RESEARCH

RESEARCH INTERESTS: I am interested in sociolinguistics and languages in contact. My research so far has mainly been involved with Spanish-English code-switching and Peruvian Spanish intonation. I have also examined Quechua and Aymara relative clauses, vowels in Aymara, and Cuzco Quechua intonation. I am also interested in investigating Spanish in the United States in contact with both English and other varieties of Spanish.

DISSERTATION: O’Rourke, Erin. 2005. Intonation and Language Contact: A Case Study of Two Varieties of Peruvian Spanish. Doctoral dissertation, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. 
Download:
§ [Full thesis (.pdf)] (~8.5 MB) with errata corrections (29 Dec 2005).
§ [Abstract (.pdf)]
§ [Errata (.pdf)] to accompany ProQuest copy.

Abstract excerpt: "This thesis examines the intonation patterns found in two varieties of Spanish, as spoken in Lima and Cuzco, Peru, and compares them with the patterns found for Cuzco Quechua. Utterances are analyzed in two pragmatic contexts, both broad and contrastive focus, and in two modalities, both declaratives and interrogatives. The intonation contours are examined within the Autosegmental Metrical (AM) model of intonation. In addition to conducting a cross-dialectal analysis of Peruvian Spanish, this dissertation adopts a sociolinguistic approach, in order to examine the possibility of contact between the prosodic systems of Spanish and the indigenous language of Quechua. That is, within Cuzco, speakers with different language backgrounds are compared, including native Spanish speakers, native Quechua-Spanish bilinguals, and native Quechua speakers who are also second language learners of Spanish."

PUBLICATIONS and DOWNLOADABLE PAPERS
§O'Rourke, Erin. 2009. Phonetics and Phonology of Cuzco Quechua declarative intonation: An instrumental analysis. Journal of the International Phonetic Association 39 (3): 291-312.

§O’Rourke, Erin. 2008. “Correlating speech rhythm: Evidence from two Peruvian dialects.” In Selected Proceedings of the Hispanic Linguistic Symposium.University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario (Canada): October 19-22, 2006. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project. Online at:
document #1803: [abstract] [Proceedings TOC]

§O’Rourke, Erin. 2008. Speech rhythm variation in dialects of Spanish: Applying the Pairwise Variability Index and Variation Coefficients to Peruvian Spanish. Proceedings of Speech Prosody 2008: Fourth Conference on Speech Prosody, 431-434. Campinas (Brazil),  May 6-9, 2008. Online at: http://aune.lpl.univ-aix.fr/~sprosig/sp2008/papers/id173.pdf
Also: File with errata correction to figure numbering

§O’Rourke, Erin. 2008. “Intonation in Quechua: Questions and analysis”. International Congress of Phonetics Sciences’ (ICPhS) Satellite workshop on ‘Intonational Phonology: Understudied or Fieldwork Languages’. Universität des Saarlandes, Saarbrücken (Germany): August 6-10, 2007. Online at:
http://www.linguistics.ucla.edu/people/jun/Workshop2007ICPhS/Papers/Erin%20O%27Rourke-paper.pdf

§ O’Rourke, Erin. 2006. The Direction of Inflection: Downtrends and Uptrends in Peruvian Spanish Broad Focus
Declaratives. In Selected Proceedings of the 2nd Conference on Laboratory Approaches to Spanish Phonetics and
Phonology, ed. Manuel Díaz-Campos, 62-74. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project. www.lingref.com, document #1326. [abstract] [Proceedings TOC]

§ O’Rourke, Erin. 2004. Peak placement in two regional varieties of Peruvian Spanish intonation. Contemporary Approaches to Romance Linguistics. Selected Papers from the 33rd Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages (LSRL), eds. Auger, Julie, J. Clancy Clements and Barbara Vance, 321-341. Bloomington, Indiana, April 2003 (Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 258). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

§ Peréz-Leroux, Ana Teresa, Gillian Lord, Erin O’Rourke and Beatriz Centeno-Cortés. 2002. Inalienable possession in Spanish: L2-acquisition at the lexicon-syntax interface. In The acquisition of Spanish morphosyntax, eds. Pérez-Leroux and Liceras, 179-205. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic.

