Jennifer Leeman

Professor

Spanish: Spanish in the US; heritage language education; critical, antiracist language teaching; ethnicity, race, and language in censuses; language and social justice

Jennifer Leeman’s research and teaching focus on the sociopolitics of language, with particular attention to multilingualism, Spanish in the US, and the teaching of Spanish as a heritage language. Her work is interdisciplinary and employs the theoretical frameworks and methodological approaches of critical applied linguistics and sociolinguistics while also engaging the fields of education, Latinx studies, language policy, and linguistic anthropology.

Leeman's publications have examined the interplay of ideologies of language, race and nation in the US, the racialization of Spanish and Latinxs, census questions on language and ethnoracial identity, multilingual language policy, linguistic landscape, heritage language education, and critical pedagogical approaches to teaching Spanish. She was founding Director of George Mason's online graduate certificate in Spanish Heritage Language Education, which launched in 2021, and she organizes the Department of Modern and Classical Languages' online SHLE lecture series.

In addition to her academic appointment, Leeman served for almost a decade as Research Sociolinguist in the US Census Bureau's Center for Survey Measurement, where she conducted research and provided guidance on linguistic and sociolinguistic issues related to multilingual data collection, such as language access, translation procedures and Spanish-language survey questions on language, ethnicity and race. Currently she serves as a senior expert on the international advisory board of Diversity beyond Migration Background – New Categories for Anti-Discrimination Data, a research network funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG).

Leeman has served on the Executive Committee of the American Association of Applied Linguistics; the Advisory Committee of the Observatorio de la lengua española y las culturas hispánicas en los Estados Unidos, Instituto Cervantes at Harvard University; and the Executive Committee of Language & Society Division of the Modern Language Association, as well as the editorial boards of the journals Language Policy, Linguistic Landscape, Language Teaching & Technology, Spanish as a Heritage Language, and Spanish in Context.

Current Research

With collaborators Dr. Galey Modan (Ohio State University) and Dr. Lou Thomas (Bard Early College DC), Leeman is currently researching how bilingual education and dual immersion instruction fit into the larger economic, political and ethnoracial landscape of gentrification in Washington, DC by examining the interplay of educational policies (such as school boundaries and accountability measures), housing prices, and discourses about the economic and social value of Spanish.

She is currently working on a co-authored book (with Yvette Bürki and Adriana Patiño-Santos) on the sociolinguistics of Spanish in a broad range of national and diasporic contexts, with an emphasis on multilingualism. The book, titled Lengua, sociedad y poder. Perspectivas críticas en torno al español ('Language, society and power. Critical perspectives on Spanish'), is under contract with Routledge.

Leeman is also involved in several projects related to critical pedagogical approaches to language education, including teaching Spanish as a heritage language and/or second language, study abroad, and teacher preparation.

Selected Publications

Books

Leeman, J. & Fuller, J. (2021) Hablar español en Estados Unidos: La sociopolítica del lenguaje. Multilingual Matters.

Fuller, J. & Leeman, J. (2020) Speaking Spanish in the US: The Sociopolitics of Language. Multilingual Matters.

Lacorte, M. & Leeman, J. (Eds). (2009). Español en Estados Unidos y otros contextos de contacto: Sociolingüística, ideología y pedagogía / Spanish in the US and other contact environments: Sociolinguistics, ideology and pedagogy. Madrid: Iberoamericana.

Recent articles and chapters

Leeman, J. (2023). (In)visible identities and inequities: The construction of Latinidad in European censuses. In R. Márquez-Reiter & A. Patiño-Santos (Eds.), Language practices and processes among Latin Americans in Europe (pp. 1–24). Routledge.

Nguyen, M., Serafini, E., Leeman, J. & Winsler, A. (2022). Factors predicting secondary school language course enrollment and performance among US heritage speakers of Spanish. Frontiers in Psychology (Language Sciences section). Volume 13 https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1035716

Leeman, J. and Showstack, R. (2022). The sociolinguistics of heritage language education. In K. Geeslin, (Ed.) Handbook of Second Language Acquisition and Sociolinguistics (pp. 328-340), New York: Routledge.

Leeman, J. & Driver, M. (2021) Heritage speakers of Spanish and study abroad: Shifting identities in new contexts. In R. Pozzi, T. Quan, & C. Escalante (Eds.) Heritage Speakers of Spanish and Study Abroad (pp. 141-159). New York: Routledge.

