Associate Professor Office: 334 Sutton Hall
Phone: 724-357-2457
Email: jfontain@iup.edu

Education
Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania, 1981
Academic Interests
Theoretical and Applied Linguistics, Cognition, TESOL, Language and Literature.

Jeannine Fontaine enjoys the challenge of making links between the allegedly abstract ideas of her field of linguistics and the real needs and interest of people who love language. She is fascinated with the way we learn and use language, and the way language and thought work together in the puzzling place we all the human mind; her greatest teaching goal is to infect others with the same curiosity about everything from the way a specific word is used, to the way neural pathways handle the complex subtleties of language. Her research interests have ranged from theoretical and descriptive syntax to the linguistic elements underlying literary tropes. Most recently, she has worked on the linguistics of metaphor, and on a series of papers looking cross-culturally at linguistic expression in narrative, poetry and humorous texts. Her publications include, "Linguistics if for Kids" in Language Alive in the Classroom, and "Learning and Using a Second Language" in Language: Introductory Readings.