My name is Suzanne Johnston, and I am a Ph.D. Candidate in Second Language Studies. While pursing my B.A. in Spanish, I discovered that the process through which second languages were acquired was fascinating. My university at the time did not have a linguistic program, except for a few classes through the English department about English linguistics, and one Spanish phonetics class. The few courses I was able to take sparked my interest enough to pursue a Master’s degree in Applied Spanish Linguistics at Michigan State University in the Department of Romance and Classical Studies. While in RCS, I had the opportunity to teach Spanish to undergraduate students, and began to understand how complex the second language acquisition process was.
Upon completion of my M.A., I entered into the Second Language Studies Program, also at MSU. Since then, I have focused my research on the acquisition of morphosyntax in L2 Spanish, and have also developed an interest in L3 acquisition. In particular, I am particularly interested in grammatical gender acquisition, although I have also looked at the role of sentential processing burden in L2 Spanish, and have now begun to look at the acquisition of verbal morphology. I have also had the opportunity to work on research involving the acquisition of new words (into the L2 lexicon) through reading. In all of these cases, I have used on-line processing measures like self-paced reading and eye tracking.

My current dissertation focuses on the acquisition of L2 morphology in L2 Spanish, and examines both the development of the L2 mental representation and L2 learners’ abilities to process verbal morphology during on-line processing measures. From this, I hope to shed light on whether L2 speakers can develop native-like linguistic competence and performance in regard to L2 morphosyntax. I am currently collecting data, and will defend my dissertation in Spring 2017.