Leeman, J. & Serafini, E. J. (2021). “It’s Not Fair”: Discourses of Deficit, Equity, and Effort in Mixed Heritage and Second Language Spanish Classes. Journal of Language, Identity & Education, 20:6, 425-439.

Leeman, J. (2020). The nexus of academic knowledge, political agendas and self-identification in census ethnoracial classification. Language, Culture and Society (2)1 92-99.

Leeman, J. (2020). Los datos censales en el estudio del multilingüismo y la migración: Cuestiones ideológicas y consecuencias epistémicas. Iberoromania. 2020(91): 77-92.

Leeman, J. (2019). Measured multilingualism: Census language questions in Canada and the US. In T. Ricento. Language Politics and Policies: Perspectives from Canada and the United States (pp. 114-134). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Leeman, J. (2018). Becoming Hispanic: The negotiation of ethnoracial identity in U.S. census interviews.Latino Studies 16(4), 432-460.

Leeman, J. (2018). It’s all about English: The interplay of monolingual ideologies, language policies and the US Census Bureau’s statistics on multilingualism. The International Journal of the Sociology of Language, (252) 21-43.

Leeman, J. (2018). Critical language awareness in SHL: Challenging the linguistic subordination of US Latinxs. In K. Potowski (Ed.) Handbook of Spanish as a Minority/Heritage Language (pp. 345-358). New York: Routledge.

Expanded Publication List

Books

Leeman, J. & Fuller, J. (2021) Hablar español en Estados Unidos: La sociopolítica del lenguaje. Multilingual Matters.

Fuller, J. & Leeman, J. (2020) Speaking Spanish in the US: The Sociopolitics of Language. Multilingual Matters.

Articles and chapters

Leeman, J. (2022). Foreword. In A. Sánchez-Muñoz & J. Retis (Eds.) Communicative Spaces in Bilingual Contexts: Discourses, Synergies and Counterﬂows in Spanish and English. Routledge.

Leeman, J. (2020). The nexus of academic knowledge, political agendas and self-identification in census ethnoracial classification. Language, Culture and Society (2)1 92-99.

Leeman, J. (2020). Los datos censales en el estudio del multilingüismo y la migración: Cuestiones ideológicas y consecuencias epistémicas. Iberoromania. 2020(91): 77-92.

Leeman, J. (2019). Measured multilingualism: Census language questions in Canada and the US. In T. Ricento. Language Politics and Policies: Perspectives from Canada and the United States. (114-134). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Leeman, J. (2018). Becoming Hispanic: The negotiation of ethnoracial identity in U.S. census interviews.Latino Studies 16(4), 432-460.

Leeman. J. (2018). Questioning the Language Questions: Federal Policy and the Evaluation of the U.S. Census Bureau’s Statistics on Language. Research and Methodology Directorate, Center for Survey Measurement Study Series (Survey Methodology #2018-11). U.S. Census Bureau.

Leeman, J. (2017). Censuses and large-scale surveys in language research. In K. A. King, Y.-J. Lai, & S. May (Eds.), Research Methods in Language and Education. Cham: Springer. 83–97.

Leeman, J. & Serafini, E. (2016). Sociolinguistics and heritage language education: A model for critical translingual competence. In Marta Fairclough and Sara Beaudrie (Ed.s) Innovative Strategies for Heritage Language Teaching. Washington DC: Georgetown University Press. 56-79.

Leeman, J. (2016) La clasificación de los latinos y latinas en la historia del censo de los Estados Unidos: la racialización oficial de la lengua española.In José Del Valle (ed.) La historia política del español. Madrid: Editorial Aluvión. 354-379.

Leeman, J. (2015). Identity and heritage language education in the United States. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics. Cambridge University Press. 35. 100–119.

Leeman, J. (2015). Questioning the language questions: Federal policy and the evaluation of the U.S. Census Bureau’s statistics on language. International Journal of the Linguistic Association of the Southwest 34(1,2) 1–21.

Leeman, J. & King, K. (2015). Heritage language education: Minority language speakers, second language instruction, and monolingual schooling. In M Bigelow & J. Ennser-Kananen (Ed.s) The Handbook of Educational Linguistics. New York: Routledge. 210-223.

