Yumiko Nishi

Assistant Professor
Department of Asian & Slavic Languages and Literatures; FLARE/SLA PhD Program
University of Iowa

 

 

 

 

My primary research areas have been verb semantics and the second language acquisition of aspect. I am particularly interested in discovering how learners’ semantic representations of verbs in L1 affect the learning of verb semantics in L2, and how this interacts with the acquisition of aspectual morphology in L2. In most of my projects, I pursue a cross-linguistic approach in order to explore how underlying universal patterns are manifested in the process of language acquisition/development, or in the representation of languages, as well as to identify cross-linguistic variations and their significance. I also investigate how these findings can be applied to language pedagogy, in particular, the teaching of Japanese as a second/foreign language.

Research Interests:
lexical semantics, tense and aspect, L2 acquisition of verb semantics, L2 acquisition of aspectual morphology

 

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