National Achievement Award, Canadian Linguistic Association / Prix national d’excellence, Association canadienne de linguistique 2020

Dr. Johanne Catherine Paradis

Dr. Johanne Paradis is a recognized leader in the field, with an exceptional record of research achievements. She is also a celebrated teacher and mentor, and she has a strong record of building bridges between the academic and non-academic world. Her research focus is child (second) language acquisition and bilingualism.

Dr. Paradis holds a BA and MA in Linguistics from UBC, and a PhD (Dean’s Honour List) in Psychology as well as a Graduate Diploma in Education from McGill University. After her graduation in 1998, she completed a SSHRC post-doctoral fellowship at McGill, then in 2020 joined the Department of Linguistics at the University of Alberta, where she is now a Full Professor and Associate Chair, Graduate. She is also the director of the Language Acquisition Lab, which researches bilingualism in children, and an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders. Dr. Paradis is the editor of Journal of Child Language and a board member for several other journals. She has served on many administrative committees, including the Program committee of the Canadian Linguistics Association. She is popular as an invited speaker and is the recipient of several research grants and awards, as well as an award for graduate supervision.

Dr. Paradis’ research focuses on child language acquisition, bilingualism, and second language acquisition in children, with an emphasis on children in immigrant and refugee families. Her research is heavily cited, and stands out both in terms of output and depth, with three edited books, 16 book chapters, and more than 60 peer-reviewed papers. She has published in areas such as education and applied psycholinguistics as well as in language acquisition. Her research is of interest not only to acquisitionists, but also to clinicians such as speech-language pathologists, as well as to educators and policymakers. She has conducted research on language acquisition in French-English bilingual children, and in collaboration with colleagues, she has captured the diversity of bilingual experiences by including children from a range of first language backgrounds. In addition to typical populations, her research has examined clinical bilingual populations, especially bilingual children with Developmental Language Disorder (also known as Specific Language Impairment). This research has clinical relevance, as it elucidates the range of bilingual trajectories. More recently, she has also conducted research on bilinguals with Autism Spectrum Disorder. A passionate French-English bilingual speaker, her work has shifted the focus of acquisition research to include bilingual children. This is particularly relevant in an increasingly multilingual society such as Canada.

Communicating the findings and implications of her research to concerned parties beyond academia is a pivotal part of Dr. Paradis’ career. She has delivered multiple workshops and seminars across Canada to teachers, school administrators, speech pathologists, and special education professionals on different matters related to bilingualism and bilingual education. In consultation with community partners, she has set up the Child English as a Second Language Resource Centre, and created parental questionnaires, such as the Alberta Language Development Questionnaire, which examines first language development, and the Alberta Language Environment Questionnaire, which looks at language use patterns in bilingual homes. In addition to this, she has taken part in several interviews in both print and radio media and has written pieces in which she advocates for an empirical approach to bilingualism in order to dispel myths and preconceived notions. Johanne is actively involved in the Coalition of Social Inclusion (Edmonton), a group that advocates for the long-term integration, social inclusion, and settlement of newcomers to Canada, as well as addressing the issue of first language maintenance. Several of her recent grant-funded projects focus on best practices and challenges for language and literacy among immigrants and refugees.

In summary, Johanne Paradis has set a stellar example of what it means to be a Canadian scholar, in terms of both pure research and knowledge mobilization. She has also excelled as a mentor and administrator. The Canadian Linguistic Association is delighted to recognize this great service by awarding Dr. Paradis our National Achievement Award for 2020.

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