Professional Bio

Meredith Doran is an applied linguist with over 25 years of experience teaching and researching sociolinguistics, language ideologies, second language acquisition and pedagogy, language teacher education, and pragmatics.  Her sociolinguistic work includes a focus on linguistic hybridity and identity in diglossic societies, including Kreyòl-French literature in Haiti, and the use of Verlan, a youth sociolect, in multilingual France.  She has held multiple positions related to second language learning and international education at Penn State, serving as a faculty member in French and Applied Linguistics, as faculty director of an education abroad program at the Centre de Linguistique Appliquée in France, as coordinator of the International Teaching Assistant Preparation Program, and as research associate in the Center for Language Acquisition.  She is currently director of EPPIC (the English for Professional Purposes Intercultural Center), a research and service center that works closely with multilingual students to promote skill and confidence in multiple genres of advanced academic and professional English. In this role, Meredith Doran analyzes discipline-specific academic communication (in fields including Economics, Medicine, Hospitality Management and Mechanical Engineering) to inform EPPIC’s research-based language support services.  Her work in EPPIC also involves outreach and consultation on multilingual DEIB with faculty, staff, advisers and students across the university community.

Select Recent Articles and Book Chapters

Douglas Fir Group. (2016).  A transdisciplinary framework for SLA in a multilingual world.  The Modern Language Journal, 100 (S1), 19-47.

Golombek, P. & Doran, M. (2014). Unifying cognition, emotion, and activity in language teacher professional development.  Teaching and Teacher Education, 39, 102-111.

Doran, M. (2007).  Alternative French, alternative identities:  Situating language in la Banlieue. Contemporary French & Francophone Studies (Sites), 11, 497-508.

Doran, M. (2004).  Negotiating  between Bourge and Racaille:  ‘Verlan’ as youth identity practice in suburban Paris.  In A. Pavlenko & A. Blackledge (Eds.), Negotiation of identities in multilingual contexts (pp. 93-124).  Clevedon, UK:  Multilingual Matters.