Students

Our students - both Master's and undergrad - play an important part in our cutting edge research and outreach.

Students in Hispanic linguistics master the latest quantitative and qualitative methods, present their research at national conferences, and work as a team to understand how Spanish is acquired and changes - in the classroom, in North Carolina, and around the world.

Students in Hispanic linguistics

2nd Year MA Students

Dylan Bradford
Joel Lewis
Rebecca Green
Maggie Payne
Paula de Miguel Ibeas
Madison Ragland
Ben Mittag

Undergraduate Research Students

Bailey Armbrister
Hannah Bain
Nick Chisolm
Anne Elkins

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Featured Current Students

Paula de Miguel Ibeas

Current research

I am studying language variation in Spain, specifically in Burgos, the city where I was born, and in Bilbao, where I have been living since I was 2. Even if the cities are in the North and quite close to each other, their speech is very different - in fact, while in Burgos the official language is Spanish, in Bilbao there are two official languages: Basque and Spanish. The Basque language contains several sounds that Spanish doesn’t, and I am focusing on the affricate /ʧ/ in the Spanish speech of both cities to see how age, sex and also Basque can influence to its pronunciation.

What I like about the MA program at NC State

I studied Modern Languages in Spain and I started loving linguistics, so I felt really lucky when I had the chance to study my Masters at NC State to broaden my knowledge about Hispanic linguistics. I tell my friends that the program helped me both professionally and personally: I made friends that felt like family when I was so far from home, and professors always supported me and gave me the freedom to research what I was actually interested in. I know it is one of the best decisions of my life and I will never forget this experience!

Ben Mittag

Current Research

Recently, I began to pay attention to the pronunciation of certain Spanish words produced by English speakers, for example the words "tres" (three) and "encontrar" (to find). I realized that many of them produce the Spanish cluster /tɾ/ as they would in English, as /tʃ/, like in the English word "tree". This really caught my interest, especially after having learned about intrusive vowels in another Spanish linguistics course. Therefore, my research project will focus on the introduction of intrusive vowels in occlusive consonant clusters /Cɾ/ in the Spanish of native English speakers.

What I like about the MA program at NC State

I've truly enjoyed my experience in the program here at NC State. All of the staff and my graduate school colleagues are helpful and caring, and I think the process in which the TAs are trained and eased into teaching our own classes is very smooth.

Maggie Payne

Current Research

My research project will be centered around intrusive vowels - that is to say, vowels that phonetically appear between consonant clusters in native speech. I found intrusive vowels incredibly interesting because they can also provide insight into how bilinguals use their second languages. My work focuses on intrusive vowels in Yucatan Spanish - a variety of Spanish in contact with Yucatec Maya.

What I like about the MA program at NC State

I love the program at NC State because of the faculty, graduate students, and opportunities. Not only do we have intelligent professors, but they work hard for each graduate student and they know us on a personal level. My fellow graduate students provide a network of support that will continue even after graduate school. Lastly, the opportunity to teach at the college level and work closely with our faculty members has well prepared us for the future.