Rabin, L. & Leeman, J. (2015). Critical service-learning and literary study in Spanish. In L. Grobman and R. Rosenberg (Eds.) Service Learning and Literary Studies in English. (New York: Modern Language Association). 128-137.

Leeman, J. (2014). Critical approaches to the teaching of Spanish as a local-foreign language. In M. Lacorte (Ed.) The Handbook of Hispanic Applied Linguistics. Routledge. 275-292.

Leeman, J. (2013). Categorizing Latinos in the history of the US Census: The official racialization of Spanish. In J. Del Valle (Ed.) A Political History of Spanish: The Making of a Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.305-324.

Liebow, E., Dominguez, V. R., Peregrine, P. N., McCarty, T. L., Nichter, M., Nardi, B. and Leeman, J. (2013). On Evidence and the Public Interest. American Anthropologist, 115: 642–655.

Pascale, J., Rodean, J., Leeman, J., Cosenza, C. & Schoua-Glusberg, A. (2013). Preparing to measure health coverage in federal surveys post-reform: Lessons from Massachusetts. Inquiry, 50(2), 106–123.

Leeman, J. (2012). Investigating language ideologies in Spanish as a heritage language. In S. Beaudrie and M. Fairclough (Ed.s), Spanish as a Heritage Language in the US: State of the Science. (Washington DC: Georgetown University Press). 43-59.

Leeman, J. (2012). Illegal accents: Qualifications, discrimination and distraction in Arizona's monitoring of teachers. In O. Santa Ana and C. Bustamante (Eds.) Arizona Firestorm. (Lanham, MI: Rowman & Littlefield). 145-166.

Leeman, J. (2011). Standards, commodification, and critical service learning in minority language communities. Modern Language Journal (95)4, 10-13.

Leeman, J., Rabin, L., & Román-Mendoza, E. (2011). Identity and activism in heritage language education. Modern Language Journal (95)4, 481–495.

Leeman, J., Rabin, L. & Román-Mendoza, E. (2011). La web 2.0 al servicio de la comunidad en un programa de español como lengua de herencia en Estados Unidos (Using web 2.0 tools in a community-based service-learning program with Spanish heritage speakers in the United States). Revista Teoría de la Educación: Educación y Cultura en la Sociedad de la Información. 12(3), 118-140.

Leeman, J., Rabin, L., & Román-Mendoza, E. (2011). Critical pedagogy beyond the classroom walls: Community service-learning and Spanish heritage language education. Heritage Language Journal 8(3), 293-314.

Leeman, J. (2010). The sociopolitics of heritage language education. In S. Rivera-Mills & D. Villa (Ed.s) Spanish of the US Southwest: A Language in Transition. Madrid: Iberoamericana. 309-317.

Leeman, J. (2010). Questionable language measures: US Census data, ideologies and constituencies. Anthropology News. 51(5) 7-8.

Leeman, J. & Modan, G. (2010). Selling the City: Language, ethnicity and commodified space. In E. Shohamy, E. Ben-Rafael and M. Barni (Eds.) Linguistic Landscape in the City. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. 182-197.

Leeman, J. & Modan, G. (2010). Trajectories of language: Orders of indexical meaning in Washington, DC’s Chinatown. In M. Guggenheim & O. Söderstrom (Ed.s) Re-Shaping Cities: How Global Mobility Transforms Architecture and Urban Form. London: Routledge. 167-188.

Leeman, J. & Modan, G. (2009). Commodified language in Chinatown: A contextualized approach to linguistic landscape. The Journal of Sociolinguistics 13(3), 333-363. Blackwell. Republished in: The Journal of Sociolinguistics Virtual Issue: Language and the City. June 2012.

Lacorte, M. & Leeman, J. (2009). Introducción. Español en Estados Unidos y otros contextos de contacto: Sociolingüística, ideología y pedagogía / Spanish in the US and other contact environments: Sociolinguistics, ideology and pedagogy. Madrid: Iberoamericana. 11-18.

Leeman, J. (2007). Feedback in L2 learning: Responding to errors during practice. In R. DeKeyser (Ed.) Practice in a Second Language: Perspectives From Linguistics and Psychology, Cambridge Applied Linguistics Series, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 111-137.

