Onae Parker, PhD

Linguistics, University of Iowa

Hello there. I am Onae Parker, a recent PhD graduate in linguistics from the University of Iowa.Research: My dissertation explored how Japanese-English bilinguals signal important information in conversation, using intonation (pitch fluctuations). Read more about it here.Teaching: I accrued substantial teaching experience throughout my doctoral program. While working with fantastic students, I developed a deep investment in fostering a flexible and resilient classroom environment in which students feel some ownership in their classroom experience, and have the tools to reach their individual goals, as well as objectives set forth by the curriculum. Find my teaching experience here.

Get in Touch

When we correct a conversant and say "I need to get the YELLOW apple (no the blue one)", we use different signals to highlight "yellow" as important information for our conversant to hear. When we highlight "yellow," we would use different signals in English, than we would in another language. These cross-linguistic differences can influence each other, and shape the resulting strategies that a bilingual might use, compared to a monolingual speaker.
My research explored the differences between Japanese and English, focusing on a key population: Heritage Bilinguals. Heritage Speakers are individuals who grew up speaking a language in the home, that is different from the dominant society language. How do Heritage Bilinguals navigate cross-linguistic differences when signaling key information?

Manuscripts in Preparation

  • Focus in Heritage Japanese: Production and Perception of Prominence. Parker, O. (in prep). Doctoral Dissertation, University of Iowa.

  • Individual variability in native categorization and its effects on the perception and production of non-native sounds. Zeng, W., Parker, O., & Shea, C. (under review).

Selected Presentations

  • Creating Belonging in the Classroom. Wieder, E., & Parker, O. New Teaching Assistant Orientation (NTAO), 2025, University of Iowa Center for Teaching.

  • Bilingual production of narrow subject focus in Japanese: spelunking in prosody. Parker, O., & Shea, C. Speech Prosody 2024, June 2024, Leiden, The Netherlands. Poster.

  • The effects of native phonetic categorization on L2 sound acquisition. Zeng, W., Parker, O., & Shea, C. The 19th Conference on Laboratory Phonology, June 2024, Seoul, Korea. Poster

  • The effects of native phonetic categorization gradiency on L2 sound acquisition. Zeng, W., Parker, O., and Shea, C. The 2nd Korean Applied Linguistics Conference: Exploring New Waves in Korean Applied Linguistics, February 2023, The Penn State Institute for Korean Studies, Pennsylvania, US.

I have 6+ years of university teaching experience both as a team teacher and a primary instructor. I developed skills in designing course structure, course materials, and rubrics. My teaching style emphasizes more student ownership in their class experience and providing access to tools for students to reach their individual goals in the class in addition to course objectives. My teaching also uses principles from the Universal Design for Learning (UDL), designing course materials and assessments to use target skills and removing unnecessary barriers to learning.

Teaching

Graduate Teaching Assistant, University of Iowa
-LING: 3020, Phonological Analysis, supervised by Dr. Jill Beckman, 2026, 2025, 2023
-LING: 1040, Language Rights, supervised by Dr. Dan Devitt, 2025, 2022, 2021
-LING: 3015, Articulatory and Acoustic Phonetics, supervised by Dr. Jill Beckman, 2025, 2021, 2022
-LING: 3190, Psycholinguistic Aspects of Bilingualism, supervised by Dr. Ethan Kutlu, 2024
-ESL: 4100, ESL Academic Oral Skills, 2019, 2020
-ESL: 4200, ESL Academic Reading Skills, 2021

Mentorship

-Graduate Peer Mentor, P2P Program, University of Iowa
2026
-Lab Mentor, Phonetics Lab, University of Iowa, 2023-2024
-Language Learning Mentor, 2023-2025

Certificates and Professional Development

-Associate Level Certificate of Teaching as Research, Center of Instruction, Research, Teaching, and Learning (CIRTL), University of Iowa
-When Students Fall Behind, CIRTL Self-Paced Course, 2026
-Neurodiversity in the Classroom, presented by Dr. Sarah Silverman, Rocklin Teaching and Learning Speaker Series, 2026
-Language Justice: Community Engagement, taught by Claire Frances, Dr. Christine Shea, Dr. Aron Aji, 2023.
-Practicum: College Teaching for TAs, taught by Megan Knight, 2023