Brianna Butera
Assistant Professor of Spanish; Basic Language Program Director
901-678-2506201B Jones Hallbjbutera@memphis.eduAbout Dr. Butera
Dr. Butera is an Assistant Professor of Spanish at the University of Memphis. She specializes in pronunciation variation across the Spanish-speaking world and measures language variability using acoustic analysis in order to track language evolution through time. She also investigates acoustic variation of languages in contact, such as Afro-Peruvian Spanish. Dr. Butera brings this research into the classroom to help students learn about and appreciate language variation and practice a native-like accent. In addition to undergraduate Spanish courses in composition and conversation, Dr. Butera teaches graduate courses in The Evolution of Spanish, Spanish in the US and Applied Linguistics. Her primary areas of interest include Language Variation & Change, Phonetics/Phonology, Second Language Acquisition, Heritage Speaker Acquisition, Language Pedagogy, and Applied Linguistics.
Education
B.A. (2011) University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, Spanish & French
M.A. (2013) University of Wisconsin-Madison, Spanish Linguistics & Literatures
Ph.D. (2018) University of Wisconsin-Madison, Spanish Linguistics