Linguistics Research Labs

Purdue Bilingualism Lab (PBL)

Research in the Purdue Bilingualism Lab (PBL) focuses on all aspects of bilingualism, broadly defined, with a particular interest in phonetics and phonology, psycholinguistics, and sociolinguistics.  Research at the Purdue Bilingualism Lab explores bilingual behaviors, as well as the underlying cognitive mechanisms that govern such behavior. In other words, we're interested in what bilinguals do and how they do it. Current projects include research on the phonetics and phonology of code-switching, the acquisition of L2/L3 phonetics and phonology, and variability in bilingual lexical access.

Directed by Dr. Daniel J. Olson (danielolson@purdue.edu) -His research focus is experimental phonetics and phonology, particularly in bilingual populations. His previous work has examined the phonetic patterns associated with language switching in Spanish-English bilinguals, with a focus on suprasegmental production and perception. Most recently, adding to a growing field of research surrounding the nature of bilingual language storage, his work has investigated the cognitive mechanisms that bilinguals use to separate their two languages, at both the lexical and phonetic level.  As a complimentary area of research, Professor Olson is also working on a project that examines the utility of speech analysis software as a means to further second learner acquisition of more native-like productions.

Second Language Acquisition and Bilingualism Research Lab (SLARB)

Welcome to the Second Language Acquisition and Bilingualism Research Lab.

Our lab investigates the psycholinguistic mechanisms of second language acquisition, bilingual development, and heritage language learning. We study how linguistic and cognitive factors shape the acquisition of morphosyntactic and semantic patterns in heritage speakers, simultaneous bilinguals, and second language learners.

A key goal of our work is to understand how bilinguals acquire grammatical structures that are rare in their input, not explicitly taught, or absent from their dominant language. We examine the effects of age of acquisition, exposure, proficiency, cross-linguistic influence, structural complexity, and community context on bilingual development.

Current projects address topics such as Spanish infinitives and gerunds, clitic use and interpretation, bare plurals, copula selection, subjunctive mood, adverb placement, and the clitic se with psychological verbs. We also study the morphosyntax of Miami Cuban Spanish, forms of address in Colombian Spanish, and pragmatic strategies for greetings and requests.

Lab members contribute to the Aprendiendo a Leer Program, which supports Spanish heritage children in developing literacy. Each semester, the program serves about 50 K–5 students and engages 15 Spanish majors or minors. This initiative fosters literacy, informs pedagogy, and strengthens families, schools, and communities. Introductory Video

Directed by Dr. Alejandro Cuza (acuza@purdue.edu)- Dr. Cuza’s research examines second language acquisition, heritage bilingualism, and child bilingual development, with a focus on Spanish morphosyntax and semantics. His work explores how bilinguals acquire features such as tense/aspect distinctions, subject–verb inversion, differential object marking, gender concord, determiners, clitics, and double complementizers. He also investigates the role of heritage language literacy in Spanish–English bilingual children. Dr. Cuza is the founder of Aprendiendo a Leer, Indiana’s first large-scale Spanish literacy program, which serves more than 70 bilingual children annually and integrates a service-learning component for Purdue students.

Indigenous and Endangered Languages Lab (IELLaB)

The IELLab strives to intersect the goals of formal theoretical linguistics with the needs of communities speaking indigenous, minority and endangered languages. The best way to study an endangered, minority, indigenous, un- or under-described language is if a speaker of the language is also the linguist working on it. One of the main goals of the IELLab is to train speakers of the languages as linguists. Current projects involve motion predicates and early acquisition of multiple grammars; languages being described include Mayagna, Tati, Ghanaian Student Pidgin, Limon Kryol and Taiwanese Mandarin. Introductory Video

Directed by Dr. Elena Benedicto (ebenedi@purdue.edu)- Prof. Benedicto specializes in the syntax-semantics interface and directs IELLab.  Her main theoretical interests center around the feature specification of functional projections in the clausal structure.  She has worked on classifiers in Mayangna and sign languages (ASL, LSA, LSC, HKSL) and on the V-V syntactic complex, modality and evidentiality in Mayangna. Professor Benedicto is currently working (as of 2019) on a crosslinguistic and crossmodality project on motion Predicates; languages included in the project are ASL, LSCu (Sign Language in Cuba), Sign Language(s) in Puerto Rico, Sign Languages in Latin America, HKSL, LIS and indigenous languages in Latin America.  Students in the IELLab are also involved in the project with a range of geographically and typologically unrelated languages (Ghanaian Student Pidgin, Mandarin, Tati and Limonese Creole).  Prof. Benedicto also writes and collaborates in developing Participatory Action Research, which seeks to create more equitable methods of working with local communities when conducting field research.

