The result of the EFNIL Master's Thesis Competition 2023
Three talented students were awarded the EFNIL Master's Thesis Competition this year; Julia Elena Pardo Alonso, Fani Morali and Denise Weghofer.
Fani Morali, Denise Weghofer and Julia Elena Pardo Alonso
The fourth round of EFNIL’s project Master‘s Thesis Award was carried out in 2022-2023. Three master’s theses were awarded on October 11, at EFNIL’s annual meeting in Ljubljana. The 2023 winners are Julia Elena Pardo Alonso, Fani Morali and Denise Weghofer.
The prize for each winner is 1500 EUR, and an invitation to present the research at EFNIL’s meeting and publish the presentation in the conference proceedings. All three winners attended the Ljubljana meeting where they received their awards and gave presentations of their research.
The EFNIL Master’s Thesis Award project 2022-2023 was led by Ari Páll Kristinsson and Åse Wetås. The 2023 jury consisted of nine experts: Ann Veitch, Susanne Obermayer, Guy Berg, Matti Räsänen, Elena Isabelle Tamba, Aspa Chatzidaki, Karlien Franco, Alexandra Holsting, and Nataša Gliha Komac. There were 18 applicants altogether and the competition was very strong as all theses were of great quality. When choosing the winners, the jury's main focus apart from quality was innovation and the scope of the award.
Julia Elena Pardo Alonso (Universitat Pompeu Fabra): #dudaRAE: A merging analysis of folk prescriptivism and dialectology (note: "RAE" = Real Academia Española)
In her thesis, Pardo aims at a different perspective on a new way of analysing, exploring the interest of the general public towards problematic questions of linguistics in the pan-Hispanic space from a dialectological point of view.
Fani Morali (Hellenic Open University): Exploring refugee children’s bilingualism through multimodal identity texts
Morali utilises the innovative research tool of multimodal texts to examine how seven refugee students of Syrian and Iraqi origin living in Northern Greece perceive and depict their sociolinguistic reality.
Denise Weghofer (Universität Wien): Scaffolding and Reading in German Lessons in Lower Secondary Education – Using Scaffolding Tools to Become Successful Second Language Readers
Weghofer’s thesis offers a complete and in-depth summary of current trends in scaffolding research and gives evidence of the added value of scaffolding tools in second language learning.
