Some of my current research on words:
In this paper, we introduce terminological review as a research synthesis technique that quantifies variation in definitions and characterizations of terms in applied linguistics.
Kendro, K. & Hu, Y. (2026). A scoping review of language attrition research: Identifying how attrition is defined and operationalized. Paper accepted for presentation at the 2026 Conference of the American Association for Applied Linguistics (AAAL): Chicago, IL.
In this talk, we will present data from nearly 800 publications detailing empirical human subjects research on language attrition to propose a unified operational definition of "attrition."
In this paper, we show that a six-dimension lexical diversity adapted from Jarvis (2013) can predict whether a text response was authored by a human or generated by a ChatGPT model.
Kendro, K. (Under review). Lexical diversity predicts perceived credibility in eyewitness accounts.
In this paper, I present data showing that dimensions of lexical diversity can predict mock jurors' perceptions of eyewitness accuracy, credibility, deceptiveness, eloquence, and prestige.
In this pre-registered study, we investigate whether task repetition and vocabulary priming result in differences in fluency and/or lexical diversity, density, sophistication, and precision in attriters' production.
Zhao, X., & Kendro, K. (2025). Assessing the validity of lexical indices using direct judgements across prepared speech tasks. Paper presented at the 2025 Hiroshima Lexical Research Forum (H-LRF): Virtual.
Our talk presented data from L2 English learners to evaluate lexical diversity, density, and sophistication in prepared speeches.
Kendro, K., Akbary, M., Almas, A., & Jarvis, S. (2023). Extralinguistic markers of political affiliation: A corpus analysis of Parler and Twitter. Poster presented at the 2023 Conference of the American Association for Applied Linguistics (AAAL).
Our poster identifies reliable patterns of non-standard capitalization found on Parler but not strongly present on Twitter.
Kendro, K., Akbary, M., & Jarvis, S. (2022). Internet-influenced shifts in compound word formation and usage frequency. Poster presented at The 15th Biennial High Desert Linguistic Society Conference.
Our lightning talk highlights differences in diachronic compound word formation prior to and after widespread Internet availability.
Grixoni, F., Akbary, M., Kendro, K., & Egbert, J. (2026). Testing the comprehensibility of Utah jury instructions through empirical linguistic methods. Paper accepted for presentation at the 2026 Conference of the American Association for Applied Linguistics (AAAL).
In this talk, we will show how we triangulated linguistic methods to identify words and phrases with low comprehensibility, then tested how well potential jurors could understand and apply jury instructions featuring the problem items.
Jarvis, S., Egbert, J., Akbary, M., Grixoni, F., Kendro, K., Cunningham, C., & Eggington, B. (2025). Comprehensibility of Jury Instructions through Empirical Linguistic Methods. Paper presented at the 9th Annual Law and Corpus Linguistics Conference.
In this talk, we report results from human subjects research into applying jury instructions to real-life scenarios, including whether corpus methods alone predicted which target items would have low accuracy rates.
Jarvis, S., Egbert, J., Akbary, M., Demir, Y., Grixoni, F., Kendro, K., Cunningham, C., & Eggington, B. (2024). Improving the Comprehensibility of Jury Instructions through Empirical Linguistic Methods. Paper presented at the 9th Annual Law and Corpus Linguistics Conference.
In this paper, we detail how we are employing corpus linguistics and human judgments to identify problematic words and phrases in jury instructions.