Research Interests
My main areas of past and present research center on: heritage speaker, Afro-Hispanic and second language phonetics and phonology, prosodic phrasing, accent and stress, the prosody-pragmatics interface, and the prosody-syntax interface.
My main areas of past and present research center on: heritage speaker, Afro-Hispanic and second language phonetics and phonology, prosodic phrasing, accent and stress, the prosody-pragmatics interface, and the prosody-syntax interface.
Edited Volumes
Rao, Rajiv (ed.). Forthcoming (2023). The Phonetics and Phonology of Heritage Languages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Rao, Rajiv (ed.). 2020. Spanish Phonetics and Phonology in Contact: Studies from Africa, the Americas, and Spain. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Rao, Rajiv (ed.). 2019. Key Issues in the Teaching of Spanish Pronunciation: From Description to Pedagogy. London: Routledge.
Textbook
Tuten, Donald, Fernando Tejedo-Herrero, Rajiv Rao & Robyn Clarke. 2022. Pronunciaciones del español [Pronunciations of Spanish]. London: Routledge.
Papers
Lor, Maichou, Burke Richmond, Jennifer Ploch, Roger Brown, Bao Xiong, Elizabeth O’Donnell & Rajiv Rao. 2022. Validating Four Hmong Word Recognition Tests with Normal-Hearing Bilingual Hmong Individuals. American Journal of Audiology 31(4): 1268-1278.
Aziz, Jacob, Vanina Machado Araujo, Natasha Swiderski, Celina Valdivia, Ryan Stevenson, Yasaman Rafat & Rajiv Rao. 2022. Intonation Patterns in Argentinian- and Venezuelan-Canadian Heritage Speakers of Spanish: Investigating Parental and English Influences. Spanish as a Heritage Language 2(1): 60-90.
Bondarenko, Margaryta, Brianna Butera & Rajiv Rao. 2022. Voice Onset Time (VOT) of L3 Spanish /ptk/ by Multilingual Heritage Speakers of Ukrainian and Polish. EuroAmerican Journal of Applied Linguistics and Languages 9(1): 28-51.
Rao, Rajiv, Ting Ye & Brianna Butera. 2022. The Prosodic Expression of Sarcasm vs. Sincerity by Heritage Speakers of Spanish. Languages 7(1): 17 (Special Issue on Heritage Speaker Phonetics and Phonology: Testing Models and Expanding the Range of Data, ed. by Christine Shea and Ji Young Kim).
Rao, Rajiv & Mark Amengual. 2021. La fonética y fonología del español como lengua de herencia [The Phonetics and Phonology of Heritage Spanish]. In Aproximaciones al estudio del español como lengua de herencia, ed. by Diego Pascual y Cabo & Julio Torres. London: Routledge.
Froemming, Brenda & Rajiv Rao. 2021. The Tritonal Pitch Accent in the Broad Focus Declaratives of the Spanish Spoken in Cuenca, Ecuador: An Acoustic and Sociolinguistic Analysis. Estudios de Fonética Experimental [Journal of Experimental Phonetics] XXX: 119-140.
Korfhagen, David, Rajiv Rao & Sandro Sessarego. 2021. Declarative Intonation in Four Afro-Hispanic Varieties: Phonological Analysis and Implications. In Aspects of Latin American Spanish Dialectology: In Honor of Terrell A. Morgan, ed. by Manuel Díaz-Campos & Sandro Sessarego, 155-179. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Rao, Rajiv, Zuzanna Fuchs, Maria Polinsky & María Luisa Parra. 2020. The Sound Pattern of Heritage Spanish: An Exploratory Study on the Effects of a Classroom Experience. Languages 5(4): 72 (Special Issue on Contemporary Advances in Linguistic Research on Heritage Spanish, ed. by Bradley Hoot).
Rogers, Brandon M.A., Rajiv Rao & Matthew Burner. 2020. Exploring Extended Focus and Meaning in Chilean Spanish Intonational Plateau Contours. In Language Patterns in Spanish and Beyond: Structure, Context and Development, ed. by Juan J. Colomina-Almiñana & Sandro Sessarego, 199-223. London: Routledge.
