Aski named director of Center for Languages, Literatures and Cultures
Janice Aski, professor in the Department of French and Italian, has been promoted from interim director to full director of the Center for Languages, Literatures and Cultures for a four-year term, effective July 1, 2022. She has published a variety of articles in both her areas of expertise: world language pedagogy and Italian and Romance historical linguistics. In her pedagogy research, Aski focuses on testing, reading and how grammar practice activities reflect the most current research in second language acquisition, with a recent shift to explore how to revise language curricula to include the development of intercultural competence. Her publications in Italian and Romance historical linguistics focus on the social, pragmatic and cognitive aspects of phonological and morphological change. Aski is a co-author of the first-year Italian textbook Avanti! and the Italian historical linguistics monograph Iconicity and analogy in language change. She has received the Alumni Award for Distinguished Teaching from Ohio State and been recognized with awards twice by the College of Arts and Sciences. Aski earned her PhD in Italian/Romance linguistics and her MA and BA in Italian from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in addition to a Master of Linguistics from the University of Manchester in the United Kingdom.