Professional Bio

Areas of Interest: L2 Writing Development, Corpus Linguistics, Multilingualism, Slavic Linguistics

Sonja Haakonsen is a Ph.D. student in Applied Linguistics. Her current research interests are in L2 writing development, particularly in highly specialized fields and contexts, corpus linguistics, multilingualism, and Slavic linguistics. Previous research includes a corpus-based syntactic analysis of L2 academic writing, and the potential applications of free-writing in Bulgarian university classrooms. Prior to studying at Penn State she taught at the University of Veliko Tarnovo, in Veliko Tarnovo, Bulgaria, through the Fulbright program for two years.