Irina Y. Dubinina

Associate Professor of Russian and Director of the Russian Language Program

Departments/Programs

German, Russian, and Asian Languages and Literature

Degrees

Bryn Mawr College, Ph.D.
Bryn Mawr College, M.A.
University of Alaska, Fairbanks, M.A.
University of Alaska, Anchorage, B.A.
Magadan International Pedagogical University, B.A.

Expertise

Heritage languages (Russian), bilingualism, bilingual code-switching
Second and heritage language
Heritage language pedagogy
Language teacher education

Profile

I have a deep professional and personal interest in bilingualism and, more specifically, in its particular type known as "heritage bilingualism" which describes speakers who grow up with two languages, but whose chronologically first language follows a divergent acquisitional path as a result of an interruption by the introduction of a societally dominant language. Such situations are common in immigrant families all over the world where the home language of a bilingual child becomes his or her heritage language which is much weaker than the dominant societal language of the host country. My work in the area of heritage bilingualism has focused on the production and comprehension of requests by speakers of heritage Russian in the U.S. I am also involved in an NSF-funded research project on children's language development (comparing data collected in Russia for monolingual children, and data collected in Germany and the USA for bilingual children: birch.pythonanywhere.com) and in research on word order patterns (discourse pragmatics) in oral narratives of adult heritage speakers of Russian.

Courses Taught

RUS	10a	Beginning Russian I
RUS	20b	Beginning Russian II
RUS	29b	Russian Language for Russian Speakers
RUS	30a	Intermediate Russian I
RUS	39b	Russian Language for Russian Speakers II
RUS	40b	Intermediate Russian II
RUS	105a	Russia Today: Advanced Language Skills through Contemporary Culture
RUS	106b	Advanced Russian Language through Film
RUS	115b	Topics in Russian Culture and Society
RUS	150b	Advanced Russian Language through 20th Century Literature
RUS	153a	Advanced Russian Language through 19th Century Literature
RUS	160b	Russian/Soviet Jews: Dual Identities in Text, Image and Music

Awards and Honors

Prize for Best Contribution to Language Pedagogy in 2020 (for the co-authored textbook "Rodnaya Rech': An Introductory Course for Heritage Learners of Russian") by the American Association of Teachers of Slavic and Eastern European Languages (2021)

Louis Dembitz Brandeis Prize for Excellence in Teaching (2012)

Doris Carland Prize for Outstanding Teaching (2007)

Scholarship

Dubinina, Irina. "Pragmatics in heritage languages." The Cambridge handbook of heritage languages and linguistics. Ed. S. Montrul & M. Polinsky. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020 (forthcoming)

Dengub, E., Dubininina, I., & J. Merrill (eds.). The Art of Teaching Russian. Georgetown University Press, 2020.

Dubinina, Irina. "Review." Rev. of Handbook of research and practice in heritage language education, by P.P. Trifonas & T. Aravossitas (Eds.). Heritage Language Journal. 2020

Kisselev, O., Dubinina, I., & Polinsky, M.. "From a linguistics lab to a language classroom: Toward research-based heritage language pedagogy." Heritage Frontiers in Education: Educational Psychology. The Home Language Goes to School: Heritage Languages in Classroom Learning Environments [Special Issue] edited by R. Slabakova, L. Dominguez, A. Martinez-Arbelaiz, & Tania. Leal (2020)

Dubinina, I. & O.Kisselev. Rodnaya Rech: An introductory course for heritage learners of Russian. Georgetown UP, 2019.

Dubinina, Irina Y. "Inclusive Pedagogies in Slavic Languages (II): Roundtable: Supporting Teachers in Creating an Inclusive Environment in a Russian Language Classroom." American Association of Teachers of Slavic and Eastern European Languages. New Orleans, LI. 2/9/2019.

Dubinina, Irina Y. "Integrative Performance Assessment: creating authentic tasks for assessment in beginner Russian classroom." American Association of Teachers of Slavic and Eastern European Languages, New Orleans, LI. 2/8/2019.