Butera, Brianna, Rajiv Rao & Sandro Sessarego. 2020. Afro-Peruvian Spanish Intonation: A Case of Contact-Induced Language Change. Spanish Phonetics and Phonology in Contact: Studies from Africa, the Americas, and Spain, ed. by Rajiv Rao, 208-226. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Butera, Brianna, Sandro Sessarego & Rajiv Rao. 2020. Afro-Peruvian Spanish Declarative Intonation: Analysis and Implications. In Hispanic Linguistics: Current Issues and New Directions, ed. by Alfonso Morales-Front et al., 230-247. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Rao, Rajiv. 2019. The Phonological System of Adult Heritage Speakers of Spanish in the United States. In The Routledge Handbook of Spanish Phonology, ed. by Sonia Colina & Fernando Martínez-Gil, 439-452. London/New York: Routledge.
Sessarego, Sandro, Brianna Butera & Rajiv Rao. 2019. Aspectos de la entonación afroperuana. Cuadernos de la ALFAL 11(1): 199-215.
Rao, Rajiv. 2019. Fonología y fonética [Phonology and phonetics]. In The Routledge Handbook of Spanish Language Teaching, ed. by Javier Muñoz-Basols, Elisa Gironzetti & Manel Lacorte, 279-300. London/New York: Routledge.
Ronquest, Rebecca & Rajiv Rao. 2018. Heritage Spanish Phonetics and Phonology. In The Routledge Handbook of Spanish as a Heritage Language, ed. by Kim Potowski, 164-177. London/New York: Routledge.
Rao, Rajiv & Sandro Sessarego. 2018. The Intonation of Chota Valley Spanish: Contact-Induced Phenomena at the Discourse-Phonology Interface. Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics 11(1): 163-192.
Knaff, Cassandra, Rajiv Rao & Sandro Sessarego. 2018. Future Directions in the Field: A Look at Afro-Hispanic Prosody. Lingua 202: 76-86.
Sandro Sessarego & Rajiv Rao. 2016. On the Simplification of a Prosodic Inventory: The Afro-Bolivian Spanish Case. In Inquiries in Hispanic Linguistics: From Theory to Empirical Evidence, ed. by Alejandro Cuza, Lori Czerwionka & Daniel J. Olson, 171-190. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Rao, Rajiv. 2016. On the Nuclear Intonational Phonology of Heritage Speakers of Spanish. In Advances in Spanish as a Heritage Language, ed. by Diego Pascual y Cabo, 51-80. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Rao, Rajiv & Emily Kuder. 2016. Research on Heritage Spanish Phonetics and Phonology: Pedagogical and Curricular Implications. Journal of New Approaches in Educational Research 5(2): 99-106.
Rao, Rajiv & Sandro Sessarego. 2016. On the Intonation of Afro-Bolivian Spanish Declaratives: Implications for a Theory of Afro-Hispanic Creole Genesis. Lingua 174: 45-64.
Rao, Rajiv. 2015. Review of Coarticulation and Sound Change in Romance (Current Issues in Linguistic Theory Series 329), by Daniel Recasens. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Diachronica 32(3): 434-440.
Rao, Rajiv & Rebecca Ronquest. 2015. The Heritage Spanish Phonetic/Phonological System: Looking Back and Moving Forward. Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics 8(2): 403-414. (In Viewpoints Section on "The Past and Future of Spanish and Portuguese as Heritage Languages, ed. by Rajiv Rao)
Rao, Rajiv. 2015. Manifestations of /bdg/ in Heritage Speakers of Spanish. Heritage Language Journal 12(1): 48-74.
Rao, Rajiv. 2015. On the Phonological Status of Spanish Compound Words. Word Structure 8(1): 84-118.
Rao, Rajiv. 2014. On the Status of the Phoneme /b/ in Heritage Speakers of Spanish. Sintagma 26: 37-54.
Rao, Rajiv. 2013. Prosodic Consequences of Sarcasm Versus Sincerity in Mexican Spanish. Concentric: Studies in Linguistics 39(2): 33-59.
Rao, Rajiv. 2013. Intonational Variation in Third Party Complaints in Spanish. Journal of Speech Sciences 3(1): 141-168.
Rao, Rajiv. 2011. Intonation in Spanish Classroom-Style Didactic Speech. Journal of Language Teaching and Research 2(3): 493-507.
