Giulia Mazzola
she, lei, idda, ella, zij
giulia.mazzola@ncl.ac.uk | giuliamazzola.github.io | ORCID:0000-0002-7532-8671
About me
I am a usage-based linguist and my research explores the interplay of cognitive, sociolinguistic, and historical perspectives on Romance morphosyntax. I have a strong passion for innovative and cross-disciplinary methodologies and I believe in the importance of open-access and FAIR principles. My academic dream is to build linguistic corpora to document and protect endangered languages. I am deeply committed to fostering research-led teaching, integrating cutting-edge linguistic insights in the curricula. With a strong foundation in international collaboration, I strive to advance impactful scholarship while promoting diversity, innovation, and equality in academia.
Work Experience
| Year | Position | Institution |
|---|---|---|
| 06/2024 - Present | Research Associate | Newcastle University |
| 01/2023 - 06/2024 | Postdoctoral Assistant | KU Leuven |
| 10/2018 - 12/2022 | PhD student | KU Leuven |
| 11/2017 - 02/2018 | Teacher of Italian as a Foreign Language | Rotterdamse Volksuniversiteit |
| 10/2016 - 05/2017 | Internship Foreign Language Teaching | Universiteit Leiden |
Education
| Year | Degree | Institution |
|---|---|---|
| 2018 - 2022 | PhD in Linguistics | KU Leuven |
| 2015 - 2018 | Research Master in Linguistics | Universiteit Leiden |
| 2010 - 2014 | Bachelor degree in Modern Languages and Literatures | Università degli studi di Palermo |
Research Projects
Research Associate - How autonomous is syntax? A case study of Romance causation and perception
2024-present, Newcastle University (UK) (PI Michelle Sheehan)
International collaborator - Atlas Histórico del español
2022-2024, University of the Balearic Islands (ES) (PI Andrés Enrique-Arias)
International collaborator - Historical and typological perspectives on anticausativization
2022-2024, Università di Torino (IT) (PI Guglielmo Inglese)
PhD student - Beyond the clause: encoding and inference in clause-combining
2018-2022, KU Leuven (BE) (PI Jean-Christophe Verstraete)
Student Assistant - Haagse Spreuken
2017, Universiteit Leiden (NL), outreach project on multilingualism
Teaching
Undergraduate module of Spaanse Taalkunde III (Spanish Linguistics III)
February-June 2023 and 2024, KU Leuven - 4 ECTS
- History of the Spanish Language
- Historical Phonology
- Historical Morpho-syntax
- Philological analysis of ancient texts
Undergraduate module of Spaanse Taalkunde II (Spanish Linguistics II)
September-December 2023, KU Leuven, campus Leuven and Kortrijk - 6 ECTS each
- Morphosyntax and semantics of the contemporary Spanish verbal system
- Analysis of contemporary texts
Undergraduate spoken practice of Spaans: taal & tekts (Spanish: language and texts)
March-May 2023, KU Leuven
- Conversation practice in Spanish (second year of the undergraduate program, 2 hours per week)
Publications
Peer-reviewed publications
Journal Articles
Mazzola, Giulia, Malte Rosemeyer, and Bert Cornillie. 2022. “Syntactic Alternations and Socio-Stylistic Constraints: The Case of Asyndetic Complementation in the History of Spanish.” Journal of Historical Sociolinguistics 8 (2): 197–235. https://doi.org/10.1515/jhsl-2021-0026.
Mazzola, Giulia, Bert Cornillie, and Malte Rosemeyer. 2022. “Asyndetic Complementation and Referential Integration in Spanish: A Diachronic Probabilistic Grammar Account.” Journal of Historical Linguistics 12 (2): 194–240. https://doi.org/10.1075/jhl.20031.maz.
Edited Volumes
- Cornillie, Bert, Giulia Mazzola, and Miriam Thegel (eds.). 2023. La Tradicionalidad Discursiva y La Lingüística de Corpus. Conceptos y Aplicaciones. Madrid/Frankfurt a.M.: Iberoamericana Vervuert.
Book Chapters
Mazzola, Giulia, Stefano De Pascale, and Malte Rosemeyer. 2023. “Nuevas Herramientas En La Lingüística Diacrónica: Tradiciones Discursivas y Lingüística Computacional.” In La Tradicionalidad Discursiva y La Lingüística de Corpus. Conceptos y Aplicaciones, edited by Bert Cornillie, Giulia Mazzola, and Miriam Thegel, 89–118. Madrid/Frankfurt a.M.: Iberoamericana Vervuert.
Cornillie, Bert, and Giulia Mazzola. 2021. “A Sociopragmatic Account of the Se Passive in (Pre-)Classical Spanish.” In Cognitive Sociolinguistics Revisited, edited by Gitte Kristiansen, Karlien Franco, Stefano De Pascale, Laura Rosseel, and Weiwei Zhang, 226–41. Berlin: De Gruyter. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110733945-019.