Dubinina, Irina Y. "Pedagogy Training for Graduate Students of Russian." Association for Slavic, European and Eurasian Studies. 12/7/2018.

Dubinina, Irina, ed. Russian Heritage Speakers: In memory of Olga Kagan [Special Issue]. Heritage Language Journal, 16(2) 2019.

Dubinina, Irina. "Making a Case for Explicit Instruction in a Heritage Classroom." Association of Slavic, European and Eurasian Studies, Boston, MA. 12/8/2019.

Dubinina, I. "A self-aware learner: motivating students’ language learning, performance, and persistence." Annual Conference of the American Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages. Washington DC. 02/03/2018.

Dubinina, I. & O. Kisselev. "Introductory Textbook for Russian Heritage Learners and Principles of Heritage Language Pedagogy." Annual Conference of the American Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages. Washington DC. 02/03/2018.

Dubinina, I. & S. Malamud. "Variability in Input: A corpus study of discourse markers in immigrant parents’ speech." Third International Conference on Heritage and Community Languages. UCLA. 02/17/2018.

Dubinina, I., Kisselev, O., & M. Polinsky. "From the Linguistics Lab to the Language Classroom: Toward Research-based Heritage Language Pedagogy." ACTR Newsletter 1-7.

Laleko, O. & Dubinina, I. "Word order production in heritage Russian: Perspectives from linguistics and pedagogy." Connecting Across Languages And Cultures: A Heritage Language, Festchrift In Honor Of Olga Kagan. Ed. Bauckus, S. & S. Kresin. Chicago: Slavica Publishers, 2018. 191-215.

Dubinina, I. & Malamud, S. "Emergent communicative norm in a contact language: indirect requests in Heritage Russian." Linguistics Journal, An Interdisciplinary Journal of Language Study 55. (2017): 67-116.

Kisselev, O. & Dubinina, I. "Toward Research-Based Heritage Language Pedagogy." ACTFL 50th Annual Convention and World Languages Expo. Nashville, TN. 11/18/2017.

Dubinina, I. "Annotated corpus of child, émigré, and heritage Russian: a resource for study of incomplete acquisition and attrition." Ninth Heritage Language Research Institute, Seattle, WA. 06/16/2016.

Dubinina, I. "PROJECT-BASED LEARNING WITH HERITAGE LANGUAGE LEARNERS: WHY, WHAT, AND HOW." American Council of Teachers of Foreign Languages (Annual Convention). Boston. 11/18/2016.

Dubinina, I. "The Russian Language Outside the Nation." Rev. of The Russian Language Outside the Nation, by Lara Ryazanova-Clarke, ed. Slavic and East European Journal vol. 59.4 (Winter 2015) 2016: 663-664.

Dubinina, I. & Polinsky, M. "Russian in the USA." Slavic Languages in Migration. Ed. M.Moser. Wien: University of Vienna, 2012

Dubinina, I. "How to ask for a favor: A pilot study in Heritage Russian pragmatics.." Instrumentarium of Linguistics: Sociolinguistic Approaches to Non-Standard Russian. vol. 40 Ed. A. Mustajoki, E.Protassova, and N. Vakhtin. Helsinki: University of Helsinki, 2011. 418-431.

Dubinina, I. & Polinsky, M. "Russkiy yazyk v SShA." The Russian Language Outside Russia. Moscow: RGGU, 2011

in cooperation with I. Dubinina, authors Maria Lekic, Dan Davidson, Kira Gore. Russian Stage One: Live from Russia, vol. 1 & 2. Second ed. Dubuque, IA: Kendall Hunt Publishing, 2009.

Dubinina, Irina Y. Prisposoblenie k interesam sobesednika: vybor jazyka dla mezhlichnostnogo obschenia v Respublike Moldova. Proc. of Russkii jazyk v Respublike Moldova: realii i perspectivy (Russian Language in the Republic of Moldova: realias and perspectives). Chishinau, Moldova: Tsentr russkoi kultury v RM, 2007.