Overview
Denise M. Osborne is a lecturer in Portuguese in the Department of Romance Studies. She earned her Ph.D. in Second Language Acquisition and Teaching from the University of Arizona (Tucson, AZ), and her M.A. in Applied Linguistics from Teachers College Columbia University (New York, NY). Her main area of interest is second language acquisition, especially second language phonetics, both perception and production. She is also interested in investigating linguistic and non-linguistic factors that may affect the acquisition of and/or engagement in learning Portuguese as a foreign language, such as language attitude and ethnic identities.
Her website is: https://deniseosborne.weebly.com/
Teaching Projects and Public Engagement
Upward Bound Program at Cornell - Instruction of Portuguese. July 2023-present.
Students create their own website with our activities in the Portuguese classes: 2023 (here) and 2024 (here).
Project Teletandem – Intercâmbio Virtual. Fall 2023-present.
An ongoing collaborative project with Professor Rodrigo N. de Queiroz (Universidade Federal de Rondônia, UNIR), where our students engage in various online tasks in Portuguese and English. More information (in Portuguese) here.
Project Encontro Bilíngue – Clube de Leitura Ubuntu. Fall 2021-present.
An ongoing collaborative project with Professor Valquíria P. Tenório (Instituto Federal de São Paulo, IFSP, campus Matão), where our students meet online to discuss books by Black authors and explore themes of identity and representation. More details in our website: here.
Eyes on Brazil. April 12-14, 2024.
A three-day events at Ithaca Commons (supported by Polaris & Crux), highlighting Afro and Indigenous Brazilian heritage and Culture. Along with my Cornell students, we gave a craft workshop to create Indigenous peteca, and a game about Capoeira to attendees (applied learning experience). The official website of the event is here. Our website of the event is here.
Research Focus
- L1 and L2 Portuguese phonetics (perception and production)
- Second language acquisition, learning and teaching
- Portuguese as a heritage language
- Perception of varieties of Brazilian Portuguese by L2 Portuguese learners
- Learners of Portuguese in a naturalistic environment
- Ethnic identities and their influence on motivational orientation in L2 Portuguese
Publications
Osborne, D. M. (2024). Integrating nonbinary language and trans knowledge practices in Romance language classes. In G. V. Silva & C. Soares (Eds.), Inclusiveness beyond the (non)binary in Romance languages. Research and classroom implementation (pp. 139–155). Routledge.
Osborne, D. M., & Simonet, M. (2021). "Foreign-Language Phonetic Development Leads to First-Language Phonetic Drift: Plosive Consonants in Native Portuguese Speakers Learning English as a Foreign Language in Brazil." Language, 6(3). https://doi.org/10.3390/languages6030112.
Osborne, D. M. (2021). "Perception of Portuguese Mid Vowels by Heritage Speakers of Brazilian Portuguese," Heritage Language Journal, 18(1), 1-32. doi: https://doi.org/10.1163/15507076-12340006
Osborne, D. (2015). "The L2 perception of initial English /h/ and /ɹ/ by Brazilian Portuguese learners of English." Journal of Second Language Pronunciation, 1(2), 157-180.
Book chapters
Osborne, D. (2016). Aplicação de Técnicas de Teatro no Ensino de PLE. In L. Gonçalves (Ed.), Fundamentos do Ensino de Português como Língua Estrangeira (pp. 263-278). Rosevelt, N.J., U.S.: BoaVista Press.
Osborne, D. (2015). Proposta de Análise de Provas de Desempenho nas Aulas de PLE. In R. Silveira and I. Emmel (Eds.), Um Retrato do Português como Segunda Língua (pp. 183–211). Campinas, São Paulo: Pontes.
