Some of my current research on dynamic multilingualism:
In this paper, we introduce terminological review as a research synthesis technique that quantifies variation in definitions and characterizations of terms in applied linguistics.
In this consensus paper, we identify how imprecise essentialist labels such as "native speaker" are harming research, language assessments, and the wider community.
In this pre-registered study, we are reviewing papers published in six bilingualism, phonetics, or psycholinguistics journals to report trends in the use and definition of the term "native" speaker/signer.
Kendro, K. & Jarvis, S. (2026). Is my ‘bilingual’ your ‘bilingual’? Researchers’ definitions and operationalizations of multilingual terminology. Paper accepted for presentation at the 2026 Annual Meeting of the Linguistic Society of America (LSA): New Orleans, LA.
In this talk, we reported survey data showing wide variation in researchers' classifications of participants as "bilingual" and other language experience labels.
Kutlu, E. & Kendro, K. (2025). Rethinking the “Native” Speaker: Essentialism and Linguistic Theory. Part of Reframing Our Language Experience: Challenging Essentialist Labels for Inclusive and Equitable Research. Presentation at the Linguistic Society of America Presidential Research Forum.
In this talk, we presented empirical data from several studies that challenge essentialist assumptions about "native speaker" and other language experience labels.
Kendro, K. & Jarvis, S. (2025). Defining bilingualism: Reconciling self-identification and researcher determination. Poster presented at the 2025 International Symposium on Bilingualism (ISB): San Sebastián, SP.
In this poster, we showed that self-identified "bilinguals" often have broad language knowledge that exceeds common characterizations of this term.
Our public-facing talk was part of the 2025 Five Minute Linguist competition, earning an honorable mention.
An encore 5ML presentation appeared as a lightning talk at the 2nd ROLE Symposium— watch it here!
In this paper, we introduce the Supplemental Language Attrition Questionnaire (SLAQ), a short survey to collect data about participants' possible attrition. Our data show that, when completing popular language background surveys, participants often either overestimate attrited language knowledge or omit it entirely.
In this paper, we show differences in automatic small-set estimation (subitizing) ability across bilingual children's two languages.
In this paper, we identify cognate synonyms as potential confounds to interpreting supposed semantic activation effects when designing crosslinguistic stimuli, offering a method for researchers to evaluate possible cognate synonyms.
Our chapter gives an overview of laxing vowel harmony across language varieties.
Our paper presents fluency data from three Spanish varieties, exploring both quantitative variation and mismatch between production data and listener perceptions.