Faculty

Hina Ashraf
Associate Research Professor
Interests: Language policy, multilingualism in South Asia, language and social capital, language education

Lara Bryfonski
Assistant Professor
Interests: Second language acquisition, task-based language teaching, interaction and corrective feedback, language learning in study abroad, teacher training

Marissa Fond
Assistant Teaching Professor
Interests: Discourse analysis; management of knowledge, beliefs, and emotions in language and interaction; metaphor and frame analysis; research interviewing and other qualitative research methods.

Cynthia Gordon
Associate Professor
Vice Chair
Interests: Discourse analysis, interactional sociolinguistics, theories of framing and intertextuality, linguistic construction of relationships and identities, digital/online discourse

Alexandra Johnston
Assistant Professor of the Practice
Director, Masters Programs & Career Management; Associate Director, AELRC
Interests: Discourse analysis, applied sociolinguistics, intercultural communication, workplace discourse, institutional gatekeeping encounters, immigration, using linguistics in career paths in business, government, non-profit and tech organizations

Ruth T. Kramer
Associate Professor
Head, Theoretical Linguistics Concentration
Interests: Syntax, morphology, Amharic, Ancient Egyptian, gender, number, agreement, clitics, Distributed Morphology, minimalism

Sue Lorenson
Vice Dean for Undergraduate Education, Georgetown College
Adjunct Lecturer
Interests: Phonology, language processing, linguistics and reading, language and the brain

Alison Mackey
Professor
Department Chair
Interests: Second Language Acquisition: input, interaction, corrective feedback and individual differences in L2 learning, research methodology, quantitative and qualitative approaches, second dialect acquisition and linguistic identity construction

Meg Montee
Associate Research Professor
Director, Assessment and Evaluation Language Resource Center (AELRC)
Interests: Language testing and assessment, evaluation, research methodology, teacher education, and language assessment literacy

Jennifer Nycz
Associate Professor
Head, Sociolinguistics Concentration; Director of Undergraduate Studies
Interests: Phonological variation, sociolinguistics, (socio)phonetics, phonological theory, dialect contact, change over the lifespan, vowel systems, accommodation & style-shifting, individual differences in language variation, research methods in phonetics

Michael Obiri-Yeboah
Assistant Teaching Professor
Interests: Phonology, phonetics and their interface, syntax-phonology interface, morphophonology, language documentation, ATR vowel harmony, tone and nasality. Language research focus on Gua, Akan and other Kwa languages.

Lourdes Ortega
Professor
Head, Applied Linguistics Concentration
Convener, Initiative for Multilingual Studies
Interests: Second language acquisition, usage-based linguistics, bi/multilingualism, interfaces between L2 writing and L2 development, systematic research synthesis, epistemology and ethics in applied linguistics.

Paul Portner
Professor
Director of Graduate Studies
Interests: Semantics, pragmatics, logic, philosophy of language, modality, mood, imperatives, corpus linguistics

Kristin Rock
Assistant Teaching Professor
Interests: Second language (L2) assessment, L2 digital writing, task-based language teaching, statistics for linguistics research

Natalie Schilling
Professor
Interests: Language variation and change, stylistic variation, sociolinguistic field methods, forensic linguistics

Nathan Schneider
Associate Professor
Interests: computational linguistics/natural language processing; lexical semantics; form-meaning interface; adpositions and case; cognitive linguistics; corpus annotation; machine learning; English, Hebrew, Arabic

Nadja Tadic
Assistant Professor
Interests: Discourse analysis, critically motivated conversation analysis and membership categorization analysis, classroom interaction, second language instruction, construction of diversity and (in)equity in ordinary and institutional interaction

Deborah Tannen
University Professor
Interests: Discourse analysis; analyzing everyday conversation, including conversations over social media; family interaction; cross-cultural communication; language and gender

Amir Zeldes
Associate Professor
Head, Computational Linguistics Concentration
Interests: corpus linguistics, syntax-semantics interface, usage-based grammar, discourse relations, multifactorial methods, natural language processing, digital humanities

Elizabeth Zsiga
Professor
Interests: Phonology, phonetics, and their interface, especially Articulatory Phonology, L2 phonology, Laboratory Phonology, and tone. Languages researched include Setswana, Serbian, Korean, Thai, Russian, Igbo, English
An Explanation of Academic Titles in the Department of Linguistics at Georgetown:
The rank of University Professor is bestowed by the President in recognition of extraordinary achievement by faculty members holding the rank of professor with tenure whose scholarly accomplishments have earned them substantial recognition from their academic peers. There are currently six who hold this rank in the College of Arts and Sciences.
Tenure Line Faculty are all full-time appointments: Assistant Professor (without tenure, most junior), and the two permanent appointments: Associate Professor (tenured) and (Full) Professor (tenured, most senior level)*
Non-Tenure Line Faculty are all fixed-term appointments, meaning without tenure, and may be part-time or full-time. Listed in order of increasing seniority, non-tenure-line faculty may be appointed as Assistant, Associate or (Full) Research Professor, as Assistant, Associate or (Full) Teaching Professor and as Assistant, Associate or (Full) Professor of the Practice.
Adjunct Lecturer: Appointed to teach one or more courses, semester-by-semester.
*Students are encouraged to take advantage of the expertise of all our faculty, but Ph.D. students should be aware that only tenure-line faculty are eligible to direct dissertations. Non-tenure line faculty are eligible to serve on dissertation committees.
Affiliated Faculty
- Ahmad Alqassas
- Hector Campos
- Joe Cunningham
- Anna De Fina
- Rhonda B. Friedman
- Elena Herburger
- Craig Hoffman
- Ronald P Leow
- Alfonso Morales-Front
- Elissa L. Newport
- Marianna Ryshina-Pankova
- Cristina Sanz
- Theodore R. Supalla