1984
1982-1984
Student Teaching Assistant at UNSJ (Argentina)
I started my academic career when I was a young student in Argentina.
I passed a competitive exam within the context of a public opening for the position of Student Teaching Assistant, something that is very common in that country, and which allows academically-oriented students to start their career earlier on in life than in other countries. This is where I had the pleasrue of working with Professors Maria del Carmen Iñiguez de Bustos and Susana Waasaf in the subjects of English Phonetics I and English Phonetics II respectively. I will always be grateful to them for having helped me not only to perfect my pronunciation of the English language, but also to appreciate and love the field of linguistics in general.
It was at this time of my life when I decided that I wanted to become a linguist.
Back then, I was very familiar with Transformational Grammar, and in the third of the these subjects we were very enthusiastic about revealing both the deep and surface structures of every sentence in both the English and the Spanish Language.
From 1984 to 1987, I completed my Master's Degree in Applied Linguistics at the UNAM, in Mexico D.F. (See Degrees). Upon completing my studies, I was offered a position back in Argentina as Associate Professor. My work involved both teaching and research and was focused around three different areas: Phonetics, English Grammar and Contrastive Structures of English and Spanish.
1987-1990
Adjunct Professor at UNSJ (Argentina)
We used enormous (foldable) sheets of paper to be able to include the trees with all the possible subordinate clauses the main clause could contain!
In 1990 I got into tenure track and became Associate Professor at the UNSJ, but very soon after I moved to Spain where I started and completed my PhD studies (1992-1996) at the Complutense University of Madrid (See Degrees).
UCM
1997-2001
Visiting Scholar and Lecturer at Georgetown University, Washington D.C., USA
My research at the time concentrated on the phenomenon of verbal irony (as an extension of my doctoral thesis work) as well as that of linguistic politeness.
As a Visiting Scholar, I carried out post-doctoral studies and research in the Linguistics Department of Georgetown University. It was there where I met and sometimes collaborated with well-known discourse analysts, such as Deborah Tannen, Deborah Schiffrin or Heidi Hamilton, and was also able to learn from different lectures and courses given by invited linguistics ‘celebrities’, such as William Labov or Robin Lakoff.
As a lecturer, I was hired to teach Spanish language and linguistics at the Spanish and Portuguese Department, where I had the pleasure of working with a group of Spanish linguists led by Ronald Leow and Cristina Sanz. In addition, It was an interesting and exciting highlight to have Nobel Prize winner Mario Vargas Llosa in the office next door to mine!
After almost five years in the USA, I found myself crossing the Atlantic again, now in the opposite direction.
2001-2002
"Profesor Asociado" at Complutense University of Madrid (Spain)
Back in Spain, I was hired again as a Professor at Complutense University of Madrid in October 2001. However, very soon after this, there was an opening for a tenure track position at the UNED (Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia) in English linguistics, which I earned in April 2002 after participating in a public contest with several candidates.
1987
1993-1997
‘Profesora Asociada’ at Complutense University of Madrid (Spain)/Tutor and Coordinator of the Master in English Applied Linguistics
Workwise, in Spain I had to start all over again, but luckily, it did not take me too long to get an academic position in this country.
At Complutense University, I could finally could return to Academia, where at the time I was also carrying out my doctoral studies (for the first three years). I was hired to teach different subjects simultaneously, namely English Language (at different levels), American English, and Methodology of language teaching. At the same time, I was offered a position of Student Tutor, Teacher and later Coordinator, within the English Applied Linguistics Master's Program, where I mainly worked with Professor JoAnne Nef. I learned a great deal about managing an academic program from JoAnne, and I am grateful to her for having given me that opportunity. While at Complutense University, I also taught Research Methods and English Phonetics, and we formed part of and managed the Master’s Linguistic Circle, whose main activities had to do with inviting international well-known linguists to give talks and share their scholarship with us and our students. It was a very enriching period of my life, but after finishing my doctoral studies, the winds steered me back again towards the American continent for some time.
2000
2003
2002-2017
(Tenured) Senior Lecturer (or Associate Professor in American terms) in Linguistics. UNED, Madrid (Spain)
Shortly after becoming an interim Associate Professor at the UNED, I earned a permanent position and tenure in March 2003, after I was the winning candidate in the ‘Oposición’ exams
(a major public contest among qualified professors).
From then on, I have worked hard and non-stop for many years in both my teaching and research commitments at the UNED. Even though my areas of specialization are Pragmatics and Discourse Analysis, I also formed part of the Instrumental English teaching team for some years, both within the Licenciatura and the Grado programs. At present I teach only Pragmatics and Discourse Analysis, both at the Undergraduate and Graduate levels, and the doctoral theses I supervise are also within those fields. I have written several books and scientific articles (see Publications) during these years, and I have also conducted some research projects funded by the Spanish Government (see Research Projects and Activities).
2015
2018-present
Full professor (Chair) of Linguistics (Pragmatics and Discourse Analysis)
I consider this to be the achievement of a lifetime, after so many years of hard work and dedication to university teaching and research. Believe me, this is not an easy thing to achieve in Spain.
On February 27, 2018, I was fortunate to obtain Full Professorship after sitting for the “Oposición” exam.
2018
From then onwards, I have continued developing my academic activity at the UNED, also working and researching in association with Professors from other universities in Spain and the world. This is one of the pleasures of academia: we get to know many and various expert Professors from all over this planet, from whom we learn so much and who therefore become our ‘informal teachers’ even if we are not their ‘official students’. It is a two-way road, but I can only speak for what I know I have received from them, for which I am so grateful.
Management positions
I have held several management positions at the UNED along many years, the most relevant being the following:
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(2003-2007) - Academic Secretary of the Foreign Languages Department
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(2007-2011) - Coordinator of the Degree in English Studies
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(2011-2013) - Vice-Dean of Academic Affairs and European Space
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(2013-2016) - Vice-Dean of Research
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(2012-2016) - Coordinator of the Ph.D. Program in Philology.
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(2018-2020) - Vice-Rector of Undergraduate and Post-Graduate Studies
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(2020-2022) - Vice-Rector of Internationalization
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(2022-present) - Vice-Rector of Internationalization and Multilingualism
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(2022-present) - Preseident of the Spanish Association of Discourse Linguistics
(ALD - https://lingdiscurso.org/)
2020
2022