Research interests
My research interests lie in the areas of language development (first and second language acquisition, bilingualism and language attrition), and syntactic theory (syntax and the interfaces, information structure, Romance syntax and Hispanic linguistics), both within a generative framework.
My research has mainly centred on the analysis of information structure and focus, in particular how word order in Spanish is affected by both prosodic and syntactic constraints. I have conducted extensive research on the L2 acquisition and attrition of Spanish word order and subject pronouns by advanced English speakers.
I am also interested in the acquisition of Spanish tense and aspect morphology, and how English learners of Spanish figure out that Spanish marks the imperfective/perfective distinction with specific verbal morphology, unlike English.
I am the co-director of the ESRC-funded SPLLOC project which investigates the acquisition of Spanish morphosyntax by English learners. SPLLOC is the first corpus of learner oral data completely open-access and freely available to the research and teaching communities.
I am the PI of an AHRC research project investigating native language attrition, changes in the grammars of native speakers as the result of learning a second language. Details can be found here.
I have been a co-investigator in a number of research projects, including:
- PI: Monika Schmid (Essex). “International Network Grant on First Language Attrition”. ESRC (2015-2017).
- PI: Amaya Mendikoetxea (Universidad Autónoma de Madrid). “Interfaces and variability in native and developing grammars: theoretical and methodological approaches”. MINECO (Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad), Spain (2013-2016).
- PI: Amaya Mendikoetxea (Universidad Autónoma de Madrid). “Optionality and pseudo-Optionality in native and non-native grammars”. MINECO, Spain (2009-2011).
I am a member of the editorial board of ‘Second Language Research’, ‘Studies in Second Language Acquisition’, the ‘Spanish Heritage Journal’ and the ‘Journal of the European Second Language Association’.
Ex-member of the ‘European Second Language Association’ (EuroSLA) Executive Committee.
Member of the ‘ESRC Peer Review College’.
Associate Member of the Centre for Research & Enterprise in Language (CREL). University of Greenwich, UK.
Associate Member of the Centre for Literacy and Multilingualism (CeLM). University of Reading, UK.
Linguistics Association of Great Britain (LAGB) (ordinary member).
Recent research projects
SPLLOC 1 (April 2006-March 2008)
Linguistic development in L2 Spanish: creation and analysis of a learner corpus (SPLLOC)
Funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), the project had two broad aims: to establish a small scale, high quality database of spoken learner Spanish (ages 14-21), and to undertake a short programme of substantive research into L2 Spanish, including the acquisition of word order and clitic pronouns as interface phenomena.
L1 Attrition (June 2007-May 2008)
"Losing your tongue: first language attrition in monolingual and bilingual settings" funded by the British Academy.
This project explores in what ways immigrant bilingual speakers who have spent over 25 years abroad modify their first language (including their vocabulary and key syntactic structures) influenced by the new linguistic environment. Two different groups of subjects participate in this study: Cuban exiles who have settled in Miami and still use Spanish as the dominant language, and Spaniards who moved to the UK and have replaced their Spanish with English almost entirely. By comparing these two different groups the role that L1 and L2 input has on the linguistic competence of those who move abroad will be analysed.
Research project(s)
This project has further developed the SPLLOC (Spanish Learner Language Oral Corpora) research programme and has included new data investigating the acquisition of tense and aspect by English learners of Spanish.
Professor Laura DomínguezBuilding 65, Faculty of Arts and Humanities, University of Southampton, Avenue Campus, Southampton SO17 1BF, United Kingdom
Room Number : 65/3057