§ Pérez-Leroux, Ana Teresa, Gillian Lord, Beatriz Centeno-Cortés and Erin O’Rourke. 2000. The acquisition of inalienable possession syntax in L2 Spanish. In University of Pittsburgh Working Papers in Linguistics: Proceedings from GASLA IV. 141-151.

CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS
§A dispersion account of vowel expansion in contact Spanish. Hispanic Linguistics Symposium. Universidad de Puerto Rico, Río Piedras. October 21-24, 2009.
§Andean Spanish". Workshop on Sp_ToBI Transcription of Intonation of the Spanish Language. Phonetics and Phonology in Iberia 2009 (PaPI). Las Palmas de la Gran Canaria (Spain): June 17-19, 2009. [presentation]
§“Dialect differences and the bilingual vowel space in Peruvian Spanish”. Laboratory Approaches to Spanish Phonology 4. University of Texas at Austin: September 26-28, 2009. [abstract]
§“Trill variation and assibilation in L2 contact Spanish”. Current Approaches to Spanish and Portuguese Second Language Phonology. University of Minnesota: February 22-23, 2008.
§“Correlating speech rhythm in dialects of Spanish”. Hispanic Linguistic Symposium. University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario (Canada): October 19-22, 2006.
§“An instrumental analysis of Quechua intonation: Contour description and maintenance”. Workshop on American Indigenous Languages. University of California, Santa Barbara: April 21–April 22, 2006. [abstract]
§“Anchoring the H: Correlates of Peak Alignment in Peruvian Spanish Intonation”. Hispanic Linguistics Symposium. The Pennsylvania State University : University Park , PA : November 10-13, 2005. [abstract]
§ “A case study of contrastive focus in Peruvian Spanish intonation”. 35th Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages. University of Texas as Austin: February 24-27, 2005. [abstract]
§ “The direction of inflection: Downtrends and uptrends in Peruvian Spanish broad focus declaratives”. 2nd Conference on Laboratory Approaches to Spanish Phonetics and Phonology. Indiana University, Bloomington: September 17-19, 2004. [abstract]
§ “Peak alignment in Peru: Spanish intonation in contact with Quechua”. The 33rd Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages. Indiana University, Bloomington: April 24-27, 2003. [abstract]
§ “Intonation in contact: A comparison of two Peruvian Spanish Dialects” McWop 8: Indiana University. October 26-28, 2002. [abstract]
§ “Andean Spanish Intonation: Another Latin American Variety or a Case of Indigenous Language Contact?” Laboratory Approaches to Spanish Phonology: University of Minnesota, September 2002. [abstract]
§ “The Role of Language Dominance in Codeswitching”. Fourth Hispanic Linguistics Symposium. Bloomington, IN. November 17-19, 2000. [abstract]
§ “A crosslinguistic comparison of relative clauses in Aymara and Quechua”. LASSO. Puebla, Mexico. October 13 - 15, 2000. [abstract]
§ “Vowel Duration in Aymara”. Workshop on indigenous Bolivian and Rondonian languages. Leiden University, Netherlands. September 28-30, 2000.
§ “’Washing the faces’: Acquisition of possessor raising in L2 Spanish”. Ana Teresa Pérez-Leroux, Beatriz Centeno-Cortés, Gillian Lord and Erin O’Rourke. GASLA, Pittsburgh, PA. September 25-27, 1998.
§ “Processing of intrasentencial code-switching in English and Spanish bilinguals: Grammatical constraints versus base language effects”. Ana Teresa Pérez-Leroux and Erin O’Rourke. 7th UNM Conference on Ibero-American Culture and Society: Spanish and Portuguese in Contact with Other Languages. February 12-14, 1998.

POSTERS
§ “Where does the question begin?: Initial and final intonation cues in Peruvian Spanish interrogatives”. Phonetics and Phonology in Iberia. Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. June 20-21, 2005 . [poster (.pdf)]
§ “Code-switching among Spanish-English Bilinguals: A sign of language dexterity.” Thirteenth Annual Graduate Research Exhibition. Pennsylvania State University. Spring, 1998.

INVITED TALKS
§ “Peak alignment in Peru: Spanish intonation in contact with Quechua”. Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies, UIUC. CLACS Fellow Lecture Series. December 6, 2002.
§ “Actitudes sobre el uso y el desarrollo de las lenguas habladas en el Per” Investigator Workshop Series. Centro Bartolomé de las Casas, Colegio Andino. Cusco, Perú. August 6, 2002.