Katherine Yaw

Assistant Professor of Applied Linguistics

Dr. Kate Yaw (she/her/hers) is an Assistant Professor of Applied Linguistics in the Department of World Languages at USF. Her research investigates the role of listeners in successful oral communication, with an emphasis on perception and production of speech, language attitudes, and cognitive processing of L2-accented speech. She also focuses on research methodology and quantitative research ethics.

Kate’s work has appeared in scholarly journals such as Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, Psychology of Language and Communication, and Language Teaching, as well as in edited volumes like Linguistic Discrimination in US Higher Education (Clements & Petray-Covey), When We Hear Them: Tools to Attune Teachers’ Ears to Voices of Language-Diverse Learners (Silverman Andrews & Tomlin), and Race, Racism, and Antiracism in Language Education (Kubota & Motha).

At USF, Kate is a core faculty member for the MA Linguistics/ESL program and the PhD program in Linguistics & Applied Language Studies. She teaches courses such as LIN 6081 (Intro to Graduate Studies in Linguistics), LIN 6675 (Grammatical Structure of American English), and LIN 6932 (Perception and Production of L2 Speech).

Kate received her Ph.D. in Applied Linguistics from Northern Arizona University (2022), her MA in TESOL from the American University in Washington, DC (2008), and her B.A. in Anthropology and Spanish from the University of Pittsburgh (2005).