Cristian Lopez Villegas

I began my University Journey studying Spanish Literature, Latin-American Culture, Spanish Linguistics, and Portuguese. 

The complexity, beauty, and mystery of human language fascinated me so that I decided to continue its study by going deeper into both the "Chemistry" side of Language (Phonetics,Phonology, Semantics, Typology, Morphology, Syntax) as well as the "Social" side of Language (Speech Act Theory, Pragmatics, Conversation Analysis, Sociolinguistics, Discourse Analysis).  

I began to notice that these incredibly rich and sophisticated fields had historically been pursued with a certain level of independence from one another, as is natural, reasonable, justifiable, and necessary in many important ways.

However, by finding ways, along with many others, to pursue questions that require attention to all of them at once, great insights could be gained into each one independently, as well as into the nature of human language as a whole.  

During that time period, I began to notice that a linguistic element known as the "Discourse Marker", had within the recent past begun to gain a lot of attention, for its own analysis.  

My interest in them was captured as I began to understand how Discourse Markers occupy a certain position in the Linguistic theoretical space that their presence (and absence) is deeply and importantly interwoven across the aforementioned theoretical fields.  

It also became clear that Discourse Markers possessed the ability to explain and refine understanding of distinct theoretical questions that each of those fields have independently pursued. 

I thus decided to pursue a greater understanding of them. 

My Dissertation, "Speech Acts, Syntax, Conversation Sequences, Discourse: An Interdisciplinary Analysis of Discourse Markers, with an Emphasis on "Oh"" is an attempt to join the aforementioned fields by asking questions that are independently important to each, that require all of them together in order to answer, and by providing results that answer them by such interdisciplinary interconnecting of their lenses.

 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/346331909_Speech_Acts_Syntax_Conversation_Sequences_Discourse_An_Interdisciplinary_Analysis_of_Discourse_Markers_with_an_Emphasis_on_Oh

The gained theoretical understandings regarding human linguistic interaction that these past years have produced have additionally been being applied and more deeply understood through my teaching of Composition, ESL, Language Acquisition, and Linguistics.  

Sharing this content with my Fellow Journerers in class sessions, and applying this theoretical understanding to the topic discussions, activities, exercises, helps me to organize the content more logically, systematically, concisely, practically, in my own comprehension of it. 

Symbiotically, my Fellow Journerers, with their creativity, fresh thinking, intellect, artistry, knowledge-proficiency with emerging understandings-methodologies, tools-technologies, assist in refining them further.

Over this last period, the focus has been to construct a framework that aligned the aforementioned areas of Linguistics in a Systematic, Minimalist, Readily Apply-able, Method to perform analyzes of live Interactional Language as well as Non-Live Non-Interactional language from the level of Speech Action through spoken Utterance, to the Turn-By-Turn Sequences of Interaction, to the larger Discourses that they produce, and the Social Structures they construct. 

At the Heart of the Search has always been the Desire to understand the "Experience" of Being in a Society with other Beings.  To understand what is "Identity" and its Journey in "Society". 

One of the Blessings of this approach to analyzing language is that it can be applied to every aspect of Life…

I have recently begun studying in the field of Forensic Linguistics.  One of my favorite aspects of this newly-emerging field is that it is greatly aided by all of the major areas of Linguistics.  

Language is at the center of the legal system, from the denotation and connotations of the very words selected in the writing of the Law itself, to Language Crimes (Perjury, Threats, Bribes, etc.), to the language produced during Crimes, the language heard by witnesses or audio-recorded, to the language performed across all stages of Interactions between interactants across all legal proceedings.

Education: 

Ph.D. Linguistics & Applied Linguistics (2020)

M.A. Spanish Linguistics (2007)

B.A. Spanish Literature & Linguistics (2004)