Margaree Jackson

Experience in the Lab

I worked in the SoCIOLing Lab during my first semester of my M.A. program in Spanish while taking a Spanish Linguistics course on Phonetics and Phonology. It was great to be able to apply some of the concepts I was learning in class within the context of academic research in the Lab. My work in the Lab served to make the knowledge I was obtaining in class even more applicable and exposed me to ways in which my Spanish linguistic professors engage with the concepts they teach in the classroom outside of the classroom. It was interesting and exciting to learn how to use Praat, a software that I had not used prior to my work in the Lab, and to see how Praat can be used to analyze speech. While it did take me a few tries to learn how to operate the software, I was able to get the hang of it which helped a great deal when I had to use Praat in my linguistics class. I also enjoyed listening to the stories of the interviewees while coding tokens and learning about the culture and daily lives of members of Amazonian communities in Latin America. While I do not plan to go into Spanish linguistics and am more of a literature scholar, I am thankful for the opportunity to work in the SoCIOLing Lab and the exposure that the work gave me.
 

Fun facts about yourself/interests/hobbies

I enjoy writing poetry; I have published a collection of poems called "De la esclavitud a la libertad: La historia de una esclava afromexicana;" I love to travel and learn about the culture and experiences of members of Afro-Latino and Latino communities.