Leeman, J. & Rabin, L. (2007). Reading language: Critical perspectives for the literature classroom. Hispania 90(2), 304-315. American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese.

Leeman, J. & Martínez, G. (2007) From identity to commodity: Discourses of Spanish in heritage language textbooks. Critical Inquiry in Language Studies 4(1), 35-65. Lawrence Erlbaum.

Leeman, J. (2007). The value of Spanish: Shifting ideologies in US language teaching. ADFL Bulletin, 38(1-2), 32-39. Modern Language Association.

Leeman, J. & García, P. (2006). Ideologías y prácticas en la enseñanza del español como lengua mayoritaria y lengua minoritaria. [Ideologies and practices in the teaching of Spanish as a majority language and as a minority language] In M. Lacorte. Lingüística aplicada del español. [Spanish Applied Linguistics] Madrid: Arco Libros, 117-148.

Leeman J. (2005). Engaging critical pedagogy: Spanish for native speakers. Foreign Language Annals. 38 (1) 35-45. American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages.

Leeman, J. (2004). Racializing language: A history of linguistic ideologies in the US Census. The Journal of Language and Politics, 3(3), 507-534.

Leeman, J. (2003). Recasts and L2 development: Beyond negative evidence. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 25(1), 37-63.

Mackey, A., Oliver, R. & Leeman, J. (2003). Interactional input and the incorporation of feedback: An exploration of NS-NNS and NNS-NNS adult and child dyads. Language Learning, 53 (1) 35-56.

Leeman, J., Arteagoitia, I., Fridman, B. & Doughty, C. (1995). Integrating attention to form with meaning: Focus on form in content-based Spanish instruction. In R. Schmidt (Ed.), Attention and awareness in foreign language learning and teaching. Hawaii: University of Hawaii Press, 217-258.

Grants and Fellowships

In Spring 2024, Leeman will be a residential fellow at Mason's Center for Humanities Research.

Courses Taught

(Recent offerings)

SPAN 315 Spanish for Heritage Speakers

SPAN 323 The Sociopolitics of Multilingualism in Spain

FRLN 385 Multilingualism, Identity, and Power
SPAN 385 Introduction to Spanish Linguistics
SPAN 430 Spanish in the US
SPAN 502 Hispanic Sociolinguistics

SPAN 551 The Sociolinguistics of Spanish in the US

SPAN 570 Language Politics and Policy

FRLN 575 Heritage Language Education

Education

BA (Spanish) University of Pennsylvania
MA (Hispanic Civilization) New York University in Madrid
MAT (TESOL & Bilingual Education) Georgetown University
PhD (Hispanic Linguistics) Georgetown University

Recent Presentations

Spanish in the US: The intertwining of language, race and nation. Faculty of Humanities, University of Bern, Switzerland. October 2023.

La sociopolítica del español en Estados Unidos. ARQUS International Seminar in Romance Studies : Ibero-Romance Languages in Europe and America (Contacts, Influences, Convergencies). Departamento de Filologías: Románica, Italiana, Gallego-Portuguesa y Catalana, Universidad de Granada. Granada, Spain. October 2023.

Language and discrimination. Antidiscrimination/Equality Data Online Workshop. German Research Foundation (DFG): Diversity Beyond Migration Background – New Categories for Anti-Discrimination Data research network. September 2023.

Gentrification and bilingual education: Spatial and metaphorical intersections. Disputed urban territories: Linguistic and discursive materializations of dystopia and utopia colloquium, 14th Linguistic Landscape Workshop - Utopia and Dystopia, Madrid. September 2023. (with Gabriella Modan and Louis Thomas)

Beyond the English-medium classroom: Critical scholarship on language ideologies, identities and pedagogy in second and heritage language education. Multilingual Research Center Speaker Series, University of Maryland, College Park. March, 2023.

Beyond standard language and Latinidad: Ideologies and identities in Spanish heritage language education. Department of Modern Languages, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA. February, 2023.

In the Media

Is it Hispanic, Latinx or Latine? The complexities of Latino identity. The Washington Post. (10/1/2022) https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/10/01/hispanic-latino-latinx-latine-words-history/

Interviewed by Jeffrey Herlihy-Mera for New Books Network en español. 9/20/2023. https://newbooksnetwork.com/es/hablar-espanol-en-estados-unidos