Applied Linguistics Department

In June 2025, Nil Johnson presented at the MATSOL (Massachusetts Association of Teachers of Speakers of Other Languages) Conference in Framingham, MA. Her session, Language, Culture, and Disability: Confronting Inequalities for Multilingual Learners, examined how Multilingual Learners with Emotional and Behavioral Disorders (MLEBDs) face layered barriers at the intersections of language, culture and disability. Nil highlighted how systemic biases contribute to misidentification in special education, exclusionary discipline and cultural and linguistic marginalization. Framed around three themes – Difference Becomes Disability, Disability Becomes Crime, and Inclusion as a Solution – the session offered pathways toward inclusive and culturally responsive pedagogy, evidence-based interventions and collaborative policy reform.

Nil’s next presentation will be at the TESOL 2025 Virtual Convention (PreK-12 Day & Graduate Student Forum) on November 20, 2025. Her session, Stigmatized and Excluded: Multilingual Learners with Emotional and Behavioral Disabilities in U.S. Public Education, will continue this critical conversation.

Chisom Nlebedum and Dr. Jennifer Sclafani co-presented a multimodal critical discourse analysis of news coverage of Boston’s “Mass and Cass” drug addiction and homelessness crisis at the Italian Association for the Study of English (Associazione Italiana di Anglistica [AIA]) biennial Conference, AIA 32, which took place at the University of Turin, Italy September 11th -13^th, 2025.

Dr. Sclafani and Chisom’s work on Mass and Cass, a homeless encampment at the intersection of the Roxbury, Dorchester, and South End neighborhoods of Boston, known as the epicenter of the region’s opioid and homeless crises, comes on the heels of recent federal and state ramp-ups to sanitize cities of homeless individuals. Please click here for more information about recent incendiary media comments about homelessness, and two recent shootings at another urban homeless encampment in Minneapolis.

Through an analysis of abstraction and transitivity from ABC and CBS News, Chisom and Dr. Sclafani showed that the broadcast coverage of the homelessness crisis at Mass and Cass employed several multimodal choices (visuals, sounds, words) to portray the homeless in dehumanizing ways, as nameless and voiceless people in tents and tarps breeding crime and disorderliness in an otherwise safe and orderly city. These findings are also supported by an analysis of news articles from the Boston Globe (based on previous research conducted with UMB colleague Dr. Peter Federman and Ph.D. alumna Dr. Nasiba Norova). The study demonstrates the dominant news framing of the issue which sensationalized and simplified an otherwise complex nexus of policy issues in Boston (substance addiction and treatment, mental health services, homelessness and affordable housing, public safety, and infrastructure).

Chisom and Dr. Sclafani plan to continue this work, which was supported by a grant from the UMass Boston John W. McCormack Graduate School of Policy and Global Studies, by engaging in cross-disciplinary research with colleagues (Dr. Peter Federman of the Dept. of Public Policy, Co-PI) to understand how this dominant framing of Mass and Cass contributes to policy decisions and outcomes at the city and state level.

This past July, Damian Diaz, one of our brilliant PhD students, presented his research at the Seventeenth International Writing Across the Curriculum Conference (IWAC) at Colorado State University, as part of the panel “Advancing Academic Writing in Higher Education in Latin America,” sponsored by the ALES: Latin American Association of Writing Studies in Higher Education and Professional Contexts. 

Below, you can find his abstract:

Multilingual Reading to Write intervention in the Communication field: results and challenges

