Alumnus Spotlight
A Strong Foundation for Research and Studies in Linguistics
Ty Gill was a member of the Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors College, and wrote his senior thesis on Code-Switching Practices in the Foreign Language Classroom: Instructor Nativeness and Students’ Perceptions.
Gill received an Honors College fellowship to study abroad in Valencia, Spain, then a Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship to Asturias, a region of northwest Spain. While on Fulbright, he taught primary and secondary school students English as well as about American culture and food. Before he left, Gill said, “this experience will provide me with both sides of the equation that I will be able to use in future research. Moreover, the cultural knowledge will allow me to see how all parts of Spain are drastically different, and I can use this knowledge when I begin pursuing graduate education in linguistics.”
He earned a MA in Linguistic Theory and Typology in 2022 from the University of Kentucky. Gill also earned a master’s degree program in Linguistics and Dialectology at the Université Jean Moulin in Lyon, France. He is currently enrolled in a doctoral program in linguistics at the University of Washington.