Research

My research explores sociolinguistics, bilingualism, and language learning through the use of ethnographic, qualitative, and discourse analytic methodologies. I study these phenomena in bilingual communities and classrooms. See details below.

Research Funding:

Corpus Bilingüe del Valle

Christoffersen, K & Bessett, R. (2019-). Corpus Bilingüe del Valle (CoBiVa). University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. www.utrgv.edu/cobiva

The Corpus Bilingüe del Valle has been made possible in part by:

CoBiVa Resources

Bessett, R., Carvalho, A., & Christoffersen, K. (2021). CESA and CoBiVa Training Handbook. https://bit.ly/CESA_CoBiVa_Handbook

Christoffersen, K., Bessett, R., & Carvalho, A. (2021). Technologically-aided transcription methods for bilingual sociolinguistic corpora: Findings, resources, and considerations. White Paper submitted for National Endowment of Humanities: Humanities Collections and Referral Resources.

DeAnda, C., & Christoffersen, K. (2022). Language Ideologies.
https://www.softchalkcloud.com/lesson/serve/hHa6GBrJcNl2E3/html [Online teaching module integrating audio clips and transcript from CoBiVa]

Bilingualism in Communities

Carvalho, A. & Christoffersen, K. (2022). On playful language divergences: Code-switching among Spanish-Portuguese bilinguals. Semas: Revista de Lingüística Teórica y Aplicada, 3(6). 31-56.

Christoffersen, K. (2019). Linguistic terrorism in the borderlands: Language ideologies in the narratives of young adults in the Rio Grande Valley. International Multilingual Research Journal, 13(3). 137-151.

Christoffersen, K. & N. Shin. (2018). ‘You live in the United States, you speak English,’ decían las maestras: How New Mexican Spanish speakers enact, ascribe and reject ethnic identities. In R. Bassouney (Ed.), Identity and Dialect Performance: A Study of Communities & Dialects (pp. 160-178). New York, NY: Routledge.

Christoffersen, K. (2016). Dominant Discourses and language socialization in the literacy practices of a Spanish-speaking church. Studies in Applied Linguistics, 7(2). 20-33.

Dual Language & Bilingual Classrooms

Christoffersen, K., Villanueva, A., & Bessett, R. (2023). Student perceptions of community engaged scholarship courses: Developing a sociolinguistic corpus on the U.S.-Mexico border. International Journal of Research on Service-Learning and Community Engagement, 11(1). 1-19.

Christoffersen, K. & Regalado, K. (2021). “Toda lengua es válida aquí en esta clase”: Translanguaging pedagogy and critical language awareness in sociolinguistics courses on the U.S.-Mexico border. Journal of Bilingual Education Research and Instruction, 23(1). 23-71.

Christoffersen, K. (2017). What students do with words: Language choice and communicative function in a Spanish immersion classroom. NABE Journal of Research and Practice, 8(1). 92-110.

Christoffersen, K. (2014). Does child code-switching demonstrate communicative competence? A comparison of simultaneous and sequential bilinguals (pdf). Arizona Working Papers in Second Language Acquisition & Teaching, 21, 20-40.

Christoffersen, K. (2013). An ecological view of language choice in a bilingual program: A dynamic model of social structures. (pdf) Working Papers in Educational Linguistics, 29, 37-54.

English as a Second/ Foreign Language

Christoffersen, K. (2017). Comparing native speaker ratings and quantitative measures of oral proficiency in IELTS interviews. Estudios de Lingüística Inglesa Aplicada, 17. 233-250.

Christoffersen, K. (2016). A contrastive analysis of dar ‘give’ in English and Portuguese: Semantic-syntactic relationships and implications for L2 instruction. Brazilian English Language Teaching Journal. 7(1). 26-43.

Christoffersen, K. (2015). Mitigation of disagreement in peer review among L2 learners and native speakers in a college writing class. GiST Education and Learning Research Journal, 11. 45-62.

Christoffersen, K. (2013). An analysis of sempre, mesmo, and bem: Brazilian Portuguese word order as applied to EFL instruction. (pdf) Portuguese Language Journal, 7, 1-23.

Press Coverage

Taylor-Uchoa, A. (2023, May 17). UTRGV linguist awarded NEH grant for continued research on bilingual voices. The Newsroom. UTRGV.

Hughes, S. (2020, Sept. 21). Researching the language at the U.S.-Mexican border. UTRGV Pulse Magazine.

Sheridan, E. (2020, June 7). Code switch: Professors work to document blend of languages. Brownsville Herald.

Brito, V. (2020, May 21). UTRGV linguists awarded federal grant to document the language of the RGV. The Newsroom. UTRGV.

University of Arizona College of Humanities. (2020, May 5). Bilingual voices provide insight into community languages.

Christoffersen, K. (2012). Bilingual schools and identity on the Brazil/Venezuela border. Second Language Acquisition and Teaching Alumni Connection, Feb. 1, 3.