Ozoof Al Ghamdi

Pragmatics,Syntax, Psycholinguistics, and Sociolinguistics

Ozoof Al Ghamdi is a Lecturer at Jazan University in Saudi Arabia and a PhD Student in Linguistics at George Mason University. She specializes in psycholinguistics, with a research focus on syntax and pragmatics. She received her bachelor’s degree in English literature from Taif University in Saudi Arabia in 2013, her master’s degree in Linguistics from George Mason University in 2019, and a Graduate Certificate in Linguistics: Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL). Building upon a strong foundation of research established in her second Qualifying Paper, her current doctoral dissertation expands on this topic to investigate how humans grasp language, specifically by measuring the pragmatic competence of second-language learners and examining how they navigate context. Her empirical approach is informed by specialized laboratory training completed within the Processing and Acquisition Lab (PALM) in 2025. Additionally, she is expanding her research capabilities through formal coursework and project experience in computational linguistics, developing new methodologies for digital data analysis. Her broader academic interests also extend to sociolinguistics, with a particular focus on digital spaces, including examining language attitudes on online platforms and tracking how content creators navigate language use.

Current Research

Pragmatic Competence in Second-Language Acquisition investigates the cognitive mechanisms underlying language comprehension among learners navigating context. The empirical project integrates experimental psycholinguistics, syntax, and pragmatics to map language development processing constraints.

Selected Publications

Saudi Sign Language. Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. Available at: wikipedia.org

Description: Authored the comprehensive foundational entry documenting the language's development history, socio-cultural importance, and core grammatical structures, with a specialized focus on simultaneous morphology and clausal syntax (SVO word order variations and syntactic non-manual marking constraints).

Education

M.A. in Linguistics, George Mason University, 2019
Graduate Certificate in Linguistics: Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL), George Mason University
B.A. in English Language, Taif University (Saudi Arabia), 2013