Profile

I'm an Assistant Professor in the Department of Modern and Classical Languages and Literatures at California State University, Fresno. I am a linguist and I specialize in language acquisition, sociolinguistics, and computational linguistics. In my research I focus primarily on morphosyntactic features and I draw upon functional approaches to language research, including variationist and usage-based approaches. I am also an experienced language teacher and a practicing translator and interpreter (EN <> ES, FR <> ES). In my free time I enjoy going to the movies, playing adventure videogames, and eating peanut butter cups.

Updates

November 2025: Presenting a paper at the 2025 PAMLA Conference, held in San Francisco, CA.
November 2025: Presenting three papers at the 2025 Hispanic Linguistics Symposium, held at the University of Arizona.
June 2025: Published a collaborative chapter in Research at the Intersection of Second Language Acquisition and Sociolinguistics: Studies in honor of Kimberly L. Geeslin.
May 2025: Joined the Artful Discourse podcast to talk about my department's academic offerings. You can catch the episode on Spotify, YouTube, or your preferred platform.
November 2024: Presented a paper at the 52nd annual New Ways of Analyzing Variation (NWAV), held in Miami, FL.
September 2024: Published an article in Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics
October 2023: Chaired a panel and presented a paper at the 2023 PAMLA Conference, held in Portland, OR
September 2023: Published an article in Research Methods in Applied Linguistics

Recent work

Multiple progressive constructions in L2 Spanish

In this project we investigated allowance of five common lexical bases used to form Spanish progressive constructions (estar, andar, ir, venir, and seguir) among speakers of L2 Spanish. We found that estar was the most frequent response in a contextualized acceptability task, and learners allowed all five lexical bases from the lowest proficiency level. The study was published in the Research at the Intersection of Second Language Acquisition and Sociolinguistics volume, in honor of Kimberly L. Geeslin. We will present the results of a production task, providing support for the differential effect of lexical aspect, at the upcoming Hispaninc Linguistics Symposium in Tucson, AZ.

Contemporary music in the language classroom

In this project, led by my student Danny Karamanlian, we explore the effectiveness of using contemporary music to promote fluency in the elementary Spanish-language classroom, either by contextualizing complex grammatical patterns (e.g., the subjunctive) or illustrating variable phonological processes. We will deliver a presentation on this project as part of the Teaching with Media and Technology panel at the 122nd Annual PAMLA Conference in San Francisco, CA.

Variation in progressive aspect expression

In this project on L2 tense-mood-aspect marking, we examine variation between synthetic (i.e., morphological) and analytic (i.e., periphrastic) forms to encode progressiveness in Spanish. Learners showed increasingly target-like patterns of selection with increases in proficiency, and mixed-effects regression analyses revealed that novel factors such as lexical frequency and temporality, in addition to dynamicity, were relevant predictors of development. This study was published in Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics. I will present the results of a related task, focused on interpretation of the forms rather than preference, at the upcoming AAAL 2026 conference in Chicago, IL.

Online written map task

In this collaborative project, we offer recommendations for creating a novel, customizeable map task. As proof of concept, we present a pilot study exemplifying our own map implementation, designed to elicit informal written communication in either English or Spanish. We describe the use of computational methods to measure task success, and we also provide a comparative analysis of the language elicited in both languages. This study was published in Research Methods in Applied Linguistics. We will present the results of an implementation of the task as completed by balanced English-Spanish bilinguals, with a focus on code-switching patterns, at the upcoming Hispanic Linguistics Symposium in Tucson, AZ.

Corpora, cognition, and usage-based linguistics

In this collaborative chapter we review the origins of usage-based approaches to language development and change, including their connection to human cognition. We also address the compatibility of these approaches with increasingly-sophisticated corpus design and query tools, and review recent studies on usage-based factors across different corpora, languages, and linguistic structures. This is one of the chapters published in Wiley Blackwell's Handbook of Usage-Based Linguistics (2023).

Future-in-the-past expression

Two forms commonly used to express future in the past are the periphrastic future in the imperfect (e.g., iba a bailar ‘I was going to dance’) and the conditional (e.g., bailaría ‘I would dance’). In this study we investigate future-in-the-past expression in residents of Seville, Spain and Caracas, Venezuela using a preference task. This study was published as a chapter in John Benjamin's Innovative Approaches to Research in Hispanic Linguistics (2023).

Contact

Feel free to contact me by email or using the form below.

  • Address

    5245 N. Backer Ave.
    M/S PB-96
    Fresno, CA 93740

  • Email

    jb25 [at] csufresno [dot ] edu