AAAL 2019 Award Winners Announced

AAAL 2019 Award Winners Announced

Press Contact Information:
Sarah Berke, CAE
American Association for Applied Linguistics (AAAL)
Sarah@aaal.org
678-229-2892

American Association for Applied Linguistics Awards Presented at 2019 Annual Conference

Association Recognizes Leaders and Contributors in the field of Applied Linguistics

Atlanta, GA – March 12, 2019 – The American Association for Applied Linguistics (AAAL) community is proud to recognize and honor exemplary contributions to the field of Applied Linguistics. The awards are a highly visible component of the association’s statements about standards of excellence in the field.

The AAAL awards are bestowed upon deserving recipients annually in recognition of outstanding service, research, and publications in the field of applied linguistics.

The awards were presented during the 2019 Annual Conference held March 9 to 12, 2019 in Atlanta, Georgia. AAAL Vice President and Conference Committee Chair Laura Collins presided over the ceremony.

The award winners, categories and explanations are listed below:

Distinguished Scholarship and Service Award (DSSA)

The Distinguished Scholarship and Service Award recognizes and honors a distinguished scholar for her/his scholarship and service to the profession in general and to the American Association for Applied Linguistics in particular.

The recipient of the 2019 DSSA is Nick Ellis, University of Michigan.

Distinguished Public Service Award (DPSA)

The American Association for Applied Linguistics (AAAL) award for Distinguished Public Service recognizes individuals outside of the field of applied linguistics – writers, journalists, politicians, lawyers, etc. – whose work (1) raises public awareness of important social issues connected to language and (2) makes exceptional contributions to promotion of multilingualism, linguistic social justice, and language-related human rights.

The recipient of the 2019 DPSA is Carmen Fariña, Former Chancellor of the New York City Department of Education.

Graduate Student Award

The Graduate Student Award is a merit-based award that supports attendance of AAAL graduate student members at the annual conference. The 2016 Graduate Student Awards were made possible by AAAL members’ contributions to the Fund for the Future of Applied Linguistics (FFAL), as well as the generous support of Educational Testing Service, Multilingual Matters, and the estate of Wilga Rivers, the first president of AAAL.

The 2019 Graduate Student Award Winners are Ji-young Shin, Purdue University, ETS Award; Mark Visoná, Georgetown University; Jongbong Lee, Michigan State University, Multilingual Matters Award; Drew Colcher, Wichita State University; Yiran Xu, Georgetown University; Elif Burhan-Horasanli, University of Arizona; and Carly Henderson, Indiana University, Wilga Rivers Award.

First Book Award

The American Association for Applied Linguistics AAAL First Book Award recognizes a scholar whose first book represents outstanding work in the field of applied linguistics. In bestowing this award, the association honors high quality books that make an exceptional contribution to the field as a whole or to a specific area of specialization. The First Book Award will be given biennially, alternating every other year with the AAAL Book Award.

The 2019 Award Winner is "Racialized Identities in Second Language Learning: Speaking Blackness in Brazil" by Uju Anya, Penn State University and published by Routledge/Taylor and Francis.

Dissertation Award

The Dissertation Award began in 2016 to acknowledge a dissertation that demonstrates research excellence, transcends narrow disciplinary fields, and has broad impact on and implications for the field of applied linguistics as a whole. To be eligible for this award, dissertations must have been completed during the previous two years.

The 2019 Award Winner is Emily Kyung Jin Suh, Texas State University. Suh’s dissertation title is “Off from Lost: Generation 1 learners’ transition from adult ESL to developmental education”.

Research Article Award

The AAAL Research Article award is bestowed annually upon the author or authors of a published refereed journal article which is recognized by leaders in the field to be of outstanding quality and to hold the broadest potential impact on the advancement of applied linguistic knowledge. This is a non-cash award consisting of a certificate presented to the author (a certificate will be presented to each author, if the winner is a multi-authored article).

The 2019 Research Article Award winner is “From Early Starters to Late Finishers? A Longitudinal Study of Early Foreign Language Learning in School” by Nils Jaekel, Michael Schurig, Merle Florian, and Markus Ritter as published in the journal Language Learning (Vol 67, pp. 631-664).