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Dr Zsuzsanna Barkanyi

Profile summary

  • Central Academic Staff
  • Senior Lecturer in Spanish
  • Faculty of Wellbeing, Education & Language Studies
  • School of Languages & Applied Linguistics
  • Languages
  • zsuzsanna.barkanyi

Professional biography

My enthusiasm towards languages led me to become a linguistic researcher and a Spanish language teacher. I have a keen interest in the spoken side of language, speech technology and online and mobile learning. I joined the Open University as a Lecturer in Spanish in 2016 and was promoted to Senior Lecturer in 2022. 

Before joining the Open University, I was a Speech Linguistic Project Manager at Google's text-to-speech synthesis team from 2015. Before relocating to the UK, I was a Lecturer in Spanish and Theoretical Linguisitics at Eotvos Lorand University, Budapest and senior researcher of the Hungarian Research Centre for Linguistics to which I'm still affiliated.

Research interests

  • Linguistic Theories in Language Learning and Teaching
  • Interface of Phonetics and Phonology, Laboratory Phonology
  • Acquiring Speaking Skills in L2 / FL
  • Learning and Teaching Spanish Pronunciation
  • Foreign Language Anxiety

I have conducted extensive research in the area of the phonetics and phonology of voicing, the role of perception in phonology and phonotacics. I was involved in different research projects, such as Variation in Phonology; Analogy-based Formal Approach to Phonology and Morphology (supported by the Hungarian Scientific Research Fund).  I currently take part in the Laryngeal variation in synchrony and diachrony Project also supported by the HSRF. 

As part of the PRONUNTIA Project (supported by the University of Alicante, Spain) I'm editing a book on Integrated Approach to Teaching Spanish Pronunciation.

I lead the Foreign Language Speaking Anxiety Special Interest Group. At present we aim to explore how different demographic, linguistic and personality traints influence FLSA, as well as to identify coping strategies. 

Teaching interests

My teaching interests span a wide range of topics from theoretical and laboratory phonology to teaching Spanish language and linguistics. I'm also a teacher trainer. 

At the OU, I have chaired L194, the Beginners’ Spanish Course and the produciton of the new Beginners' Spanish module, L106. I formed part of the level 2 and level 3 Spanish production teams. I was Head of Spanish in 2017/18 and Lead Educator on the Spanish for Beginners Programme on FutureLearn for three years. I was the lead academic in the accreditation of the Spanish Linguistics MA at ELTE, Budapest. I am qualified as a DELE Examiner (B1, B2) and also a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

Impact and engagement

I lead the creation of the Teaching Spanish Pronunciation course on OpenLearn which took me to a collaboration with the PRONUNTIA Project. 

I am a member of the Laryngeal variation in synchrony and diachrony Research Project supported by the Hungarian Scientific Research Fund. The aim of the project is the typological comparison of laryngeal systems, their historical development, and the role of crosslinguistic transfer in the speech of multilingual speakers/language learners. I'm particularly interested in the acquisition of post-lexical phonological processes.

 

Publications

Production and perception of voicing contrast in assimilation contexts in Hungarian (2023)
Barkanyi, Zsuzsanna and Kiss, Z. G.
Journal of Uralic Linguistics, 2(1) (pp. 5-49)

Learning and unlearning voicing assimilation (2023)
Bárkányi, Zsuzsanna and G. Kiss, Zoltán
Frontiers in Language Sciences, 2, Article 1304666

A homofóniakerülés hatása a zöngeprodukcióban [Homophony avoidance in the production of voicing] (2022)
Barkanyi, Zsuzsanna and G. Kiss, Zoltan
Általános Nyelvészeti Tanulmányok(34) (pp. 143-168)

Motivation, self-efficacy beliefs and speaking anxiety in language MOOCs (2021-05)
Barkanyi, Zsuzsanna
ReCALL - Researching Massive Open Online Courses for language teaching and learning, 33(2) (pp. 143-160)

The perception of voicing contrast in assimilation contexts in minimal pairs: evidence from Hungarian (2021)
Bárkányi, Zsuzsanna and Kiss, Zoltán G.
Acta Linguistica Academica, 68(2) (pp. 207-229)

Neutralisation and contrast preservation: Voicing assimilation in Hungarian three-consonant clusters (2020-03)
Barkanyi, Zsuzsanna and G. Kiss, Zoltan
Linguistic Variation, 20(1) (pp. 56-83)

Dialectal Variation and Spanish Language Teaching (SLT): Perspectives from the United Kingdom (2019)
Barkanyi, Zsuzsanna and Fuertes Gutiérrez, Mara
Journal of Spanish Language Teaching, 6(2) (pp. 199-216)

The acquisition of voicing assimilation by advanced Hungarian learners of Spanish (2018-08-31)
Bárkányi, Zsuzsanna
Revista Española de Lingüística Aplicada/Spanish Journal of Applied Linguistics, 31(1) (pp. 1-31)

