Noortje de Weers

PhD Student

Bachelor of Arts, summa cum laude - University College Roosevelt
MA, cum laude - English language & culture, Leiden University
MEd, cum laude - Leiden University

Senior Supervisor: Dr. Murray Munro

Sociolinguistics (language attitudes) & Sociophonetics

 

"I chose to study in the city of Vancouver because it is one of the most linguistically diverse cities in the world, which makes it the perfect playground for a sociolinguist!"

Noortje de Weers was born, raised, and educated in the Netherlands. After studying linguistics, history, and rhetoric during her undergraduate studies, she went on to earn two Masters degrees and has since been teaching English and English literature to high school aged children in bilingual schools.

Early in her studies Noortje took an undergraduate course called, simply, "Sociolinguistics" and enjoyed it so much that she decided she would eventually pursue a PhD in linguistics. When Noortje was searching for a PhD program, the most important criterion she considered was having the freedom to craft her own research proposal in sociolinguistics; universities in the Netherlands generally have pre-defined research projects and Noortje wanted to tailor her PhD program to her own preferences. Noortje recognized SFU as having one of the largest and most diverse linguistics programs in Canada, and was pleased to find a supervisor, Dr. Murray Munro, having research interests closely aligned with her own.  Noortje is currently investigating the relationship between ethnicity and speech perception. 

Read more in this profile on the FASS website. 

Publications:

De Weers, N. (2013, November). Language as patchwork, mirror or mongrel? Babel: the Language Magazine, 5, 36−40.

De Weers, N. (2014, August). Ha! Gayyy!: A brief etymology of the word gay. Babel: the Language Magazine, 8, 39−41.

De Weers, N & van Houwelingen, A. (2014, Fall). CLIL: Now also available for English teachers. CLIL Magazine, 12-13. http://clilcoursesonline.com/clil-magazine-pdf-downloads/