Center for Language Science at Penn State

05/29/2026

🌱💬 What does it mean to be a heritage speaker?

Our upcoming newsletter explores the experiences of heritage speakers — people who grow up speaking one language at home while using another more widely in their communities — and how they use language in creative and meaningful ways that can shape language itself ✨

Stay tuned, and check out our previous newsletters as a little warm-up 💌

Newsletters Our newsletters share research in bilingualism with the public, centered around themes in language science and bilingualism. In them you’ll find interesting summaries of research and informative interviews with researchers and other partners. Some even feature a fun game or activity! K...

05/20/2026

This week, we’re delighted to feature Mackenzie Gentz, a CLS graduate student in the Department of Germanic and Slavic Languages and Literatures!

📣 Can you tell us about your background and research interests?

🎯 I am a writer, linguist, and circumnavigator from Tucson, Arizona. I graduated summa cm laude from Northwestern University with a B.M. in oboe performance and an honors B.A. in linguistics and German. Thereafter, I moved to Munich, Germany, where I completed a M.A. with the highest marks in Deutsch als Fremdsprache (German Applied Linguistics) at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität. My current position is a Dual Title Ph.D. candidate in Germanic Linguistics and Language Science at Penn State, where my research probes how to measure second language loss in adults.

📣 How did you first become interested in Germanic linguistics, and what do you enjoy most about working in this field?

🎯 During my undergraduate career, I started in German 101 because I wanted to speak “my own language,” separate from the languages I heard growing up with Norwegian-Korean heritage in the Southwest. The German community at Northwestern—and in Chicago more generally—took me in with open arms. I started in the field by doing historical and literary research on the Holocaust, then found my way to linguistics via my senior thesis in philosophy of language. I most enjoy working with the array of speakers from different backgrounds who come to learn German (often as a third language), whether they are students in my German classes or study participants.

📣 What has been your favorite part of being in the CLS so far?

🎯 The people! My graduate student colleagues as well as the professors and staff have been incredibly supportive. One of my primary advisors as well as several doctoral committee members are from the CLS. They have continued to lend invaluable expertise to my research agenda, shaping my research and skillsets so they are marketable beyond the narrow field of Germanic Linguistics. I look forward to learning and growing more during my remaining two years in the program.

05/15/2026

This week, we’re excited to feature CLS faculty member Dr. Chaleece Sandberg! Dr. Sandberg is a professor in Communication Sciences and Disorders at Penn State.

📣 Please tell us about yourself. What first drew you to the field of Communication Sciences and Disorders, and what keeps you excited about it today?

🎯 When I was an undergraduate in the Linguistics program at the University of Texas at Austin, I took a “Language and the Brain” class. In it, I first learned about aphasia, a language disorder caused by acquired brain injury. I was fascinated by the fact that specific damage to the brain could cause specific language issues. As I learned more, my desire to help this population grew. What keeps me excited is continuing to learn about how language is processed in the brain and how that can serve rehabilitation practice in aphasia.

📣 How does your research connect to real-world communication challenges people face in everyday life?

🎯 Difficulty with word retrieval is a ubiquitous and frustrating problem in aphasia. My research is focused on optimizing word retrieval therapy and making optimized therapy readily available in a variety of languages.

📣 What is one thing you wish more people understood about speech, language, or hearing science?

🎯 Although 2.5 million people are currently living with aphasia, many people don’t know what it is. Aphasia is an acquired language disorder. Importantly, it does not affect intelligence. The more people know about aphasia, the more they can support the communicative needs of people with aphasia. It’s simple: acknowledge their competence, speak in short, simple sentences, reduce distractions, use gestures and writing, and confirm their message.

05/11/2026

Congrats and thank you to CLS graduate student Faranak Kianfar (CSD), who recently participated in the Bilingualism Matters Symposium 2026 in Milan! Faranak presented her research on "Bilingual Abstract Semantic Associative Network Training (BAbSANT) for Persian" as well as a poster highlighting our Center's public engagement activities.

04/28/2026

Join us on Friday, May 1st, at 9:00 a.m. in Foster Auditorium for a talk, “Leveraging Prediction Error to Increase Syntactic Priming Effects in Aphasia”, presented by Dr. Chaleece Sandberg!

04/25/2026

The CLS had such a great time hosting our annual Language and Linguistics Day! 💙

We loved welcoming high school students for a day full of workshops and games exploring language structure, variation, sign language, and sociolinguistics. It was so much fun sharing what we’re passionate about and seeing everyone’s curiosity and energy throughout the day!

Thank you to all the students, teachers, and CLS volunteers who made this event so special. We hope to see you again next year! ✨

04/20/2026

Join us on Friday, April 24th, at 9:00 a.m. in Foster Auditorium for a talk, “Speaking While Aging”, presented by Dr. Shana Poplack!

04/13/2026

Join us on Friday, April 17th, at 9:00 a.m. in Foster Auditorium for a talk, “What’s So Important about Tonal Accents in Scandinavian Languages?”, presented by Dr. Michael Putnam!

04/06/2026

The CLS is excited to host our annual Language and Linguistics Day this Wednesday, April 8th 9:15 am to 2:00 pm at the Penn Stater Hotel! 💙

We’ll be welcoming high school students from local schools for a day of workshops and games exploring language structure, variation, sign language, and sociolinguistics!

04/03/2026

Congratulations to CLS alumna Jessica Vélez-Avilés, who received the Young Scholar Award at the Human Sentence Processing Conference! Jessica graduated from Penn State in 2024 with a PhD in Hispanic Linguistics and Language Science, and is currently Assistant Professor of Linguistics at UNC Chapel Hill. To learn more about her research and current projects visit her website here: https://www.justalinguist.com/.