The presentation addresses the results of a semester-long pedagogical intervention on multilingual reading and writing in an integrated manner in the context of a Bachelor’s in Communication at a public university. The intervention is based on the Reading to Write scholarship (Grabe & Zhang, 2016) and, as such, promotes students’ capacity to integrate reading and writing in the context of meaningful activities and the specific operation of information transfer between reading and writing. It included teaching to read in Portuguese, as an Additional Language, and to write in Spanish, the Community Language, in journalism genres. The research question is: How did the intervention impact students’ reading and writing development in an integrated and multilingual manner? Twenty-four texts written by undergraduate students who participated in the intervention were analyzed. The texts were written at the end of the course in response to a task that required writing an introduction to a journalistic dossier in Spanish, using two pieces of news in Portuguese as sources of information. After finishing the task, students completed a written open-ended questionnaire about their perceptions of their texts and the task. Texts were analyzed qualitatively regarding their contents, to trace the different ways of using information presented in the texts offered as sources and compare the results with the strategies presented by the instructors in class. Answers to questionnaires were analyzed qualitatively to identify recurrent themes regarding students’ perceptions of their own writing and of relevant traces of the task. The analysis showed that 80% of the students wrote texts in which more than 50% of the content was based on the sources suggested. However, 60% of the students presented a higher proportion of generalized information derived from the sources than the proportion of specific information used as support. Only the remaining 40% evidenced the use of proportioned specific information gathered in the sources as support for generalized claims. The results suggest a high alignment of the students’ performance with the strategy of privileging the information derived from the sources, as worked in class, and a low alignment with the strategy of using the texts as sources for general ideas and specific evidence in a balanced way. The thematic analysis of questionnaire answers showed that the most common notions used by students to describe their performance and their understanding of the task were a) selecting information from texts appropriately, b) understanding the information from the source texts, c) adapting to the prompt, and c) summarizing information from the source texts. These prevalent themes evidence the students’ awareness of the integrated goal of the task and their alignment with the construct of adequate performance presented in class. Results suggest that Reading to Write can be implemented in a multilingual class to promote beneficial strategy development for reading and writing. Also, as pointed out by Britt et al. (2014) and Grabe & Zhang (2013), specific reading content differentiation and rhetoric design of the text content may be understood consciously by students but require further instruction and practice to gain actual performance development. 

References

Britt, A., Richter, T., & Rouet, J-F. (2014) Scientific Literacy: The Role of Goal-Directed Reading and Evaluation in Understanding Scientific Information. Educational Psychologist, 49(2), 104-122. https://doi.org/10.1080/00461520.2014.916217 

Grabe, W., & Zhang, C. (2013). Second Language Reading-Writing Relations. In A. Horning, & E. Kramer (Eds.), Reconnecting Reading & Writing (pp. 108-133). Parlour Press.

Grabe, W., & Zhang, C. (2016). Reading-writing relationships in first and second language academic literacy development. Language Teaching, 49(3), 339-355.

Dr. Chun presented for the second time at the British Association for Applied Linguistics (BAAL) Conference 2025 held at the University of Glasgow, Scotland this September. His talk: “Me speaking to White listening subjects: What language are they hearing?” In his talk, he drew on his current autoethnographic research in addressing several pragmatic interactions in which he has been seen and heard as a so-called ‘non-native’ speaker of English by some people who have been termed as the “white listening subject” (Flores & Rosa, 2015). These White listening subjects’ particular interpretations “are part of a broader set of hegemonic perceptions that apprehend and often overdetermine not only linguistic signs, but also a wider range of semiotic forms” (Rosa & Flores, 2017, p. 630). As someone who was born and grew up in New York, he has received this frequent ‘compliment’ from these white listening subjects who have said to him, “wow, you speak English really well!”. So is it because of his ‘forever foreigner’ visage that they are only perceiving?  However he argues that the white listening subject is not necessarily universal because these interactions have only taken place in the countries of North America; specifically the U.S. and Canada. Whenever he is in London, UK, when he does speak to people mainly in the context of restaurants, pubs, and cafes, white Londoners will often ask him, “where in the States are you from?” that indexes their perception that he is indeed a ‘native’ speaker of American English. So why the differences between these Londoners and the white listening subjects in North America? Using a mediated discourse analysis approach (Scollon, 2008; Scollon & Scollon, 2003) tracing the racializing linguistic itineraries of the white listening subjects who have interacted with him regarding his language use, he explores how do applied linguists address these white listening subjects racializing of certain speakers of English with the aim of dismantling their hegemonic perceptions that perpetuate linguistic discriminations entwined with racist ones?

