Abel Cruz Flores
Abel Cruz is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Modern Languages & Literatures at 91¶ÌÊÓƵ. His interest of research is general linguistic theory and bilingualism, particularly code-switching and bilingual linguistic structures more generally. His empirical strategy involves analyzing code-switched speech via corpora and psycholinguistic methodologies. Professor Cruz's research also aims to glean knowledge with implications for the teaching of Heritage Spanish and Spanish as a second language. He has a long-standing interest in immigration policy and has written many Op-Eds on this subject. He received his Ph.D. from Georgetown University in 2021.
Professor Cruz has been teaching Spanish since the first year of his graduate studies at different institutions and plans to teach a variety of classes on Hispanic linguistics and bi-multilingualism at 91¶ÌÊÓƵ.
Research Interests
- Bi-/multilingualism
- Linguistic Theory
- Code-switching
- Heritage Grammars
- Morphosyntax of Gender
- Heritage & Second Language Teaching
- Spanish for International Relations
- Bilingualism
- Hispanic linguistics
- Spanish in the U.S.
- Spanish for heritage speakers
- Language and social justice.
Selected Publications:
- Cruz, A. (2026). The social pragmatics of address in heritage Spanish: a virtual reality study. Frontiers in Psychology.
- Cruz, A. & Suethanapornkul, S. (2025). Second language learners’ sensitivity to grammatical gender in Spanish–English codeswitching environments. Second Language Research.
- Cruz, A. (2024). . Frontiers in Language Sciences.
- Cruz, A. (2022). . Bilingualism: Language and Cognition.
- Cruz, A. (2021). . Glossa: a journal of general linguistics.
- Cruz, A. (2020). The seem verb-class paradigm and restructuring in Romance. In A. Morales-Front, M. Ferreira, R. P. Leow, & C. Sanz (Eds.), Luso-Hispanic Linguistics: Current Issues and New Directions (pp. 98–117). John Benjamins Publishing Company.
- Cruz, A. (2018). The past persists into the present: a multivariate analysis of Present Perfect in Southern Arizona Spanish. In J. MacDonald (Ed.), Contemporary Trends in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics (pp. 169–189). John Benjamins Publishing Company.
- Cruz, A. (2016). The Spanish discourse marker o sea in the speech of bilinguals from Southern Arizona. Divergencias. Revista de estudios lingüísticos y literarios, 14(2), 70–81.