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Grant Goodall

Professor and Director of Linguistics Language Program

Grant Goodall received his B.A. from UCLA and his Ph.D. from UC San Diego, with additional studies at MIT and UNAM (Mexico). His primary research area is syntax, focusing on the nature of syntactic representations and dependencies, the way these interact with other cognitive processes, and the way they are acquired over the lifespan. He has worked on English, Spanish and Chinese, among many other languages, and he has been at the forefront of using experimental techniques for the study of sentence acceptability. At UC San Diego, he directs both the Experimental Syntax Lab and the Linguistics Language Program. He has a longstanding interest in how linguistic research can improve people’s lives, particularly in the area of second language learning. Before joining the faculty at UC San Diego, he taught at the University of Texas at El Paso and held visiting positions at the Université de Genève (Switzerland) and the Universidad Nacional del Comahue (Argentina).