Arlene Clachar

Dr. Arlene Clachar is an Emerita Professor, University of Miami.  She received her Ph.D. in Linguistics from Columbia University, New York City.  Before joining the faculty at the University of Miami, she was a Professor at the Inter-American University of Puerto Rico.  She was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship for Turkey (August 1993-August 1994) where she taught Sociolinguistics, Applied Linguistics, and Morphosyntax in Second Language Acquisition. Her work in Turkey focused on Turkey’s accession to the European Union and its effect on the sociolinguistic landscape of English in Turkey.

Her research focuses on how interfaces of language – syntax-phonology, syntax-morphology, syntax-pragmatics – create challenges for English language learners. In order to do this, she draws on applied linguistics, sociolinguistics, and linguistic typology to understand the literacy development exhibited by native speakers of Spanish, English-lexified Creoles, French-lexified Creoles, and African-American English.

As a proficient writer and speaker of Spanish, she has published in international Spanish journals such as Hispania (The Johns Hopkins University Press), Revista Internacional de Lingüística Iberoamericana (Vervuert Editorial), and Spanish in Context (John Benjamins).  She has numerous sole-authored publications.  Her sole-authored research has appeared in leading language and linguistics journals such as  Applied Linguistics, TESOL Quarterly, Language Learning, Journal of Pragmatics,  Studies in the Linguistic Sciences and Language Sciences. 

Professor Clachar chaired the Committee on Public Policy of the Linguistic Society of America (2013-2014). She served as the Director of the Ph.D. Program in the Department of Teaching and Learning at the University of Miami (2013-2016). Dr. Clachar has been an invited speaker at many national and international conferences as well as a frequent presenter at national and international conferences.