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Jessica de Villiers is an Associate Professor and Language Coordinator in the Department of English Language and Literatures at the University of British Columbia. She holds a BA, MA, and PhD from York University and is a linguist with a focus on meaning-making, grammar, and discourse analysis. Her research spans various areas, including clinical linguistics and interaction pragmatics, particularly in the context of health communication. De Villiers investigates discourse analysis, information structure, emotion detection, and coherence in discourse, using specific text corpora within a socio-cognitive linguistic framework. Her work encompasses pragmatics and communication, with a commitment to understanding the neurocognitive factors that influence conversation skills, as well as developing methods for clinical discourse analysis from a broad interdisciplinary perspective. She has received significant funding for her research, including SSHRC and CIHR grants and UBC's Hampton Research endowment Fund. De Villiers has held prestigious awards such as the Peter Wall Early Career Scholar in 2009 and the Killam Faculty Research Fellowship in 2011. She collaborates on the ACTE project at Université libre de Bruxelles, which aims to understand the nature and causes of communication difficulties associated with language delays in Autism Spectrum Disorder. Her teaching encompasses discourse and pragmatics, emphasizing a range of linguistic approaches and fostering interaction among students to promote collaborative learning.
Offers course-only and thesis routes. Focus areas include philosophy of science, mind, ethics, and Asian philosophy.