Dr. Tris Faulkner (@trisfaulkner) received a Ph.D. in Spanish Linguistics, from Georgetown University, in 2021. In April of 2021, she defended her dissertation (titled: “A Systematic Investigation of the Spanish Subjunctive: Mood Variation in Subjunctive Clauses”), which was granted the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Award (DDRI). Dr. Faulkner is currently a tenure-track Assistant Professor of Linguistics in the Department of Spanish Language and Literatures at Kalamazoo College, with a collective appointment in the Women, Gender, and Sexuality Program.

Professor Faulkner’s research investigates the semanto-pragmatics of “non-standard” grammars (e.g., non-standard variation between subjunctive and indicative), with the objective of helping to eliminate harmful and discriminatory ideas about “wrong”, “incorrect”, or “bad” language; i.e., there’s no such thing as “bad” language! In her work (focused mainly on variation in mood, tense, and aspect), Dr. Faulkner focuses on how the meanings of these forms are influenced by socio-pragmatic context. Her investigations incorporate the use of corpora and human participants. Click here or see below to access Professor Faulkner’s most recent articles:

• Faulkner, T. (2024). Mood and modal concord in Spanish directive clauses: An update to Faulkner (2022b). Borealis – An International Journal of Hispanic Linguistics, 13(1), 149–174.

• Faulkner, T. (2023b). Subjunctive ‘Were’ vs. Indicative ‘Was’ Wish-Clauses: Why the Use of ‘Was’ Should Not Be Considered “Incorrect”. International Journal of English Linguistics, 13(6).

• Faulkner, T. (2023a). Don’t Cry Over Spilled or Spilt Milk?: Nuanced Semanto-pragmatic Differences Between -ed and -t in English. International Journal of English Linguistics, 13(3).

• Faulkner, T. (2022c). Mood and Modal Concord in Spanish Directive Clauses. Borealis: An International Journal of Hispanic Linguistics, 11(3).

• Faulkner, T. (2023 – print) (2022b online). On the Use of the Subjunctive with English Hope. International Journal of English Linguistics, 13(1).

• Faulkner, T. (2022a). The Two Spanish Subjunctives: The Required and Default Subjunctives. Borealis: An International Journal of Hispanic Linguistics, 11(1).

• Faulkner, T. (2021b). A Systematic Investigation of the Spanish Subjunctive: Mood Variation in Subjunctive Clauses. Dissertation.

• Faulkner, T. (2021a). Prescriptively or Descriptively Speaking?: How Information Quality Influences Mood Variation in Spanish Emotive-factive Clauses. Pragmatics, 31(3).

Although most of her research has centered on Spanish or Romance, Dr. Faulkner also does work on English and Jamaican Creole; please stay tuned for updates.

For more information on her research, teaching experience, or interests, please visit the links in the menu section above. If you would like to contact Dr. Faulkner, please use the following link: Contact. She is always looking to collaborate! Additionally, Professor Faulkner is also very active on Twitter, so please feel free to give her a follow!