Title

Women, words and wrestling: A CADS approach to women's representation in the UFC

About Amber Rynearson

Prior to SFU, I graduated from Western Oregon University in 2020, where I completed my BA in English Studies, with a concentration in linguistics and a TEFL certificate. While in undergrad, I spent time working as a research assistant under Dr. Robert Troyer, mainly assisting with corpus compilation and qualitative data analysis of his linguistic landscape research. I also worked with international students in the university’s English tutoring center and used those skills while volunteering in ESOL classes at Portland Community College. 

Throughout my time at SFU, I worked in Dr. Taboada's Discourse Processing Lab, studying the use of metaphors and other figurative language in online comments of current events, with the hope that findings from this project can be used to later train LLMs (Large Language Models) to better detect hate speech and negative rhetoric online. I have presented this research at RaAM (Researching and Applying Metaphor) and will present my own thesis research at the upcoming CLA (Canadian Linguistic Association) conference in June. 

Exam committee

• Dr. Maite Taboada (Supervisor) 
• Dr.  Sara Ng (Committee Member) 
• Dr. Rachelle Vessey (External examiner, Carleton University)