We are excited to introduce our newest cohort, a wonderfully diverse group of scholars, each bringing their own unique experiences, perspectives, and expertise to the Applied Linguistics community. Meet M Enam Ull Hassan (Enam), Lilunnaher, Gnakabi Samuel Gnaore (Sam), and Damilola Ademola (Dami) in the first picture (from left to right). The second picture was taken at our annual tradition, the PhD orientation, at the beginning of this semester on campus, where the new students met some of our older students as well as some of our faculty members. Below, you can read a little bit about each of our new cohort members:

Enam: “My name is M Enam Ull Hassan, and you can call me Enam. I’m from Bangladesh and my first language is Bengali. I completed my BA and MA in Linguistics at the University of Dhaka and later earned an MA in TESOL and Linguistics from Ball State University. In terms of teaching, I’ve taught Rhetoric & Writing to undergraduates, speaking courses to intensive English learners, and I also spent a year working with multilingual high school students. My research interests include second language acquisition, vocabulary acquisition, multilingual education and policy, and writing. I chose Applied Linguistics at UMass Boston because of its focus on linguistic diversity, community engagement, and the chance to learn from renowned faculty.”

Lilunnaher: “My name is Lilunnaher. I am from Bangladesh and a native Bengali speaker. I have a bachelor’s degree in Linguistics from the University of Dhaka and a dual master’s degree in TESOL and Linguistics from Ball State University. I chose Applied Linguistics because of my interest in how people acquire and use languages in our wonderfully diverse world. I view multilingualism as an asset and I am motivated to explore the intersections of linguistic theory, pedagogy, and equity in multilingual language education. My research interests include second language acquisition, L2 reading development, English language teaching, identity, and language ideology. Beyond academics, I am passionate about supporting immigrant and multilingual communities. In my free time, I enjoy traveling, photography, and connecting with people from diverse cultural backgrounds.”

Sam: “My name is Gnakabi Samuel (Sam), and I come from Côte d’Ivoire, a French-speaking country. I grew up speaking French in a linguistically diverse environment. In 2022, after defending my Master’s thesis in Linguistics at Université Peleforo Gon Coulibaly in Côte d’Ivoire, I was selected for the Fulbright Foreign Student Program to pursue an MA in TESL (Teaching English as a Second Language) at the University of Arizona. After graduating, I worked full-time as an Instructional Designer Associate at Arizona State University. My decision to join UMass Boston was motivated by its interdisciplinary research culture, its vibrant and diverse academic community, as well as its position as a unique setting for aspiring Applied Linguists like me who come from a diverse socio-professional background. As both a student and a researcher, UMass Boston offers me the opportunity to draw on my interdisciplinary background and integrate it into my current research interests. I am excited to work on a variety of topics that inform one another, such as the media representation of linguistic capital of African Youth Language (sociolinguistics), power dynamics in discourse (critical discourse analysis), and new media and multimodality in language teaching (Educational Technology).” 

Dami: “My name is Damilola Ademola (I, however, go by Dami). I am originally from Nigeria, West Africa. I speak Yoruba, English, Hausa, and Nigerian Pidgin English. I have a Master’s in Applied Linguistics/TESOL from the University of Alabama. I was inspired by the critical orientation of the scholarly community in the Applied Linguistics program here at UMass Boston. If I were to describe APLING in one word, it would be Criticality. Given that I am interested in the critical conceptualization of language in an ever-evolving world and how that shapes our social life, particularly the experiences of domination, disparity, difference, etc., I have found APLING to be my intellectual home: a space where critical inquiry and social engagement converge. My interests include Critical Discourse Studies, Sociolinguistics (the intersection of language, socialization, and mobility), Critical Literacy, and Ecolinguistics. In the last two years, I have worked as a writing tutor at the University of Alabama Writing Center; additionally, as an instructor of record of Advanced English Writing, I have taught academic writing to first-year students and sophomores.” 

On April 29th, APLING doctoral student Nasiba successfully defended her dissertation project titled “Experiencing Race in Transnational Contexts: Racial Literacies of First-Year International Asian Students.” With a committee comprising Dr. Gounari Panayota (chair), Dr. Etienne Corinne, Dr. Hadi Banat, and Dr. Sclafani Jennifer, she embarked on an exploration that dives deep into the racial experiences of first-year international East Asian students.

Her research delves into how these students perceive race, racism, and racialized groups, both in their home countries and here in the United States. Utilizing critical ethnography, Nasiba aims to capture the nuanced perspectives of East Asian international students and the composition faculty who teach them.

For her study, Nasiba employs a variety of methodologies. From semi-structured interviews and journal entries to racial literacy autobiographies and class observations, she aims to paint a comprehensive picture of how students engage with concepts of race and their experiences in a predominantly anti-racist, health-promoting public institution.

