Languages, Literatures & Cultures
PhD Students

Kathryn Ringer-Hilfinger

Spanish: Sociolinguistics & Second Language Acquisition.

Dissertation research: Acquisition of dialect variation & nativelike speech patterns by advanced second language learners of Spanish in an immersion context. Recipient of the UAlbany Dissertation Research Fellowship Award for summer 2010. Attended the prestigious 2nd International Sociolinguistic Summer School in Copenhagen for June 2010. Currently ABD

Alice Krause

Spanish: Spanish linguistics, with a concentration in Second Language Acquisition and Phonology.

Dissertation research: An optimality-theoretic account of the acquisition of Spanish diphthongs by native speakers of English. Currently ABD

Abeer Aloush

French: Theory of integration, immigration laws with compliance of human rights, neo-colonialism politics, literature of diasporas, neo-orientalism, applied linguistics, translation theories, Middle East geopolitics, francophone literatures and cinema of South Sahara and Caribbean and teaching methodologies of foreign languages as well

Dissertation research: Multiculturalism, the Theory of integration, immigration and Islamism. I intend to explore the different complexities of the post-colonial situation that impact Muslim integration in France. Currently ABD.

Yaima Centeno

Spanish: Spanish Linguistics with a concentration in Sociolinguistics

Dissertation research: Special interest in the phonological variation of Cuban Spanish.
Currently ABD