PhD Candidate

Medieval Studies

Contact Information

Email: laur@unm.edu

Biography

Laurie recently completed a Master’s degree in Linguistics at the University of New Mexico in which she examined the function and distribution of historical present in medieval narratives as a means of expressing cultural identity and stance. She is continuing her research into narrative stance as expressed through grammatical elements and other constructions under the Medieval Studies PhD Program.

In her thesis, Medieval Narratives as Meta-constructions Used in Creating Socio-cultural Identity, she examined the linguistic aspects of historical present in narratives from Old Norse, Old French, and Old English, and this involved broadening the cognitive linguistic notion of construction. She will be investigating narrative stance and culture construction through clusters of grammatical elements and nested constructions, and examining the grammatical tools involved in narrative expressions of historical, cultural, and social perspectives.

Her recent conference presentations, ‘From Persona to Meta-Persona through Humor and Temporal Marking’ (at the Pacific Association of Ancient and Modern Languages Conference in San Diego, California) and ‘The Use of Medieval Narratives as Meta-constructions Creating Socio-cultural Identity’ (given at the International Conference on Construction Grammar in Paris, France) both deal with aspects of the relationship between culture and the grammatical patterns of literary style. She will analyze medieval narratives and work to develop an innovative approach to their structure and societal function. This research engages her life-long interests in language, linguistics, art, culture, and history.