Applied and Sociolinguistics; Spanish in the US; heritage language education; ethnicity, race, and language in censuses; language and racialization
Jennifer Leeman’s research and teaching focus on the sociopolitics of language, with particular attention to multilingualism, Spanish in the US, and the teaching of Spanish as a heritage language. Her work is interdisciplinary and employs the theoretical frameworks and methodological approaches of critical applied linguistics and sociolinguistics while also engaging the fields of education, Latinx studies, language policy, and linguistic anthropology.
Leeman has published extensively on the interplay of ideologies of language, race and nation in the US, the racialization of Spanish and Latinxs in the US, multilingual language policy and politics, heritage language education, and critical pedagogical approaches to teaching Spanish. Her scholarship encompasses both theoretically-oriented research as well as studies applying theoretical insights to specific policy concerns and practical problems, including heritage language education, curriculum and pedagogy; multilingual survey design and administration; and census questions on language, race and ethnicity.
Leeman currently serves on the Executive Committee of the American Association of Applied Linguistics as well as the editorial boards of the journals Language Policy, Linguistic Landscape, Spanish as a Heritage Language, and Spanish in Context.
In addition to her faculty position at Mason, Leeman served as Research Sociolinguist in the US Census Bureau’s Language and Intercultural Research Group (2011-2020).
- Ideologies and identities in heritage language education
- Race and racialization in Spanish language education
- Critical pedagogy in language teaching
- The construction and quantification of the category Latino in Europe
- Heritage language speakers and study abroad
Fuller, J. & Leeman, J. (2020) Speaking Spanish in the US: The Sociopolitics of Language. Multilingual Matters. [Spanish language edition under contract]
ANTH 399 The Sociopolitics of Language
FRLN 385 Multilingualism, Identity, and Power
FRLN 551 Heritage Language Education
HNRS 121Reading Cultural Signs
SPAN 109 Intensive Spanish
SPAN 301 Spanish Grammar and Syntax
SPAN 305 Spanish in Context
SPAN 315 Spanish for Heritage Speakers
SPAN 385 Introduction to Spanish Linguistics
SPAN 430 Spanish in the US
SPAN 476 Teaching Spanish in the US
SPAN 500 History of Spanish
SPAN 502 Hispanic Sociolinguistics
SPAN 551 Spanish Teaching Materials & Methods
SPAN 551 Teaching Spanish as a Heritage Language
SPAN 551 Language Ideologies and Spanish
SPAN 551 Language Policies & Politics
BA (Spanish) University of Pennsylvania
MA (Hispanic Civilization) New York University in Madrid
MAT (TESOL & Bilingual Education) Georgetown University
PhD (Hispanic Linguistics) Georgetown University
2019-2020:
Census statistics about heritage languages and speakers: Epistemological, discursive, and policy concerns. Heritage Languages Around the World, Lisbon, Portugal, May 2020. [P0STPONED]
Linguistic variation and the teaching of Spanish: Critical perspectives. Department of Romance Languages and Literatures, Harvard University. May 2020. [MOVED ONLINE]
Critical approaches to language education: Diversity, equity, and inclusion. University of Washington, Seattle. April 2020. [POSTPONED]
Questioning multilingualism: Census statistics and the politics of language. Georgetown University Roundtable (GURT), Washington DC. March 2020. [CANCELLED]
Producing Latinxs: Ethnoracial, linguistic, and migrant identities in national censuses. Centre for Applied Linguistics, University College London, UK. December 2019.
Producing Latinx identities in the census: A comparative analysis of ethnoracial and linguistic classification. Centre for Mexico-Southampton Collaboration, University of Southampton, UK. November 2019.
Constructing and negotiating ethnoracial identity through language: Latinxs in the US census and beyond. Institute of Multilingualism, University of Fribourg, Switzerland, October 2019.
Counting Latinxs: The production of ethnoracial, linguistic, and migrant identities in national censuses. Center for the Study of Language and Society, University of Bern, Switzerland, October 2019.
La variación lingüística y la enseñanza del español como lengua de herencia: Un acercamiento crítico. Universidad de Salamanca, Spain. October 2019.
Defining and quantifying transnational, global and local Latinx identities. Spanish in Society – El español en la sociedad biennial conference. University of Edinburgh. September 2019. (Plenary address)