Lourdes Ortega


Lourdes Ortega is a Spanish-born American linguist. She is currently a professor of applied linguistics at Georgetown University. Her research focuses on second language acquisition and second language writing. She is noted for her work on second language acquisition and for recommending that syntactic complexity need to be measured multidimensionally.
Along with Cumming, Hyland, Kormos, Manchón, Matsuda, Polio, Storch and Verspoor, Ortega is considered as one of the most prominent researchers in second language writing.

Career

Ortega received her Master of Arts in English as a second language in 1995 and her Doctor of Philosophy in Second language acquisition in 2000 from the University of Hawaii at Manoa. She taught applied linguistics in graduate programs at Georgia State University between 2000-2002, Northern Arizona University between 2002-2004, University of Hawaii at Manoa between 2004-2012, and Georgetown University since 2012.
She is the Currents in Language Learning Series Editor & Associate General Editor of the Language Learning: A Journal of Research in Language Studies, a peer-reviewed academic journal.

Research

Ortega is noted in the field of second language acquisition for her paper entitled "Towards an Organic Approach to Investigating CAF in Instructed SLA: The Case of Complexity", published in Applied Linguistics in which she claimed along with John Norris that syntactic complexity need to be measured multidimensionally.

Awards