Mary E. Hughes
Senior Lecturer
Dr. Mary Hughes is a senior lecturer in language education at BU Wheelock College of Education & Human Development. Her research and teaching interests are in linguistics, first- and second-language acquisition, language education, and minority language revitalization.
Dr. Hughes’ second-language acquisition research focuses on instructing English language learners on complex grammatical structures that are found in the academic language of content-area texts. She has presented this research in national and international forums, such as MATSOL and TESOL. Her first language acquisition research focuses on the interaction of syntactic and discourse-pragmatic effects in the acquisition of reference in an attempt to shed light on the early development of referential choice in dyadic conversation. Her research interests include the integration of competence-based and usage-based linguistic approaches in order to show the range of factors at work in L1 acquisition. This research has been presented at international conferences and published in the Journal of Pragmatics and Lingua.
Dr. Hughes also teaches in the Department of Speech, Language & Hearing Sciences in Sargent College at Boston University. She has over 15 years of experience in teaching undergraduate and graduate students, where she has taught subjects as varied as developmental and academic writing, English as a Second Language, Irish language and linguistics, theoretical and applied linguistics, and first- and second-language acquisition theory and methodology. She is also an active member of the Finance & Audit Committee on the MATSOL board of directors.
Recent News
Education
PhD, Applied Linguistics, Boston University
MA, Linguistics, Temple University
BA, Communications, Temple University
Courses
SED LS 565: Applied Linguistics: Language & Linguistics Survey
SED LS 560: Introduction to Language and Language Acquisition
SAR SH 524: Language Acquisition
Selected Publications
Allen, S.E.M., Hughes, M.E., & Skarabela, B. (2015). The role of cognitive accessibility in children’s referential choice. In The Acquisition of Reference. L. Serratrice & S. Allen (eds.). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Hughes, M.E. & Allen, S.E.M. (2015). Competing motivations in children’s omission of subjects? The interaction between verb finiteness and referent accessibility. In Competing Motivations on Grammar and Usage. B. MacWhinney, A. Malchukov, & E. Moravcsik (eds.). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Hughes, M.E. & Allen, S.E.M. (2014). The incremental effect of discourse-pragmatic sensitivity on referential choice in the acquisition of a first language. Lingua 155, 43-61.
Hughes, M.E. & Allen, S.E.M. (2013). The effect of individual discourse-pragmatic features on referential choice in child English. Journal of Pragmatics 56, 15-30.
Allen, S., Skarabela, B., & Hughes, M.E. (2008). Using corpora to examine discourse effects in syntax. In Corpora in Language Acquisition Research: History, methods, perspectives. H. Behrens (ed.), Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Hughes, M.E. & Allen, S. (2006). A discourse-pragmatic analysis of subject omission in child English. Proceedings of the 30th Annual Boston University Conference on Language Development (BUCLD), Vol. 1, 2006. Edited David Bamman, Tatiana Magnitskaia, and Colleen Zaller; pp. 293-304. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press.
Selected Presentations
Hughes, M. E. & Latham Keh, M. (2017, January). The Language of Quantitative Reasoning. Workshop session at SEQuEL 2017: Southeastern-Massachusetts Quantitative Literacy & Engagement Meeting. Bridgewater State University, Bridgewater, Massachusetts.
Hughes, M.E. & Latham Keh, M. (2016, April). Grammar Toolkit: Instructing Complex Syntax in Authentic Academic Texts. Workshop session at Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages Conference (TESOL 2016). Baltimore, Maryland.
Hughes, M.E. & Latham Keh, M. (2015, September). Instructing Complex Syntax in Authentic Academic Texts. Invited workshop presented for K-8 ELL specialists in the Public Schools of Brookline. Brookline, Massachusetts.
Latham Keh, M. & Hughes, M.E. (2015, June). Identifying and Instructing Language Forms in Content Area Texts. Workshop presented at the annual meeting of the Massachusetts Educators of English Language Learners 2015 Conference (MATSOL). Framingham, Massachusetts.
Hughes, M.E., & Allen, S. (2014, July). An investigation into the relative strength of six discourse-pragmatic features in the acquisition and use of referential forms in child English. Paper presented at the Thirteenth Congress of the International Association for the Study of Child Language (IASCL), Amsterdam, Netherlands.
Sullivan, G. & Hughes, M.E. (2012, June). Te Reo Māori language revitalization: Examining criteria to evaluate minority language vitality. Paper presented at the Fourth Annual Meeting of the Native American & Indigenous Studies Association (NAISA), Montville, Connecticut.
Hughes, M.E. & Allen, S. (2011, July). Competing Constraints: A Comparison of Grammatical and Discourse Pragmatic Accounts in the Acquisition of Referential Choice. Poster presented at the Twelfth Congress of the International Association for the Study of Child Language (IASCL), Montreal, Quebec.
Allen, S.E.M. & Hughes, M.E. (2011, May). The incremental effect of discourse-pragmatic sensitivity in subject omission in child English. Paper presented at the International Conference on Cognitive Science, Tehran, Iran.
Hughes, M.E. & Allen, S. (2011, April). A comparison of discourse-pragmatic and grammatical accounts: The combined effects of accessibility and verb finiteness on the acquisition of referential choice. Poster presented at the Society for Research in Child Development (SRCD) Biennial Meeting, Denver, Colorado.
Hughes, M.E. & Allen, S. (2010, November). Competing constraints in the acquisition of referential choice: A comparison of grammatical and discourse-pragmatic accounts. Paper presented at the Conference on Competing Motivations at the Max Plank Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany.
Hughes, M.E. & Allen, S. (2010, November). The contribution of grammatical and discourse-pragmatic effects to the acquisition of referential choice in English. Poster presented at the 35th Annual Boston University Conference on Language Development (BUCLD), Boston, Massachusetts.
Hughes, M.E. & Allen, S. (2009, April). The effect of discourse-pragmatics on the development of referential choice in English. Paper presented at the Society for Research in Child Development (SRCD) Biennial Meeting, Denver, Colorado.
Skarabela, B., Hughes, M.E., & Allen, S. (2008, July). Developmental effects of discourse-pragmatics and social cognition on argument realization: A comparison of child English and child Inuktitut. Paper presented at the Eleventh Congress of the International Association for the Study of Child Language (IASCL), Edinburgh, Scotland.
Hughes, M.E. & Allen, S. (2008, July). Child-directed speech and the development of referential choice in child English. Poster presented at the Eleventh Congress of the International Association for the Study of Child Language (IASCL), Edinburgh, Scotland.
Hughes, M.E. & Allen, S. (2007, November). A developmental study of referential choice in child English. Paper presented at the 32nd Annual Boston University Conference on Language Development (BUCLD), Boston, Massachusetts.
Hughes, M.E. & Allen, S. (2005, November). A discourse-pragmatic analysis of subject omission in child English. Paper presented at the 30th Annual Boston University Conference on Language Development (BUCLD), Boston, Massachusetts.
Hughes, M.E. & Allen, S. (2005, July). A discourse-pragmatic account of argument omission in early child English. Paper presented at the Tenth Congress of the International Association for the Study of Child Language (IASCL), Berlin, Germany.