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Department ofModern Languages and Literatures

Abel Cruz Flores

Abel Cruz

Assistant Professor

Abel Cruz is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Modern Languages & Literatures at Santa Clara University. His interest of research is general linguistic theory and bilingualism, particularly code-switching and bilingual linguistic structures more generally. His empirical strategy involves analyzing code-switched speech via corpora and psycholinguistic methodologies. Professor Cruz's research also aims to glean knowledge with implications for the teaching of Heritage Spanish and Spanish as a second language. He has a long-standing interest in immigration policy and has written many Op-Eds on this subject. He received his Ph.D. from Georgetown University in 2021.

Professor Cruz has been teaching Spanish since the first year of his graduate studies at different institutions and plans to teach a variety of classes on Hispanic linguistics and bi-multilingualism at SCU.

Research Interests

  • Bi-/multilingualism
  • Linguistic Theory
  • Code-switching
  • Heritage Grammars
  • Morphosyntax of Gender
  • Heritage & Second Language Teaching
Courses
  • Spanish for International Relations
  • Bilingualism
  • Hispanic linguistics
  • Spanish in the U.S.
  • Spanish for heritage speakers
  • Language and social justice.
Publications

Selected Publications:

  • Cruz, A. (2022). Linguistics factors modulating gender assignment in Spanish–English bilingual speech. Bilingualism: Language and Cognitionhttps://doi.org/10.1017/S1366728922000839

  • Cruz, A. (2021). A syntactic approach to gender assignment in Spanish-English bilingual speech. Glossa: a journal of general linguistics. https://www.glossa-journal.org/article/id/5878/

  • Cruz, A. (2020). The seem verb-class paradigm and restructuring in Romance. In A. Morales-Front, M. Ferreira, R. P. Leow, & C. Sanz (Eds.), Luso-Hispanic Linguistics: Current Issues and New Directions (pp. 98–117). John Benjamins Publishing Company.

  • Cruz, A. (2018). The past persists into the present: a multivariate analysis of Present Perfect in Southern Arizona Spanish. In J. MacDonald (Ed.), Contemporary Trends in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics (pp. 169–189). John Benjamins Publishing Company.

  • Cruz, A. (2016). The Spanish discourse marker o sea in the speech of bilinguals from Southern Arizona. Divergencias. Revista de estudios lingüísticos y literarios, 14(2), 70–81.
In the News

May 23, 2022

Cruz Flores was among the first recipients of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program in 2012. On May 19th, he earned his Ph.D. at Georgetown.