Qian came to us after graduating with an MA from Tsinghua University  (Qinghua U) in Beijing, China. She has been one key collaborator in my research on the rhythms of languages in general and those of second languages in particular. She is currently doing research for her doctoral dissertation which explores the perception and production of English stress by both native English speakers and Mandarin speakers at various stages of English proficiency. She not too long ago became a proud mother, and is becoming increasingly good at balancing a fulfilling life of family and career.

Qian Wang, Ph.D Candidate

Dr. Hua Lin, Associate Professor

Department of Linguistics, University of Victoria, Canada

Originally from Taiwan, Shu-min has spent almost half of her life in Canada. She holds a BA in English with a minor in Chinese Studies, as well as a post-graduate diploma in Applied Linguistics. Before beginning her graduate studies, Shu-min worked as an ESL instructor and cultural assistant. Her research interests include applied linguistics and second language acquisition. Currently, she is working on the production of English tense/lax vowels by native speakers of Mandarin Chinese.

Shu-min Huang, MA Student

Graduate Students Supervision 林华博士的研究生

Ya Li has a Linguistics BA from University of Western Ontario, and came to us with a prestigious MA award from Canadian Government’s Social Science and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC). Her research area is in second language phonology, and currently she explores syllable structure acquisition, focusing on Mandarin speakers' production of English sonorant consonants. She said “I have enjoyed my study at UVic. It has not only a beautiful campus in a beautiful city, but more importantly, supportive faculty members and fellow graduate students."

Ya Li, MA Student

Thomas has a post-degree diploma in Linguistics from Simon Fraser University. Sometimes before coming to uvic, Thomas studied and worked in Japan for six years and is a fluent speaker of the Japanese language. Thomas specializes in phonetics, and in  his own words,  this is how he describes his current connection with it: “Phonetics is my area of greatest interest, and particularly I'm intrigued by the phonetic properties of liquid consonants (L's and R's). The research I'm conducting towards my MA is on measuring different acoustic aspects flaps in Japanese. Other than that, I'd love to find out if and how parrots talk to one another in the wild.” 

Thomas Magnuson, MA Student

Carolyn came into our MA in Applied Linguistics program in 2005. She is hardworking and very organized, which enabled her to finish her MA studies in the minimum of two years. Her MA  thesis is based on an experiment she designed and conducted. The goal was to find out the impact of sharing the same orthography on learning a second language; in particular, whether the use of Pinyin inhibit or facilitate the learning of Mandarin pronunciation by native English speakers. In August 2007, Carolyn successfully defended her MA thesis. She has also been accepted into and will start a doctoral program in our department in the fall of 2007. Congratulations, Carolyn, on finishing your MA studies so successfully!! 

Carolyn Pytlyk, MA (2007)

Xianghua has a BA from Beijing Language and Cultural University, and she received her MA from UVic in 2006. Her MA thesis compares the perception of Mandarin tones by native Thai, English and Mandarins speakers. Xianghua has had a lot of experience teaching Chinese as a second language at the university level, mostly at universities in Beijing and Shanghai. After graduating from UVic, she decided to take a year off from studies and has been teaching CSL in Shanghai and Beijing  In the fall of 2007 she will go back to study at the Linguistics Department of Simon Fraser University (Canada). She has been accepted into its doctoral program.

Xianghua Wu, MA (2006)

After receiving her  BA from Beijing Language and Culture University, Yunjuan came into our MA program. Her MA thesis studied the acquisition of the dark /l/ (post-vowel consonant /l/ in words such as bill, bull, call, cold, etc.) by Mandarin speakers. After receiving her MA from UVic, Yunjuan was admitted into two doctoral programs in the States: Georgetown U and U of Florida. For family reasons, she eventually chose U of Florida where she is now a doctoral student in the Graduate Program in Linguistics.  She has continued her research focus on second language phonetics and phonology in her doctoral studies. Her current research centers on how L2 learners acquire L2 supersegmental features such as tones in Mandarin and stress in English.

Yunjuan He, MA (2004)

Other names of students I have supervised or been on their supervisory committees in the past:

One major reason I love my job is that it gives me an exciting and rewarding opportunity to work with some of the most brilliant and inquisitive young minds. Alongside my research and courses, these young colleagues have been a formidable force constantly driving me to higher goals, to gaining more knowledge and better understand of the linguistic areas that are of common interest to us. They make me proud (of them) and keep me (always) humble at the same time.

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Following are students I currently supervise or have recently supervised

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Rebeca is from Venezuela, where she acquired her BA in English prior to coming to Canada. She came to Canada and joined the department  in September 2007, and is now in our MA in Applied Linguistics program. When she was in high school, she came to Canada for a year as an exchange student. Her main interest is in second language acquisition and is considering doing her thesis research on the acquisition of Spanish by native English speakers. She is the only native Spanish speaker among our graduate students at the moment, and  we feel fortunate to have her here.

Rebeca Duque, M.A Student

 Gabriel grew up on Vancouver Island, but took the long route to UVIC where he is currently doing an MA in Applied Linguistics. He completed a BA in Asian studies at UBC, including two years of Sanskrit and Hindi language courses and various core linguistics courses, before spending three and a half years in East Asia (Korea and Japan) teaching English. The bulk of his time was spent in Kyoto, Japan where he managed to achieve a passable level of proficiency in the local dialect. His area of focus here at UVIC is Second Language Acquisition, particularly of phonology, but he also takes great interest in theoretical syntax.

Gabriel Cohen, M.A Student