Dr. Julia Herschensohn

Biography

Julia Herschensohn is a Professor Emerita in the Department of Linguistics at the University of Washington. She received her PhD in Linguistics from the University of Washington in 1976 and her MA in French from the University of California, Santa Barbara in 1970. Her research focuses on generative syntax, language acquisition theory, and applied linguistics, particularly in the context of Romance languages. She specializes in theoretical syntax and nonnative language learning, with a keen interest in how monolinguals and bilinguals, including both child and adult learners, understand and produce grammatical aspects of speech such as agreement and displacement. Herschensohn's recent publications delve into the role of Universal Grammar and the nature of morphology in language acquisition. She has collaborated with researchers like Cheryl Frenck-Mestre and Nuria Sagarra on studies regarding gender acquisition in Anglophone learners of French and Spanish, and has contributed to work employing ERPs to study second language acquisition. Her ongoing research with Deborah Arteaga involves examining longitudinal data from advanced French L2 learners to understand the development of L2 competence. In 2022, she published a book titled 'Bilingualism, Language Development, and Processing Across the Lifespan' by John Benjamins, and continues to collect data on heritage language learners in Seattle Public Schools' Spanish-English Dual Language Immersion program.

Research Interests