Faculty Activities & Awards

Our world-class faculty has a number of research and teaching interests ranging from medieval literature to the future of machine translation. Our faculty members are engaged in groundbreaking discoveries across the areas of linguistics, literature, artificial intelligence, global affairs, language pedagogy, and more. We cover various areas:

  • Community translation
  • Medical humanities
  • Linguistic approaches to indigenous languages
  • Global literatures
  • Comics and graphic novels
  • Language and cultural pedagogy
  • History of the Spanish language in the U.S.
  • Creative writing

Modern Languages’ renowned faculty has received accolades for their top-notch innovative research, creative activities, and teaching. We are home to three members of the UTA Academy of Distinguished Teachers, four recipients of university-wide awards for teaching (President’s Award, Provost’s Award, and Ward Endowment Award), and one Distinguished Record of Research/Creative Activity Award; three UT System Regents’ Outstanding Teaching Awards; and two International Literary Prizes.

Funded Grants

Kania, Sonia (PI), and Grace Brannon (CoPI), “Revising the Certificate in Medical Humanities,” sponsored by National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), Total Amount: $34,999 (2021).

Choi, Jinny, Sonia Kania, and Fernando Melero-García, “Crossing Latinidades: Spanish as a Heritage Language Curriculum,” mini-grant sponsored by Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Total Amount: $2,000 (2020).

Choi, Jinny, A. Raymond Elliott, and Sonia Kania, “Open-access textbook for SPAN 3316: Spanish Language Study,” UTA Cares Grant Program, sponsored by UTA Library, Total Amount: $10,000 (2020).

Austin, Amy, Jinny Choi, and Ignacio Ruiz-Pérez, “Open-access textbook for SPAN 3315: Spanish Composition,” UTA Cares Grant Program, sponsored by UTA Library, Total Amount: $8,000 (2020).

Price, Iya (PI), “STARTALK teaching grant for the summer school for teachers of critical languages (Arabic, Chinese, Korean, and Russian) and Spanish,” sponsored by National Security Agency (NSA), Total Amount: $77,074 (2021). 

Price, Iya (PI), “STARTALK teaching grant for the critical languages (Russian, Arabic) summer school,” sponsored by National Security Agency (NSA), Total Amount: $89,980 (2020).

Price, Iya (PI), “STARTALK teaching grant for the critical languages (Russian) summer school,” sponsored by National Security Agency (NSA), Total Amount: $79,193 (2019).

Faculty Research and Creative Activities, 2020-2021

Conway, Christopher. "Once Upon a Time on the Border: Immigration and Mexican Comic Book Westerns." Immigrants and Comics: Graphic Spaces of Remembrance, Transaction, and Mimesis, edited by Nhora Lucía Serrano, Routledge, 2020, pp. 135-148.

De la Fuente Iglesias, Mónica, and Susana Pérez Castillejo. “Spanish mid vowels as sociolinguistic variables in Galicia.” Spanish in Context, vol. 17, no. 3, 2020, pp. 464–487.

De la Fuente Iglesias, Mónica, and Susana Pérez Castillejo. “L1 phonetic permeability and phonetic path towards a potential merger: The case of Galician mid vowels in bilingual production.” Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism. Online First, 30 September 2020.

Elliott, A. R. “A Method Comparison Analysis Examining the Relationship between Linguistic Tone, Melodic Tune and Sung Performances of Children’s Songs in Chicahuaxtla Triqui: Findings and Implications for Documentary Linguistics and Indigenous Language Communities.” Language Documentation and Conservation, vol. 14, 2020, pp. 139–187.

Elliott, A. R., and Sandoval Cruz, F. “Dioses, Huipiles y Conejos: Tres Canciones Infantiles en el triqui de Chicahuaxtla.” Latin American Literary Review, vol. 47, no. 93, 2020, pp. 59-68.

Elliott, A. R. “Daj gurugui yumiguii ‘Como apareció la gente del mundo’: Leyenda en Triqui de Chicahuaxtla.” Tlalocan, vol. 25, 2020, pp. 147-212.

Harrison, Lonny. Language and Metaphors of the Russian Revolution: Sow the Wind, Reap the Storm. Lexington Books, 2021.

Harrison, Lonny. Introduction. “Transgressing the Ancient Law: Dostoevsky at the Threshold.” Crime and Punishment, by Fyodor Dostoevsky. Translated by Constance Garnett. Illustrations by Dave McKean, Beehive Books, 2020.

Israel-Pelletier, Aimée. “Impressionism and the Prose Poem: Rimbaud's Artful Authenticity.” Caws, Mary Ann and Delvill, Michel. The Edinburgh Companion to the Prose Poem. Edinburgh UP, 2021, pp. 23-34.

Kania, Sonia, and Cynthia Kauffeld, editors. Studies in Hispano-Romance Historical Linguistics and Lexicography: A Tribute to John J. Nitti. Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies, 2020.

Kania, Sonia, and Francisco Gago Jover. “The Colonial Texts Corpus for the Digital Library of Old Spanish Texts.” Research in Corpus Linguistics, vol. 8, no. 1, 2020, pp. 33-48.

Laborde, Cynthia. “Le 13 Novembre 2015 en bande dessinée: Témoignages à la recherche de reconnaissance sociale.” Contemporary French & Francophone Studies, vol. 24, no. 4, 2020, 467-475.

Melero, Fernando. “Variación sociofonética: Comparación de análisis graduales y categóricos.” Cuadernos de Lingüística Hispánica, vol. 37, 2021, e12184.

Melero, Fernando, and Alejandro Cisneros. "No es tan simple como parece: The Effect of Duration of One-closure Rhotics on the Perception of Spanish /ɾ/ and /r/." Current Theoretical and Applied Perspectives on Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics, edited by Diego Pascual y Cabo and Idoia Elola, John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2020, pp. 295-318.

Melero, Fernando, et al. “Tracking the Dynamic Nature of Learner Individual Differences: Initial Results from a Longitudinal Study.” Studies in Second Language Learning and Teaching, vol. 10, no. 1, 2020, pp. 177-219.

Ruiz-Pérez, Ignacio, editor. Voluntad de la noche. Antología de la poesía de José Carlos Becerra. Secretaría de Cultura de Tabasco, 2021.