Laura Callahan
Laura Callahan
Teaching Professor Emerita
Laura Callahan holds a B.A. and M.A. in Spanish from San José State University, and a Ph.D. in Hispanic Linguistics from the University of California at Berkeley. Before coming to SCU, she taught at San José State University, the University of California at Berkeley, Michigan State University, and The City College (CCNY) and Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY).
Research Interests
Codeswitching and other contact phenomena; language, race, and identity; intercultural communication; heritage language maintenance; linguistic landscapes
Courses
Prof. Callahan taught beginning and intermediate Spanish language courses and a wide range of upper-division courses in Spanish linguistics.
Publications
Books
- Editor of Spanish and Portuguese across Time, Place, and Borders (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014)
- Author of Spanish and English in U.S. Service Encounters (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009)
- Author of Spanish/English Codeswitching in a Written Corpus (John Benjamins, 2004)
Recent Articles/Book Chapters
- From Downtown to the Eastside: Languages other than English in a commercial linguistic landscape in California. International Journal of the Linguistic Association of the Southwest. 2021, 35-1: 51-75.
- Intercultural communicative competence and Spanish heritage language speakers: an overview from the U.S., Australia and Europe. With Adriana R. Díaz. Journal of Spanish Language Teaching, Special Issue: Intercultural Communicative Competence in L2 Spanish: Theory, Practice and Teacher Training. Isabel Iglesias-Casal and Carmen Ramos Méndez, eds. 2020, 7-2: 150-162.
Recent Book Reviews:
-
The Challenge of Subtitling Offensive and Taboo Language into Spanish. José Javier Ávila-Cabrera. 2025. Bristol, UK: Multilingual Matters. November 19, 2025.
- The Handbook of Language in Public Health and Healthcare. Glenn Martínez, Maichou Lor, Pilar Ortega and A. Susana Ramírez, eds. 2024. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell. July 1, 2024.
- The Professional Lives of Language Study Abroad Alumni: A Mixed Methods Investigation. Celeste Kinginger and Jingyuan Zhuang. 2023. Bristol: Multilingual Matters. July 20, 2023.
- Pedagogical Realities of Implementing Task-Based Language Teaching. Rosemary Erlam and Constanza Tolosa. 2022. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. July 7, 2022.
- Intercultural Communication and Language Pedagogy: From Theory to Practice. Zsuzsanna Ittzés Abrams. 2020. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. May 14, 2021.