Kansas State University

Assistant Professor of Spanish 
and Spanish Language Program 
Coordinator (Levels 100-300)

EH 005
785-532-1924
mcopple@ksu.edu

Working from a usage-based perspective, her research focuses primarily on Spanish linguistics in the areas of grammaticalization, language variation, language change, and sociolinguistics.  She is currently researching patterns of use in intensification strategies in Spanish oral discourse.    

Dr. Copple also works with the Kansas State University Partnerships with the English Departments at Kabul University and Balkh University in Afghanistan.  As part of this project, she has twice enjoyed traveling to Afghanistan to participate in teacher training, teaching graduate workshops in teaching language through literature, second language acquisition theory, the teaching of advanced reading comprehension, and research methods.

Education
Ph.D., Spanish and Portuguese: Hispanic Linguistics, with Second Language Acquisition Theory and Pedagogy (minor).  University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico; August 2009.

M.A., Spanish (Literature), Kansas State University, Manhattan, Kansas; May 1998

B.S., Elementary Education (Spanish), Kansas State University, Manhattan, Kansas; May 1992

Dissertation
A Diachronic Study of the Spanish Perfect(ive):  Tracking the Constraints on a Grammaticalizing Construction. 
Thesis Director:  Rena Torres-Cacoullos
Committee Members:  Melissa Axelrod, Scott Schwenter, Catherine Travis

Courses Taught at K-State

Peer Reviewed Publications 
Copple, M. T.  (forthcoming).  A diachronic study of the Spanish perfect(ive):  frequency of use and language change.  In Monique Dufresne, Fernande Dupuis and Etleva Vocaj (Eds.),Selected Proceedings of the 18th International Conference on Historical Linguistics (in press).  Philadelphia:  John Benjamins. 

Presentations at Professional Meetings
Following the path:  how temporal reference reflects semantic change.  December 2009.  Current Evolutions of Romance Tenses.  Aston University.  Birmingham, United Kingdom. 

Tracking the constraints on a grammaticalizing perfect(ive).  October 2009.  NWAV 38, The 38th Annual Meeting of New Ways of Analyzing Variation.  University of Ottawa.  Ottawa, Canada.   

Los adverbios temporales y el Pretérito Perfecto gramaticalizado. September 2009.  VIII Congreso Internacional de Historia de la Lengua Española.  Universidad de Santiago de Compostela.  Santiago de Compostela, Spain. 

Muy bueno y bien bonito: Spanish intensifier use in predicative constructions.  September 2009.  LASSO 2009: Linguistic Association of the Southwest.  Brigham Young University.  Provo, Utah.

A diachronic study of the Spanish perfect(ive):  frequency of use and language change.  August 2007.  18th International Conference on Historical Linguistics, Workshop on Spanish Historical Linguistics and Dialectology.  Université du Québec à Montréal, Montréal, Canada.

The role of frequency in L2 Spanish speakers’ processing of input.  November 2006.  The High Desert Linguistics Society’s 7th Linguistics Conference.  University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico.  (With Jenny Dumont)

A diachronic study of the Spanish perfect(ive).  November 2005.  Hispanic Linguistic Symposium and the Conference on the Acquisition of Spanish and Portuguese as First and Second Languages.  Pennsylvania State University, State College, Pennsylvania. 

Speaker gender and narrative style in El Salvadoran testimonios.  September 2004.  A Linguistic Gumbo: Language Variation, Language Contact and Language Change:  Linguistic Association of the Southwest (LASSO) XXXIII.  New Orleans, Louisiana.

Publications related to Service
Corum, R. & Copple, M.T.  (2009).  Reviving English: Kansas State University's Afghanistan Initiative.  In F. A. Einhellig (Ed.), Proceedings of the 65th Annual Meeting of the Midwestern Association of Graduate Schools, in press.   Available from:  http://associations.missouristate.edu/mags/Proceedings.htm