Hi! I am Yoonjee[ju:n-ʒi:], a Ph.D. student in Second Language Acquisition at University of Maryland College Park. My research interests lie in assessing second language proficiency, second language pragmatics, linguistic features of learner production at the discourse level, and the relation between language and thought. Some areas that I am interested in at the moment are how valid oral proficiency tests are in assessing one’s language proficiency, what the universalities and specificities (L1 influence) are in second language learner’s production at the discourse level.
Besides pursuing my own research interests, I work for the research team at the National Foreign Language Center as a graduate assistant. Many of my project are related to STARTALK, a program that funds and helps 150+ language programs every year. My role is to evaluate the impacts of the language programs and to produce reports and publications out of them.
I have an American/British/Korean English accent. I earned my MPhil in English and Applied Linguistics from University of Cambridge and a BA in English Language and Literature from Yonsei University. I also spent a year as an exchange student at the University of Sheffield, where I enjoyed hearing accents I’ve heard in Billy Elliot. I’ve also acquired my American accent at an elementary school in Philadelphia, and I have met people spotting my accent by hearing me saying ‘water’.
Although I enjoy being a student, I sometimes miss being a teacher. Before joining the program, I have taught English communication courses to university students in South Korea. You can read the journal of my teaching experience by visiting my Blog in Korean.
Publications
Ross, Y., & Hong, Y. (2018) Mixed Methods Research in Second Language Pragmatics. In N. Taguchi (Ed.), Routledge handbook of SLA and pragmatics (pp. 287-307). New York, NY: Routledge.
Katsos, N. Cumins, C., [and 53 others, including Hong,Y.] (2016). Cross-linguistic patterns in the acquisition of quantifiers. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). doi:10.1073/pnas.1601341113.
Conference Presentations
Hong, Y., Xu, R., & Damari, R., Evaluating ratings of language program
grant applications quantitatively and qualitatively: Practical recommendations for process improvement. Paper Presentation at East Coast Organization of Language Testers, Online, Oct. 2020
Hong, Y. & Ross, S. The Development and Validation of a Contextual Interpretation Ability Test as a Measurement of Language Pragmatic Aptitude: A pilot study. Paper Presentation at Midwest Association of Language Testers, Indiana, USA, Oct. 2019
Damari, R. & Hong, Y. K-12 and university programs in less commonly taught languages: Origins and Strengths, Goals and Challenges. Paper Presentation at National Council of Less Commonly Taught Languages (NCOLCTL) Conference, USA, April 2017
Hong, Y. L1 Discoursal Transfer: A Variationist Analysis on Japanese Speakers’ Past Tense Variation in English. Paper Presentation at Second Language Research Forum, USA, Oct. 2016 (available upon request)
Hong, Y. Searching the Frog Vocally in Korean: Typological and Language-Specific Issues on Expressing Motion Events in Korean Narratives. Paper Presentation at 22nd Japanese Korean Linguistics Conference (JKLC), Japan, Oct. 2012 (available upon request)
Hong, Y. Trapped Possessive Morphology: A cross-linguistic study on Korean –uy and English -s at 1st World Congress of Scholars of English Linguistics (WCSEL), Korea, June 2012 (available upon request)
Contact
yhong125@umd.edu / yhong@nflc.umd.edu
hong,yoonjee 