Rao, Rajiv. 2011. Review of Transcription of Intonation of the Spanish Language, ed. by Pilar Prieto and Paolo Roseano. Munchen, Germany: Lincom Europa. Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics 4(2): 451-457.
Rao, Rajiv. 2010. Final Lengthening and Pause Duration in Three Dialects of Spanish. In Selected Proceedings of the 4th Conference on Laboratory Approaches to Spanish Phonology, ed. by Marta Ortega-Llebaria, 69-82. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project.
Rao, Rajiv. 2009. Deaccenting in Spontaneous Speech in Barcelona Spanish. Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics 2(1): 31-75.
Rao, Rajiv. 2008. Observations on the Roles of Prosody and Syntax in the Phonological Phrasing of Barcelona Spanish. The Linguistics Journal 3(3): 85-131.
Rao, Rajiv. 2008. Effects on Deaccenting in Two Speech Styles of Barcelona Spanish. In Proceedings of the 35th Western Conference on Linguistics (WECOL), ed. by Rebecca Colavin, Kathryn Cooke, Kathryn Davidson, Shin Fukuda and Alex Del Guidice, 202-216. San Diego, CA: Department of Linguistics, University of California, San Diego.
Rao, Rajiv. 2007. On the Phonological Phrasing Patterns in the Spanish of Lima, Perú. Southwest Journal of Linguistics 26(1): 81-111.
Rao, Rajiv. 2007. Phonological Phrasing in Barcelona Spanish. In Proceedings of the 34th Western Conference on Linguistics (WECOL), ed. by Erin Bainbridge and Brian Agbayani, 345-360. Fresno, CA: Department of Linguistics, California State University, Fresno.
Rao, Rajiv. 2006. On Intonation’s Relationship with Pragmatic Meaning in Spanish. In Selected Proceedings of the 8th Hispanic Linguistics Symposium, ed. by Timothy L. Face and Carol A. Klee, 103-115. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project.
Guest Editing for Journals
Heritage Language Journal 13(2), special issue on the Phonetic and Phonological Systems of Heritage Languages (August 2016).
“Viewpoints: The Past and Future of Spanish and Portuguese as Heritage Languages.” Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics 8(2): 357-439.
Rao, Rajiv (ed.). Forthcoming (2023). The Phonetics and Phonology of Heritage Languages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Rao, Rajiv (ed.). 2020. Spanish Phonetics and Phonology in Contact: Studies from Africa, the Americas, and Spain. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Rao, Rajiv (ed.). 2019. Key Issues in the Teaching of Spanish Pronunciation: From Description to Pedagogy. London: Routledge.
- Reviewed by Charlie Nagle (2022) in Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics
- Reviewed by André Zampaulo (2020) in Hispania
- Reviewed by Armin Schwegler (2020) in the Journal of Spanish Language Teaching
- Reviewed by Avizia Yim Long (2020) in the Journal of Second Language Pronunciation
- Reviewed by Jesús García Laborda (2020) in Tejuelo
Textbook
Tuten, Donald, Fernando Tejedo-Herrero, Rajiv Rao & Robyn Clarke. 2022. Pronunciaciones del español [Pronunciations of Spanish]. London: Routledge.
Papers
Lor, Maichou, Burke Richmond, Jennifer Ploch, Roger Brown, Bao Xiong, Elizabeth O’Donnell & Rajiv Rao. 2022. Validating Four Hmong Word Recognition Tests with Normal-Hearing Bilingual Hmong Individuals. American Journal of Audiology 31(4): 1268-1278.
Aziz, Jacob, Vanina Machado Araujo, Natasha Swiderski, Celina Valdivia, Ryan Stevenson, Yasaman Rafat & Rajiv Rao. 2022. Intonation Patterns in Argentinian- and Venezuelan-Canadian Heritage Speakers of Spanish: Investigating Parental and English Influences. Spanish as a Heritage Language 2(1): 60-90.
Bondarenko, Margaryta, Brianna Butera & Rajiv Rao. 2022. Voice Onset Time (VOT) of L3 Spanish /ptk/ by Multilingual Heritage Speakers of Ukrainian and Polish. EuroAmerican Journal of Applied Linguistics and Languages 9(1): 28-51.