Non-peer-reviewed publications
- Mazzola, Giulia. 2024. Las subordinadas asindéticas en sus orígenes: un análisis de la distribución geográfica en los siglos XV y XVI. In Atlas Histórico del Español (PI Andrés Enrique-Arias). Online publication.
Work in progress
Submitted
Inglese, Guglielmo, Eugenio Goria and Giulia Mazzola (eds.). Diachronic and Typological Perspectives on Anticausativization. Series: Typological Studies in Language. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Inglese, Guglielmo, Giulia Mazzola, Eugenio Goria, Lorenzo Ferrarotti and Bert Cornillie. (forthc.) “Anticausativization and lability in Romance: a historical corpus study on Spanish and Italian”. In Inglese, Guglielmo, Eugenio Goria and Giulia Mazzola (eds.), Diachronic and Typological Perspectives on Anticausativization (series Typological Studies in Language). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Mazzola, Giulia, Guglielmo Inglese. Forthcoming. “Causalness, frequency, diachrony and the causal-noncausal alternation in Italian and Spanish”. Corpus linguistics and linguistic theory.
In preparation
Mazzola, Giulia. “Processing constraints in competition: a case study of syndetic and asyndetic complements in Spanish”. Cognitive Linguistics
Mazzola, Giulia, Stefano De Pascale, Malte Rosemeyer. Document-based Vector Space Models predict diffusion in language change better than genre classifications. Linguistic Vanguard
PhD Thesis
- Mazzola, Giulia. 2022. “Syndetic and Asyndetic Complementation in Spanish. A Diachronic Probabilistic Account.” PhD Thesis, Leuven: KU Leuven. Download here
Talks
Invited Lectures
Sheehan, M., Mazzola, G. (2024). How autonomous is syntax? A micro-syntactic perspective. Invited talk given at the Meaning and Grammar Research Group, Edinburgh University, Edinburgh.
Mazzola, G., Sheehan, M. (2024). Causation and perception: how similar are they? Invited talk at Philosophy of Linguistics Workshop, Durham University, Durham.
Inglese, G., Mazzola, G. (2024). “Anticausatives in Italian and Spanish across time: a corpus-based perspective”. Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Colloquium Romanistische Linguistik, Berlin.
Mazzola, G. (2023). “La complementación asindética en español”. University of Helsinki, Helsinki.
Mazzola, G. (2022). “Approcci descrittivi e probabilistici alla linguistica dei corpora. Esempi applicati alla complementazione in spagnolo”. Università di Torino, Torino.
Mazzola, G. (2022). “La Complementación asindética en Español: un estudio diacrónico”. Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin.
Mazzola, G. (2021). “La complementación asindética en castellano: un estudio diacrónico”. Universität Regensburg, Linguistics Colloquium, Regensburg.
Selected Conference Talks
2024
Mazzola, G. Processing constraints in competition: a case study of syndetic and asyndetic complements in Spanish. Presented at Annual meeting of the Linguistics Association of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (LAGB 2024, 27-30 August 2024), Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne.
Mazzola, G. La complementación asindética en el español (pre)clásico: ¿una influencia oriental?. Presented at the VIII Congreso Internacional de la Red CHARTA (19-21 June 2024), Universitat de les Illes Balears, Palma de Mallorca.
2023
Inglese, G., Mazzola, G., Ferrarotti, L., Goria, E., Cornillie, B. “The anticausative alternation in Italian and Spanish: a historical corpus-based perspective”. Presented at the International conference on Historical Linguistics (ICHL26), University of Heidelberg, Heidelberg.
Inglese, G., Ferrarotti, L., Goria, E., Mazzola, G., and Cornillie, B. “The anticausative alternation in Italian and Spanish: a historical corpus-based perspective”. Presented 56th Annual Meeting of the Societas Linguistica Europaea, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens.
Mazzola, G. “Processing factors in contrast: a case study of syndetic and asyndetic complements in Spanish”. Presented 56th Annual Meeting of the Societas Linguistica Europaea, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens.
Mazzola, G., De Pascale, S., Rosemeyer, M. “A Computational Approach to Detect Discourse Traditions and Register Differences. A Case Study on Historical French”. Presented at the 12th Historical Sociolinguistics Network conference, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussels.
2022
Cornillie, B., Mazzola, G. “Un análisis de la pasiva en el español (pre)clásico en CODEA+2015”. Presented at VI CoDiLi, Università Ca’ Foscari, Venezia.
De Pascale, S., Mazzola, G., Rosemeyer, M. “Vector Space Models for Historical Sociolinguistics: bottom-up classification of Discourse Traditions”. Presented at the 11th Historical Sociolinguistics Network Conference 2022, Universidad de Murcia, Murcia.
Mazzola, G. “Las sustantivas asindéticas en la historia del español”. Presented at XII Congreso Internacional de Historia de la Lengua Española. Universidad León, León.
2021
Mazzola, G. “Syntactic alternations and audience design: The case of asyndetic complementation in the history of Spanish (15th-18th century)”. Presented at the New ways of analyzing variation 49 (NWAV49), online.
