Research

Hello, I am Mariia (Marusia) Pronina. I have a PhD in Language Sciences and I am postdoc Juan de la Cierva at the University of the Balearic Islands (UIB).

I am interested in the role of multimodal cues — prosody and gestures — in communication from a developmental and cognitive perspective. My research mainly focuses on first language acquisition. I study how the social and cognitive forces shape pragmatic and prosodic development. I am interested in bi- and multilingualism and the maintenance of heritage (migrant minority) languages.

Together with Rebecca Woods I’m running an online discussion group Making Waves on the acquisition of prosody and gesture. You can check our website for the upcoming seminars and recorded meetings.

I defended my PhD at the University Pompeu Fabra in Dr. Pilar Prieto’s lab (Group of Prosodic and Gesture Studies). Now I am doing my postdoc at the University of the Balearic Islands within the GRESIB (Research Group on Sociolinguistics in the Balearic Islands) under the supervision of Maria del Mar Vanrell.