Rao, Rajiv, Ting Ye & Brianna Butera. 2022. The Prosodic Expression of Sarcasm vs. Sincerity by Heritage Speakers of Spanish. Languages 7(1): 17 (Special Issue on Heritage Speaker Phonetics and Phonology: Testing Models and Expanding the Range of Data, ed. by Christine Shea and Ji Young Kim).
Rao, Rajiv & Mark Amengual. 2021. La fonética y fonología del español como lengua de herencia [The Phonetics and Phonology of Heritage Spanish]. In Aproximaciones al estudio del español como lengua de herencia, ed. by Diego Pascual y Cabo & Julio Torres. London: Routledge.
Froemming, Brenda & Rajiv Rao. 2021. The Tritonal Pitch Accent in the Broad Focus Declaratives of the Spanish Spoken in Cuenca, Ecuador: An Acoustic and Sociolinguistic Analysis. Estudios de Fonética Experimental [Journal of Experimental Phonetics] XXX: 119-140.
Korfhagen, David, Rajiv Rao & Sandro Sessarego. 2021. Declarative Intonation in Four Afro-Hispanic Varieties: Phonological Analysis and Implications. In Aspects of Latin American Spanish Dialectology: In Honor of Terrell A. Morgan, ed. by Manuel Díaz-Campos & Sandro Sessarego, 155-179. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Rao, Rajiv, Zuzanna Fuchs, Maria Polinsky & María Luisa Parra. 2020. The Sound Pattern of Heritage Spanish: An Exploratory Study on the Effects of a Classroom Experience. Languages 5(4): 72 (Special Issue on Contemporary Advances in Linguistic Research on Heritage Spanish, ed. by Bradley Hoot).
Rogers, Brandon M.A., Rajiv Rao & Matthew Burner. 2020. Exploring Extended Focus and Meaning in Chilean Spanish Intonational Plateau Contours. In Language Patterns in Spanish and Beyond: Structure, Context and Development, ed. by Juan J. Colomina-Almiñana & Sandro Sessarego, 199-223. London: Routledge.
Butera, Brianna, Rajiv Rao & Sandro Sessarego. 2020. Afro-Peruvian Spanish Intonation: A Case of Contact-Induced Language Change. Spanish Phonetics and Phonology in Contact: Studies from Africa, the Americas, and Spain, ed. by Rajiv Rao, 208-226. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Butera, Brianna, Sandro Sessarego & Rajiv Rao. 2020. Afro-Peruvian Spanish Declarative Intonation: Analysis and Implications. In Hispanic Linguistics: Current Issues and New Directions, ed. by Alfonso Morales-Front et al., 230-247. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Rao, Rajiv. 2019. The Phonological System of Adult Heritage Speakers of Spanish in the United States. In The Routledge Handbook of Spanish Phonology, ed. by Sonia Colina & Fernando Martínez-Gil, 439-452. London/New York: Routledge.
Sessarego, Sandro, Brianna Butera & Rajiv Rao. 2019. Aspectos de la entonación afroperuana. Cuadernos de la ALFAL 11(1): 199-215.
Rao, Rajiv. 2019. Fonología y fonética [Phonology and phonetics]. In The Routledge Handbook of Spanish Language Teaching, ed. by Javier Muñoz-Basols, Elisa Gironzetti & Manel Lacorte, 279-300. London/New York: Routledge.
Ronquest, Rebecca & Rajiv Rao. 2018. Heritage Spanish Phonetics and Phonology. In The Routledge Handbook of Spanish as a Heritage Language, ed. by Kim Potowski, 164-177. London/New York: Routledge.
Rao, Rajiv & Sandro Sessarego. 2018. The Intonation of Chota Valley Spanish: Contact-Induced Phenomena at the Discourse-Phonology Interface. Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics 11(1): 163-192.
Knaff, Cassandra, Rajiv Rao & Sandro Sessarego. 2018. Future Directions in the Field: A Look at Afro-Hispanic Prosody. Lingua 202: 76-86.
