Shadden Alfadhil

Graduate Research Assistant

Semantics & Pragmatics, Syntax, Morphology, Language Documentation, Interspeaker Variation, Experimental Linguistics

Shadden Alfadhil is a Ph.D. student and a former teaching assistant in the Linguistics Program. She is also an assistant in the Language Documentation Lab. Her areas of interest include semantics & pragmatics, syntax, morphology, and language documentation. Shadden primarily works on the documentation of (Central) Najdi Arabic, a language that is widely spoken in Saudi Arabia but is underdocumented. She also has experience in experimental linguistics.

As an American-born Saudi, her fascination with language grew through the exposure to two languages simultaneously early in life and the comparison of Arabic to English and vice versa.

Current Research

Documentation of meaning and structure in (Central) Najdi Arabic (the Riyadh Dialect and the White Dialect), which includes discourse markers, compounding, and other various topics.

Courses Taught

Spring 2024: LING 306 (General Linguistics: Recitation)

Spring 2022: LING 306 (General Linguistics – TA), LING 522 (English Grammar and Pedagogy)

Fall 2021: LING 306 (General Linguistics – TA), LING 787 (Syntax II – TA)

Education

2021 - M.A., English: Linguistics, George Mason University

2021 - Graduate Certificate, TESOL, George Mason University

2016 - B.A., English Language (Linguistics) and Literature, King Saud University