Valdez (Spanish & Portuguese) 

Winter 2016:

1. February 5th: Andrew Cohen (University of Minnesota; Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition (CARLA))

• • The Learning of Pragmatics from Nonnative Teachers

2. February 22nd: Scott Payne (McGraw-Hill Education (Principal Instruction Design Analyst))

• • The Promise and Challenge of Conducting SLA Research in Digital Gaming Environments

3. February 23rd: Vai Ramanathan (UC Davis; Linguistics)

• • Workshop: Job searching and employment

Fall 2015:

1. November 24th: Richard Kern (UC Berkeley; Berkeley Language Center (Director))

• • Technology and Second Language Acquisition