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Sophia Skoufaki

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Associate Supervisor in Applied Linguistics, University of Essex

How do university students learn English academic words? What do they know about polysemous English academic words? How do English language teachers assess their students’ writing for coherence? These questions are the main impetus of my current research.

I did my undergraduate studies in English Studies (i.e., English Literature and Linguistics) at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece. I then did my postgraduate studies (MPhil, PhD) in Applied Linguistics at the University of Cambridge.

I work as an Associate Supervisor in the Department of Language and Linguistics at the University of Essex, UK. I previously worked as a Lecturer in Applied Linguistics at the same university. I am also the External Examiner for the MA Applied Linguistics course at Canterbury Christ Church University, UK.

Before joining the University of Essex, I worked as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at National Taiwan University. I was a member of the team which created and conducted research on the LTTC English Learner Corpus. Previously, I designed and taught theoretical and applied linguistics courses first as a Visiting Lecturer and then as a Lecturer in Linguistics at the University of Greenwich. I have taught blended-learning courses in linguistics and other social sciences as an Associate Lecturer at the Open University.

Experience

  • –present
    Associate supervisor, University of Essex
  • 2010–2020
    Lecturer, University of Essex
  • 2010–2012
    Associate lecturer, The Open University
  • 2008–2010
    Postdoctoral research fellow, National Taiwan University
  • 2007–2008
    Lecturer, University of Greenwich

Education

  • 2006 
    University of Cambridge, PhD/Applied Linguistics

Publications

  • 2022
    Applied Linguistics Review, Spanish-L1 EFL learners’ recognition knowledge of English academic vocabulary: the role of cognateness, word frequency and length.
  • 2021
    Botinis, A. (Ed.), ExLing 2020. Proceedings of the 11th International Conference of Experimental Linguistics, Athens, Greece, 12-14 October 2020., Academic vocabulary in an English for Academic Purposes course.
  • 2021
    H. Mohebbi & C. Coombe (Eds.), Research questions in Language Education and Applied Linguistics: A Reference Guide., English academic vocabulary teaching and learning.
  • 2021
    Journal of English for Academic Purposes, Exploring polysemy in the Academic Vocabulary List: A lexicographic approach.
  • 2021
    I. Galantomos (Ed.), L2 figurative language teaching: theory and practice. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. , Guessing at the Meaning of Unknown L2 Idioms: Applied Cognitive Linguistic Perspectives.
  • 2021
    English for Specific Purposes, Academic vocabulary in an EAP course: Opportunities from incidental learning from printed teaching materials developed in-house.
  • 2020
    Text & Talk, Rhetorical Structure Theory and coherence break identification.
  • 2017
    Journal of English for Academic Purposes, Review of Academic Vocabulary in Learner Writing: From Extraction to Analysis. by Magali Paquot. NY/London: Continuum, 2010.
  • 2013
    D. Wible & M. Y. Li (Eds.), Second Language Reading and Writing: Investigations into Chinese and English.Taoyuan: National Central University Press., Devising a discourse error tagging system for an English learner corpus.
  • 2010
    Proceedings of the Twelfth Academic Forum on English Language Testing in Asia (Language Testing in Asia: Continuity, Innovation and Synergy), March, 5-6, 2010. Taipei: Language Training and Testing Center., Indexing second language vocabulary in the Intermediate GEPT.
  • 2010
    T.-E. Kao & Y. Lin (Eds.), A New Look at Language Teaching and Testing: English as Subject and Vehicle. Taipei: Language Training and Testing Center. , English Learner Corpus: Global Perspectives with an Asian Focus.
  • 2009
    International Journal of Computational Linguistics and Chinese Language Processing, An exploratory application of Rhetorical Structure Theory to detect coherence errors in L2 English writing: possible implications for Automated Writing Evaluation software.
  • 2009
    Proceedings of the 2009 International Conference on Applied Linguistics and Language Teaching. Taipei: Crane., Formulaic language and pauses in the speech of Taiwanese learners of English.
  • 2008
    Metaphor and Symbol, Investigating the Source of Idiom Transparency Intuitions.
  • 2008
    F. Boers & S. Lindstromberg (Eds.), Cognitive linguistic approaches to teaching vocabulary and phraseology. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter., Conceptual metaphoric meaning clues in two L2 idiom presentation methods.
  • 2007
    Language, Book notice of The Extent of the Literal: Metaphor, Polysemy and Theories of Concepts. by Marina Rakova. NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003.
  • 2005
    M. Mattheoudakis & A. Psaltou-Joycey (Eds.), Selected Papers on Theoretical and Applied Linguistics from the 16th International Symposium, April 11-13, 2003. Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki., Use of conceptual metaphors: A strategy for the guessing of an idiom’s meaning?
  • 2003
    D. Hall, T. Markopoulos, A. Salamoura, & S. Skoufaki (Eds.), CamLing 2003: Proceedings of the University of Cambridge First Postgraduate Conference in Language Research, 26 April 2003. Cambridge: Cambridge Institute of Language Research., Determinants of idiom-transparency intuitions.