Her findings are both revealing and thought-provoking. International students from East Asian backgrounds often use different lenses to define race, showcasing their intersectional perspectives. Moreover, despite facing racism, her participants are in denial about their experiences while simultaneously grappling with anti-Black sentiments. Additionally, Nasiba emphasizes the complex relationship between socio-economic class, the use of English names, and the adoption of Whiteness that impacts racial dynamics and integration. Nasiba’s work serves as a vital contribution to understanding how these experiences shape both students’ lives and broader pedagogical approaches in academic settings.

Congratulations, Dr. Norova!

First year PhD student Eric Wirth presented work in progress as part of the Graduate Student Round Table event, mentored byDr. Jaspal  Navell Singh. Entitled “We’re here! We’re queer, and we’re translanguaging!” His presentation sought to explore the further development of a paper, first written for the fall 2024 “Issues in Applied Linguistics” course led by Dr. Panagiota Gounari, into a piece of empirical qualitative research. 

Regarding the work Eric explains, “My initial position paper argues that while there is limited academic research specifically on queer translanguaging, it is a valid phenomenon that can be observed in real-world situations, particularly within multilingual queer communities. In my paper I use examples from popular media, such as the international Drag Race franchises, and online discussions to illustrate how queer individuals fluidly navigate between languages to express their identities and connect with a global queer community. The paper advocates for further research into queer translanguaging, suggesting avenues such as analyzing media transcripts and studying online communities to better understand this complex linguistic practice. As I develop this research question, I want to explore the indexicality of queer translanguaging. I also think there is room to explore the influence of English as a common linguistic element in queer communities across different countries and languages and talk about whether English is a unifying or colonizing force. Also, with respect to English, when present as an additional language of multilingual queer speakers of a language with grammatical gender, is a non-gendered language such as English favored for perceptions of grammatical gender neutrality?”

Congratulations Eric!

Photo includes mentor and fellow graduate student presenters left to right: Mukib Khan, Oklahoma State University; Dr. Jaspal Navell Singh; Eric Wirth; Fan Cao, Tsinghua University; Jacob Algrim, University of Hawai’i at Mānoa (Jacob earned his master’s degree in applied Linguistics from UMass Boston in 2020).

Wonguk, a third-year Ph.D. student in the Applied Linguistics Department, recently presented at AAAL 2025 in Denver, CO. In his individual paper, “The Policy-Practice Divide: Misalignment Between State-Level Language Policies and Classroom Practice in MA,” he shared findings from his pilot study, which explored how the statewide language policy, the LOOK Act, is interpreted and implemented in classrooms, often revealing a disconnect between policy and practice. Wonguk also participated in a one-hour colloquium with a presentation titled “Boston’s Multiple Chinatowns: The Linguistic Landscape of the Past, Present, and Future,” part of a broader project called “Voices of Boston: Language Diversity, Ideologies, and Politics in the Sociolinguistic Landscape.” Drawing on photographic data and interviews with residents, he examined how Boston’s traditional Chinatown has transformed from an ethnic town into a marketized, downtown-like area that now functions as a communal podium. He also spotlighted the City of Quincy as an emerging destination for Chinese migrants, discussing how linguistic barriers, questions of social belonging, and complex identities contribute to the growing superdiversity among Chinese”s” in the area.

Congratulations, Wonguk, on these 2 presentations!

We’re proud to highlight the recent presentation of one of our brilliant PhD candidates, Tina Randall, at the 2025 American Association for Applied Linguistics (AAAL) Conference in Denver!

Her talk, titled “Tu situación es diferente a la mía”: Relational Accountability in Heritage Language Research, shared critical insights from her dissertation study, which seeks to advance both social and linguistic justice through equitable research practices with Spanish heritage language (SHL) speakers by raising consciousness about the right to HL education in areas of low concentrations of Spanish speakers. Centering around the concept of relational accountability (Wilson, 2008; Smith, 2013), she discussed ways in which researchers and participants (first generation Spanish-speaking immigrants to the United States and second generation SHL learners) position themselves as multilingual speakers and negotiate their identities in interaction. The study suggests ways in which researchers can better position themselves as partners in heritage language research and provides a better understanding of how interview practices with minoritized populations may be improved by applying relational accountability principles.

Congratulations Tina on this presentation and the meaningful contributions you are making!