The laryngeal properties of Slovak three-consonant clusters (2015)
Barkanyi, Zsuzsanna and G. Kiss, Zoltan
Beszédkutatás, 23 (pp. 66-91)

Ansiedad y aprendizaje virtual / Anxiety and virtual learning (2024-02-14)
Barkanyi, Zsuzsanna
In: Muñoz-Basols, Javier; Fuertes Gutierrez, Mara and Cerzo, Luis eds. La enseñanza del español mediada por tecnología: de la justicia social a la Inteligencia Artificial (IA). Advances in Spanish Language Teaching (pp. 160-185)
ISBN : 9780367704506 | Publisher : Routledge | Published : London and New York

Can you teach me to speak? Oral practice and anxiety in a language MOOC (2018-06-04)
Bárkányi, Zsuzsanna
In: Rosell-Aguilar, Fernando; Beaven, Tita and Fuertes Gutiérrez, Mara eds. Innovative language teaching and learning at university: integrating informal learning into formal language education (pp. 9-16)
ISBN : 978-2-490057-09-2 | Publisher : Research-publishing.net

Foreign language anxiety on a massive open online language course (2017)
Barkanyi, Zsuzsanna and Melchor-Couto, Sabela
In: Borthwick,, Kate; Bradley, Linda and Thouësny, Sylvie eds. CALL in a climate of change: adapting to turbulent global conditions – short papers from EUROCALL 2017 (pp. 24-29)
Publisher : Research-publishing.net

Why do sonorants not voice in Hungarian?: And why do they voice in Slovak? (2015-06-03)
Bárkányi, Zsuzsanna and G. Kiss, Zoltán
In: É. Kiss, Katalin; Surányi, Balázs and Dékány, Éva eds. Approaches to Hungarian (pp. 65-94)
Publisher : John Benjamins Publishing Company | Published : Amsterdam, Holland

Reflexiones sobre la asimilación de sonoridad de la /s/ (2014)
Bárkányi, Zsuzsanna
In: Fábián, Zsuzsanna; Szijj, Ildikó; Szilágyi, Imre and Déri, Balázs eds. GPS 60°: Köszöntő kötet Giampaolo Salvi 60. születésnapjára. Studi di linguistica neolatina per i 60 anni di Giampaolo Salvi (pp. 25-36)
ISBN : 9789632844923 | Publisher : ELTE, BTK | Published : Budapest, Hungary

Is there final devoicing in Spanish? (2014)
Bárkányi, Zsuzsanna
In: Szigetvári, Péter ed. VLlxx: Papers in Linguistics. Presented to László Varga on his 70th Birthday (pp. 279-288)
Publisher : Tinta Könyvkiadó

La ansiedad de hablar en las tutorías en línea
Bárkányi, Zsuzsanna
In: De Beni, Matteo; Hourani Martín, Dunia and Sartor, Elisa eds. Comunicación, traducción pedagógica y humanidades digitales en la enseñanza del español como LE/L2/LH (pp. 43-51)
ISBN : 978-88-6464-750-0 | Publisher : QuiEdit | Published : Verona

Palabras enlazadas: estudios en homenaje al profesor László Scholz (2018)
Barkanyi, Zsuzsanna and Blastik, Santosné eds.
ISBN : 9789633153819 | Publisher : Jate Press | Published : Szeged

Határvidékek: köztes világok, köztes kategóriák [Borderlands: intermediate worlds, intermediate categories] (2015)
Barkanyi, Zsuzsanna and Perényi, Katalin eds.
Lazarillo
ISBN : 9789633121900 | Publisher : Eötvös Kiadó | Published : Budapest, Hungary

Voicing assimilation at accentual phrase boundaries in Hungarian. (2015-08-14)
Mády, Katalin and Barkanyi, Zsuzsanna
In : Proceedings of the 18th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences. (10-14 Aug 2015, Glasgow)

Prosodic conditioning of pre-sonorant voicing (2015)
Barkanyi, Zsuzsanna and Štefan, Beňuš
In : 18th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences (10-14 Aug 2015, Glasgow, UK)

Foreign Language Speaking Anxiety - PRAXIS Project Report (2022)
Barkanyi, Zsuzsanna; Brash, Baerbel and Kotschi, Susan
The Open University

Teaching Spanish Pronunciation Praxis Project Report (2021-09-09)
Barkanyi, Zsuzsanna
The Open University

Supporting the teaching of pronunciation in the language curriculum (2020-04)
Álvarez, Inma; Fuertes Gutiérrez, Mara and Bárkányi, Zsuzsanna
European Association of Distance Teaching Universities, Maastricht, The Netherlands.

Tookit "Moving your Language Teaching Online" (2020)
von Lindeiner-Stráský, Karina; Pulker, Hélène; Barkanyi, Zsuzsanna; Pleines, Christine and Vialleton, Elodie
Open Learn Create

Spanish varieties in the language classroom: questionnaire to teachers
Fuertes Gutierrez, Mara and Barkanyi, Zsuzsanna