Purdue Experimental Phonetics and Phonology Lab

This lab conducts experimental research on speech production and perception. Analyses include production of L2 speech, production of L2 accented native speech, perception of L1 and L2 sounds, universal features in speech perception, sociophonetics and laboratory phonology. Current projects include vowel-to-vowel coarticulation in Spanish, Tatar and Hungarian; acquisition of French voicing by American English learners; sociophonetics of word-final t/d deletion, perception of voicing by bilinguals, and perception of consonant duration. Introductory Video

Directed by Dr. Olga Dmitrieva (odmitrie@purdue.edu)- Olga does research in acoustic phonetics and speech perception. She is interested in particular in speech perception and production patterns of individuals who speak more than one language, whether as bilinguals or second language learners. She also examines interactions between phonetics and phonology and the way they can affect each other in shaping languages. Languages she has worked on so far include Russian, English, Spanish, Italian, French, and Marathi, as well as others that her students have studied.

Experimental Linguistics Lab

This lab investigates syntax and its interfaces with semantics, discourse information structure, and language processing in production and comprehension. The goals are: to identify the various factors that contribute to grammatical alternations; to explore the relation between grammar and performance, in particular the hypothesis that processing pressures in production and comprehension contribute to the development of grammatical conventions; and to explore how native-language biases affect speech production. The experimental methods employed include acceptability judgment tasks, structural priming tasks, elicitation tasks, reading and response time measurements, and quantitative corpus analyses. Recent projects have investigated relative clause extraposition in English, resumptive pronoun production in Cantonese, syntax of sentence-final particles in Shanghainese, and the effect of motion event typology on production of causative motion expressions in English, Mandarin, and Spanish.

Directed by Dr. Elaine Francis (ejfranci@purdue.edu) - Elaine J. Francis directs the Experimental Linguistics Lab. Her current research examines the syntactic, semantic, discourse-pragmatic, and cognitive factors that underlie the grammar and usage of complex sentence structures. Her most recent publications have focused on relative clause extraposition in English and resumptive pronouns in Cantonese. She is a General Editor of the journal Language and Cognition, and co-editor, with Laura A. Michaelis, of the edited volume Mismatch: Form-Function Incongruity and the Architecture of Grammar (CSLI Publications, 2003). Her current book-in-progress, Marginal Acceptability and Linguistic Theory, investigates how linguists can better understand the nature of language users’ implicit grammatical knowledge despite the very indirect relationship between mental representations and observable linguistic behavior.

Pragmatics and Intercultural Communicative Competence Research Group

This research group examines the impact of context (e.g. specific contextual variables) on language and language learning. We utilize quantitative and qualitative approaches to examine naturally occurring and experimentally elicited language. Main contributions relate to (1) the study of mitigation, (2) speech acts used by native speakers and language learners, and (3) intercultural communicative competence. These three areas are united in that they reflect the examination of context on language, second language learner language, and second language learners' development. We are developing a language learner corpus to further examine the impact of short-term study abroad on learner's discourse.

Directed by Dr. Lori Czerwionka (czerwionka@purdue.edu) - Her research interests lie broadly in pragmatics, sociolinguistics, and second language acquisition. She use quantitative and qualitative approaches to linguistic analysis. Her work focuses on the use and structure of mitigation and speech acts in Spanish-speaking communities. Recent projects also address linguistic and communication outcomes of short-term study abroad for English-speaking learners of Spanish and the development of a second language corpus. . Previously, she has worked on discourse organization and the use of discourse markers in linguistic mitigation and second language learners’ development of discourse.