Sandro Sessarego & Rajiv Rao. 2016. On the Simplification of a Prosodic Inventory: The Afro-Bolivian Spanish Case. In Inquiries in Hispanic Linguistics: From Theory to Empirical Evidence, ed. by Alejandro Cuza, Lori Czerwionka & Daniel J. Olson, 171-190. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Rao, Rajiv. 2016. On the Nuclear Intonational Phonology of Heritage Speakers of Spanish. In Advances in Spanish as a Heritage Language, ed. by Diego Pascual y Cabo, 51-80. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Rao, Rajiv & Emily Kuder. 2016. Research on Heritage Spanish Phonetics and Phonology: Pedagogical and Curricular Implications. Journal of New Approaches in Educational Research 5(2): 99-106.
Rao, Rajiv & Sandro Sessarego. 2016. On the Intonation of Afro-Bolivian Spanish Declaratives: Implications for a Theory of Afro-Hispanic Creole Genesis. Lingua 174: 45-64.
Rao, Rajiv. 2015. Review of Coarticulation and Sound Change in Romance (Current Issues in Linguistic Theory Series 329), by Daniel Recasens. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Diachronica 32(3): 434-440.
Rao, Rajiv & Rebecca Ronquest. 2015. The Heritage Spanish Phonetic/Phonological System: Looking Back and Moving Forward. Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics 8(2): 403-414. (In Viewpoints Section on "The Past and Future of Spanish and Portuguese as Heritage Languages, ed. by Rajiv Rao)
Rao, Rajiv. 2015. Manifestations of /bdg/ in Heritage Speakers of Spanish. Heritage Language Journal 12(1): 48-74.
Rao, Rajiv. 2015. On the Phonological Status of Spanish Compound Words. Word Structure 8(1): 84-118.
Rao, Rajiv. 2014. On the Status of the Phoneme /b/ in Heritage Speakers of Spanish. Sintagma 26: 37-54.
Rao, Rajiv. 2013. Prosodic Consequences of Sarcasm Versus Sincerity in Mexican Spanish. Concentric: Studies in Linguistics 39(2): 33-59.
Rao, Rajiv. 2013. Intonational Variation in Third Party Complaints in Spanish. Journal of Speech Sciences 3(1): 141-168.
Rao, Rajiv. 2011. Intonation in Spanish Classroom-Style Didactic Speech. Journal of Language Teaching and Research 2(3): 493-507.
Rao, Rajiv. 2011. Review of Transcription of Intonation of the Spanish Language, ed. by Pilar Prieto and Paolo Roseano. Munchen, Germany: Lincom Europa. Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics 4(2): 451-457.
Rao, Rajiv. 2010. Final Lengthening and Pause Duration in Three Dialects of Spanish. In Selected Proceedings of the 4th Conference on Laboratory Approaches to Spanish Phonology, ed. by Marta Ortega-Llebaria, 69-82. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project.
Rao, Rajiv. 2009. Deaccenting in Spontaneous Speech in Barcelona Spanish. Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics 2(1): 31-75.
Rao, Rajiv. 2008. Observations on the Roles of Prosody and Syntax in the Phonological Phrasing of Barcelona Spanish. The Linguistics Journal 3(3): 85-131.
Rao, Rajiv. 2008. Effects on Deaccenting in Two Speech Styles of Barcelona Spanish. In Proceedings of the 35th Western Conference on Linguistics (WECOL), ed. by Rebecca Colavin, Kathryn Cooke, Kathryn Davidson, Shin Fukuda and Alex Del Guidice, 202-216. San Diego, CA: Department of Linguistics, University of California, San Diego.
Rao, Rajiv. 2007. On the Phonological Phrasing Patterns in the Spanish of Lima, Perú. Southwest Journal of Linguistics 26(1): 81-111.
Rao, Rajiv. 2007. Phonological Phrasing in Barcelona Spanish. In Proceedings of the 34th Western Conference on Linguistics (WECOL), ed. by Erin Bainbridge and Brian Agbayani, 345-360. Fresno, CA: Department of Linguistics, California State University, Fresno.
Rao, Rajiv. 2006. On Intonation’s Relationship with Pragmatic Meaning in Spanish. In Selected Proceedings of the 8th Hispanic Linguistics Symposium, ed. by Timothy L. Face and Carol A. Klee, 103-115. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project.
Guest Editing for Journals
Heritage Language Journal 13(2), special issue on the Phonetic and Phonological Systems of Heritage Languages (August 2016).
“Viewpoints: The Past and Future of Spanish and Portuguese as Heritage Languages.” Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics 8(2): 357-439.
