Eastern, Slavic, and German Studies Faculty

Margaret Thomas

Professor, Linguistics

Profile

Most of my research is in either the history of linguistics, especially American linguistics, or in second language acquisition and linguistic theory. Some of my work spans both these fields. I also have long-standing interests in the methodology of linguistics, that is, in the tools and techniques which linguists have used to study language, and in the psycholinguistics of Japanese.  At present I am working on the history of American structuralism, and on the study of language in colonial America.  My research has been supported by the Spencer Foundation and the Japan Foundation, and I have held short-term research appointments at Waseda University, Dokkyo University, and Japan Women's University.  At Boston College, I teach broadly across the field of theoretical and applied linguistics. 

Publications

BOOKS


(2019). London: Routledge Press


(2014). London: Routledge Press


(2011). London: Routledge Press


(2004). London: Routledge Press

REPRESENTATIVE PUBLICATIONS

Book chapter: “American women’s contributions to the history of linguistics”. Accepted. To appear in Helena Samson and Wendy Ayres-Bennett (Eds.), Distant and Neglected Voices: Women in the History of Linguistics. Oxford University Press.

. (Published online March 2019). Mark Aronoff (Ed.), Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Linguistics. Oxford University Press. pp. 1–37.


(2017). Second Language Research 33: 271–288


(2013). Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism 3.4: 509–531

(2015). Language Learning 65: 631–659

 (2014). In Vadim Kasevich, Yuri Kleiner, and Patrick Sériot (Eds.), History of Linguistics 2011 (145–155). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Press

(2013). Historiographia Linguistica 40.3: 377–208

(2011). In Gerda Hassler (Ed.), History of Linguistics 2008 (389–397). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Press

(2007). In Douglas A. Kibbee (Ed.), History of Linguistics 2005 (344–355). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Press

(2007). Historiographia Linguistica 34: 37–62

(2005). Second Language Research 21: 393–414

(2002). The Linguistic Review 19: 51–71

(2002). Historiographia Linguistica 29: 341–380’

(1994). Language Learning 44: 307–336


(1989). Applied Psycholinguistics 10: 335–355


(1991). Language 67: 211–239