The Department of Spanish and Portuguese would like to congratulate Graduate Teaching Associate Kendra Dickinson for winning an International Research and Scholarship grant from the Offices of International Affairs and its Gateways, the Office of Research, and the Graduate School, to support her project titled “A study of language and identity among Venezuelans in the state of São Paulo, Brazil."

Kendra’s project will “investigate… the linguistic and social factors that shape Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese (BP)” spoken by the growing number of Venezuelans migrants living in São Paulo, Brazil.   The grant will support field research in which Kendra will carry out sociolinguistic interviews with Venezuelan migrants in both Spanish and BP to “to measure [the participants’] relationship with the local community and level of affinity for paulista .. and venezolano … identities” and, ultimately, the “grammatical and social factors [that] influence their speech.”  Overall, “A study of language and identity among Venezuelans in the state of São Paulo, Brazil” plans to “document an emerging language contact situation, as well as contribute to our understanding of how sociopolitical conflict, migration, and ethnolinguistic identity influence language patterns and use.”

The International Research and Scholarship grant supports projects that promote “active international research collaborations,” address “global issues in a regional context,” connect “discipline-specific research to the implementation of projects and programs in diverse geopolitical and cultural settings,” and explore “the languages, cultures, arts, social sciences and area studies,” among other things.  You can find out more about the scholarship on the OIA website. 

Congratulations, Kendra!