Mazzola, G. “From distance to immediacy? Asyndetic complementation in Classical and Present-day Spanish”. Presented at the 17th International Pragmatics Association Conference, hosted by Zurich University of Applied Sciences (ZHAW), online.
Mazzola, G., De Pascale, S. “Nuevas herramientas en la lingüística diacrónica: tradiciones discursivas y lingüística computacional”. Presented at the workshop Las Tradiciones Discursivas en tiempos de lingüística cuantitativa: ¿corrección epistemológica o deconstrucción metodológica?, hosted by KU Leuven, online.
Cornillie, B., Mazzola, G., Thegel, M. “Las Tradiciones Discursivas en tiempos de lingüística cuantitativa: ¿corrección epistemológica? ¿deconstrucción metodológica?”. Introduction to the workshop Las Tradiciones Discursivas en tiempos de lingüística cuantitativa: ¿corrección epistemológica o deconstrucción metodológica?, hosted by KU Leuven, online.
2020
Mazzola, G., Cornillie, B., Rosemeyer, M., De Pascale, S. “Socio-stylistic aspects of syntactic variation: the case of Spanish asyndetic complementation (15th-18th c.)”. Presented at the 53rd Annual Meeting of the Societas Linguistica Europaea (SLE), online.
Mazzola, G., Cornillie, B., Rosemeyer, M. (2020). “La complementación asindética entre el S XV y el S XVIII: Variación socioestilística”. Presented at the Jornada digital de sintaxis española – Digital Workshop on Spanish Syntax, hosted by Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf, online.
2019
Mazzola, G., Rosemeyer, M., Cornillie, B. “La complementación asindética entre el S XV y el S XVIII: Variación socio-estilística”. Presented at the CoDiLi V, Université libre de Bruxelles, Brussels.
Mazzola, G., Rosemeyer, M., Cornillie, B. “The role of coreferentiality in Spanish que-omission between the 15th and the 18th century”. Presented at the 52nd annual meeting of the Societas Linguistica Europaea (SLE), Universität Leipzig, Leipzig.
Previous years
Mazzola, G. “Mij and mijn in Dutch: a historical sociolinguistics study”. Presented at 12th TWIST Student Conference for Linguistics (2018), Universiteit Leiden, Leiden.
Mazzola, G., Sánchez-Molina, S., Sorgini, L. “Synchronic evidence of a diachronic process: the grammaticalization of TENERE in Romance”. Poster presented at 11th TWIST Student Conference for Linguistics (2017), Universiteit Leiden, Leiden.
Outreach
Markey, M.A., Mazzola, G., Shaw, M., “The impostor’s voice: Causes of and remedies for pluralistic self-doubt”, in Becoming a researcher.
Markey, M.A., Mazzola, G., Shaw, M., “D-day, or how to survive and thrive at your PhD defence”, in Becoming a researcher.
Meissl, K., Mazzola, G., Montes, M., “Bibliography chaos? Zotero your troubles away!”, in Becoming a researcher.
Mazzola, G., Kerkhof, A., “Doet mèn maah een bieahtje: het gebruik van mijn voor mij in het zeventiende-eeuwse Nederlands”, Online article in Neerlandistiek- online tijdschrift voor taal- en letterkunde.
Reviewing
Topics: Morphosyntax, Romance languages, Historical Linguistics, Corpus Linguistics, Inferential Statistics, Complementation, Voice-encoding strategies
Journals: - Journal of Linguistics - Isogloss - Anuari de Filología - Journal of Pragmatics - Bulletin of Hispanic studies - STUF - Language Typology and Universals
Skills and training
Language skills
| Language | Level | Certificate | Competence |
|---|---|---|---|
| Italian | Native | ||
| Sicilian | Native | ||
| English | Fluent | IELTS 7.0 | Full professional competence (peer-reviewing, publishing and teaching) |
| Spanish | Fluent | DELE C1 | Full professional competence (peer-reviewing, publishing and teaching) |
| Dutch | Intermediate | ITNA B2 | Full proficiency in informal settings, limited working competence |
| French | Basic | DELF A2 | Elementary active competence in informal settings, high competence in reading and listening |
Technical skills
| Category | Type |
|---|---|
| Programming language | R (advanced), Python and HTML (basic) |
| Document authoring tools | Rmarkdown, Quarto, LateX, Obsidian, MS Word |
| Data management and control | Git, GitHub |
| Bibliography management | Zotero, Mendley, BibTeX |
| Teaching and learning platforms | Blackboard, Canvas, Microsoft Teams |
| Linguistics software | ELAN, Praat, AntConc |
| Productivity tools | MS Office Suite, Slack, Google Workspace |
Additional Training
- LOT Summer School (Utrecht 2016)
- LOT Winter School (Nijmegen 2017)
- LOT Summer School (Leiden 2017)
- LOT Winter School (Amsterdam 2019)
- Fundamental Statistics (KU Leuven 2019)
- Advanced R Programming (KU Leuven 2020)
- Academic Writing (KU Leuven 2020)
- Web Development Workshop (Newcastle 2024)