bouchra

My name is Bouchra and I am a third-year Ph.D. student in Hispanic Linguistics minoring in Second Language Acquisition and Teaching, and a Graduate Associate in Teaching for the department of Spanish and Portuguese. I graduated from the University of Alicante (Alicante, Spain) in 2018 with a BA in Translation and Interpretation. My working languages are English, French, Catalan and Arabic, and my thesis was focused on the Interpretation of Spanish Sign Language in songs. During my undergraduate studies I completed an academic exchange at Queen's University Belfast in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Upon graduation, I was lucky to be awarded with a scholarship to perform as a Spanish Cultural and Language Assistant in Illinois College, US. During this academic year I found my passion for education; offering language practice and exposure to the culture and perspectives of Spanish speakers and serving as a bridge between the institution and the Spanish-speaking population in the local community.

 

During my senior year I worked as an interpreter in conferences and completed an internship interpreting for the Hospital General Universitario de Alicante. At the same time, I worked as a translator for the International Project Management Office in Alicante. Nevertheless, my real passion is and will always be musicals; hence, my involvement in a youth association where I performed as coordinator of different artistic projects.

 

At the UofA, I am a member of the Arizona Applied Phonetics Psycholinguistics Lab. Furthermore, I have worked as a Spanish Basic Language Program coordinator, and Co-coordinator & member of the Committee of the Annual Graduate and Professional Symposium on Hispanic and Luso-Brazilian Literature, Language and Culture. Finally, I have volunteered as Editorial Assistant for the Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Editorial, and assisted our Study Abroad Program in Liberia, Costa Rica during the second session of Summer 2023. I am currently co-leading the Hispanic & Lusophone Linguistics Working Group.

 

My areas of interest include:

 

• Bilingualism (perception and production): focus on Spanish-Arabic & Spanish-English in contact.
• Morphological processing: structure of the L2 mental lexicon.
• Second Language Acquisition and Teaching: focus on Heritage Language Learning and Teaching.
• Translation Studies and Language Program Development, Direction and Evaluation.