Kathryn O'Shields

Dr. Kathryn O'Shields has a PhD in linguistics with a concentration in pragmatics, an MA in Gender Studies, and a BA in English. Her dissertation, defended in 2018 at the City University of New York's Graduate Center, focuses on nonliteral language--in particular, how people interpret metaphors and similes. Her research interests include language philosophy, rhetoric, phonetics, syntax, semantics, and cognitive science. Her work has been published in the International Review of Pragmatics, and she has served as an editor for the Journal of Psycholinguistic Research. She also appeared in the 2016 documentary The Meme Machine to discuss the Internet's effects on language change. She has taught linguistics and speech pathology courses for NYU, Columbia, Emerson College, Marymount Manhattan, Lehman College, and Wilson College.