Bryce Wallace
BA Student
Departments of English and Linguistics
University of California Berkeley
Bryce graduated in 2023, and was awarded the 2023 Beinecke Scholarship, which will support his plans to pursue a PhD in English. His BA honors thesis analyzed the rhetoric of anti-vaxxers and was supervised by Eve Sweetser. Congratulations, Bryce!
Schuyler Laparle
Lecturer
Department of Communication and Cognition
Tilburg University
Email: s.m.laparle@tilburguniversity.edu
Dr. Schuyler Laparle is currently a lecturer in the Department of Communication and Cognition at Tilburg University. Her two primary lines of research concern the use of hand gestures in the construction of cooperative conversation and the use of metaphor in discourses on social issues including healthcare and the climate crisis. She is currently working on a project looking at the potential harm of invasion metaphors in oncology, ecology, and immigration.
Yorka Olavarria
PostBacc Diploma Student
Department of Linguistics
University of British Columbia
MA, Linguistics
Departamento de Postgrado y Postítulo
Universidad de Chile
Email: olavarria.yorka@gmail.com
Elise Stickles
Assistant Professor
Department of English Language and Literatures
University of British Columbia
Email: elise.stickles@ubc.ca
Elise Stickles (Ph.D., Linguistics, University of California Berkeley) is an Assistant Professor of English Language in the Department of English Language and Literatures at the University of British Columbia. She is the lead PI of MetaNet as well as lead PI on the two current MetaNet research projects. Her research focuses on applications of conceptual metaphor theory for public policy, particularly in the areas of healthcare and social inequality. Her other research interests include the role of metaphor in gesture and multimodal communication and the development of a multimodal embodied construction grammar. Prof. Stickles’ research has been published in Cognitive Linguistics, Cognitive Science, and Frames and Constructions, among others.
Stéphanie Bonnefille
Associate Professor
Cultures et Littératures des Mondes Anglophones
Université Bordeaux Montaigne
Stéphanie Bonnefille is an Associate Professor of English linguistics at the University of Bordeaux Montaigne, France. She holds a PhD in cognitive linguistics. Her research interests focus on the study of critical metaphor analysis and discourse analysis, and on the combination of the conceptual metaphor theory with classical rhetoric tools. Her publications explore climate change discourse, environmental and transition communication. In the general-audience book she wrote Les Mots Verts (2016, 2022 L’Ecologie Mot à Mot), she investigated these issues through a series of interviews with a French former green congressman, over a period of two years prior to the COP21 summit.
Her teaching includes modules on grammar, phonology, cohesion, and environmental communication.
Eve Sweetser
Professor Emerita
Department of Linguistics
University of California Berkeley
Email: sweetser@berkeley.edu
Eve Sweetser is Professor Emerita of Linguistics and former Director of the Program in Celtic Studies at the University of California Berkeley. Her primary research interests include historical linguistics, semantics and meaning changes, the semantics of grammatical constructions, cognitive linguistics, metaphor and iconicity, subjectivity and viewpoint, the relationship between language and gesture, and the Celtic language family. Her 1990 book, From Etymology to Pragmatics (Cambridge University Press), explores generalizations about synchronic and diachronic patterns of meaning in the areas of model verbs and conjunctions. Her 2005 book, Mental Spaces in Grammar: Conditional Constructions (CUP 2005), was coauthored with Barbara Dancygier, and examines the syntax and semantics of a wide range of English conditional constructions, using a Mental Spaces model of semantics. More recently, she and Dancygier co-edited Viewpoint in Language: A Multi-Modal Perspective (CUP 2012); and their co-authored Cambridge linguistics textbook Figurative Language was published in March 2014. She has published articles on topics including modality, polysemy, metaphor, conditional constructions, grammatical meaning, performativity, gesture, and Medieval Welsh poetics.
Dalia Magaña
Associate Professor of Spanish Linguistics
Department of Literatures, Languages & Cultures
University of California Merced
Email: dmagana6@ucmerced.edu
Dalia Magaña (Ph.D., Spanish Linguistics, University of California at Davis) is an Associate Professor of Spanish Linguistics at the University of California, Merced. Her research focuses on improving healthcare communication with Spanish speakers and developing intentional language pedagogy. Her studies, published in journals including Applied Linguistics, Discourse & Communication, and Health Communication, raise awareness about the role of interpersonal language in improving healthcare communication with local communities of Spanish speakers. Her first book, “Building Confianza: Empowering Latinx Patients Through Transcultural Interactions” (2021), argues that effective doctor–patient communication in Spanish requires practitioners who have transcultural knowledge of Latinos’ values and sociolinguistic awareness of their language use. In collaboration with a team of linguists, she co-authored a book, “Health Disparities and the Applied Linguist” (2022), which bridges theory and practice to demonstrate how applied linguists are uniquely positioned to make vital contributions toward advancing health equity in the US.
