Jade A
- Research Program Mentor

PhD at SOAS, University of London

Expertise

Linguistics, Translation, Arabic Language and Literature, Spanish Language and Literature, cross-cultural awareness, intercultural communication, comparative literature, European linguistics, cultural studies, humanities

Bio

I have a PhD in Linguistics from SOAS, University of London and over ten years of progressive experience as a researcher, consultant, and linguist in the academic, military, NGO, and private sectors. I have previously taught at The UK Ministry of Defense, the Saudi Ministry of Education, and SOAS, University of London. My primary research interests lie in the domain of linguistics and how languages influence each other. I am also passionate about literature and folklore, intercultural communication, sociolinguistics, language politics, and translation. I mainly work on Arabic and English, though I also speak (and am interested in) Spanish, French, Turkish, and German. Outside of academia, I enjoy traveling, reading, learning languages, doing power yoga, baking, and petting every dog I meet.

Project ideas

Project ideas are meant to help inspire student thinking about their own project. Students are in the driver seat of their research and are free to use any or none of the ideas shared by their mentors.

The Tower of Babel: Languages of the World

We will explore the key topics in global linguistic diversity, enabling students to contextualize the language(s), region(s), or culture(s) in which they are interested. The student can pick one of the following themes to explore: a) the relationships between the world’s languages and language families; b) how languages vary in different social and cultural contexts; c) how the sounds and structures of the world’s languages may vary in general.

Arabian Nights

Students can choose from any of the “Arabian Nights” tales, and depending on language expertise, we will work through it reading in either English or Arabic (or a mix of the two). We will explore, analyze, and attempt to define some of the most common themes in the text: the power of storytelling, magic, adventure, fate, etc.

Spanish and How it Got that Way

In 711 C.E. the Arabic-speaking Umayyad dynasty began their conquest of the Iberian peninsula, now present-day Spain and Portugal. During this time, there was over 800 years of Arab cultural and linguistic influence on the region. Today, over 4,000 Spanish words derive their origins from Arabic. Students can explore the influence of Arabic on Spanish through the lens of historical linguistics.

Coding skills

Python

Languages I know

Arabic (bilingual/native), Spanish (intermediate), French (intermediate), Turkish (intermediate), German (intermediate); Serbo-Croatian (conversational)

Teaching experience

I was a Teaching Fellow at SOAS, University of London for two years where I taught Linguistics and Arabic. I went on to teach Arabic (MSA and dialects) at the UK Ministry of Defence for a year, and I spent another year as an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Languages and Translation at the Saudi Ministry of Education where I taught Linguistics, Syntax, and Discourse Analysis.