Amber Lubera

About Amber Lubera

I am a Ph.D. in Linguistics. I am originally from Las Vegas, Nevada. I received my BA in English (with a focus in linguistics) from the University of Nevada, Reno in 2016. I received my MA in Linguistics and a Graduate Certificate in Computational Social Sciences from UArizona in 2020. My research interests include factors that impact second language learning, especially for complex morphophonological patterns, including the effects of implicit vs. explicit instruction and the effect of linguistic education on second language learning. I am also passionate about science literacy and community engagement. Additionally, I work with the Iranian Linguistics Group here at UArizona. We are currently working on documenting several Iranian languages including Ossetian, Pashto, Balochi, Persian, and Sorani Kurdish. Finally, I work as an undergraduate mentor with Dr. Diane Ohala. I find great joy in helping to guide and support undergraduate students in their pursuit of a linguistic education. 

Areas of Study

Phonology, Morphophonlogy, Second Language Acquisition, Metaphonology 

Projects

Linguistic Education and Second Language Acquisition - University of Arizona (PI) 

A set of artificial Language experiments examinign the effect of linguistic training on

learning of complex morphophonological patterns implicitly 

Language Instructor Beliefs Regarding the Benefits of Linguistic Training

A survey based investigation of the beliefs language instructors hold regarding

the benefits of linguistic training and linguistic knowledge in the language learning

classroom. It additionally probes their implementation (or lack thereof) of

linguistic training or linguistics knowledge in curriculum development and as an

educational tool.

Research Assistant on Iranian Linguistics NSF Grant - University of Arizona

Primary Investigators: Dr. Mike Hammond, Dr. Simin Karimi, Dr. Heidi Harley

Eliciting and analyzing language data from five languages: Pashto, Balochi, Sorani, Ossetian, and Persian. Work includes analyzing the sound systems of these languages with the goal of contributing to a comprehensive and updated grammars on these languages. Includes creating and managing a corpus of linguistic data for each language. 

Grammatical Gender and Localized Word Entropy - University of Arizona (PI)

Qualifying paper examining the relationship between word entropy and grammatical gender categorization in French and German using a CELEX and BRULEX

Areas of Study

Phonology, Morphophonlogy, Second Language Acquisition, Metaphonology 

Selected Publications

Linguistic Training Improves Implicit Language Learning

Lubera, Amber. Under Review for Publication. (2021)

Sensitivity to Complex Onsets in Iron Ossetian

Lubera, Amber. Under Review for Publication. (2021)