Sunyoung Ahn

Sunyoung Ahn joined the department in 2024 and teaches various levels of Korean language courses. Before joining the University of Toronto, she taught second language acquisition courses—covering topics like multilingualism and emotions in second language processing—as an assistant professor in the Department of Linguistics at the University of Manitoba. She also taught Korean language courses in the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations at Harvard University.

As an active researcher in Applied Linguistics with a focus on Korean and extensive experience as a second language teacher, she explores the interaction between psychological factors and environmental aspects of multilingualism. Her research covers diverse topics, including bilingual language processing, age effects in language acquisition and attrition, heritage language development, emotion and multilingualism, and second language pedagogy for both heritage and non-heritage learners of Korean.

She has received various research grants and fellowships, including a fellowship from the Academy of Korean Studies, a grant from the National Research Foundation of Korea, the KT & G scholarship, and the Ann G. Wylie Dissertation Fellowship. Currently, she is working on developing a short, open-access proficiency test for Korean with her collaborators.

Awards

Nominated for the Internationalization Awards, University of Manitoba, 2023 

Distinction in Teaching Awards, Harvard University, Spring 2018, Fall 2017, Spring 2016, Fall 2015 

Excellent Student Paper Award, 20th American Association of Teachers of Korean Conference, 2015 

Publications

• Ahn, S., & Jiang, N. (2023). Can adult learners sense L2 emotional words automatically? The role of L2 use on the emotional Stroop effect. Second Language Research, 39(4), 1265-1278. Doi: 10.1177/02676583221131256 ^SSCI 

• Chang, B. C., & Ahn, S. (2023). Examining the role of phoneme frequency in first language perceptual attrition. Languages, 8(1), 53. DOI:10.3390/languages8010053 ^SCOPUS

• Ahn, S., & Chang, C. B. (2022). Emotion word development in bilingual children living in majority and minority contexts. Applied Linguistics, 43(5), 845–866. DOI: 10.1093/applin/amab071 ^SSCI 

• Ahn, S., & Jiang, N. (2018). Automatic semantic integration during L2 sentential reading. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 21(2), 375–383. DOI: 10.1017/S1366728917000256 ^SSCI 

• Ahn, S., Chang, C. B., DeKeyser, R., & Lee-Ellis, S. (2017). Age effects in first language attrition: Speech perception by Korean-English bilinguals. Language Learning 67(3), 694–733. DOI: 10.1111/lang.12252 ^SSCI 

• Ahn, S., Gye, E., Kim, Y. (2021). Korean as a second language learners’ emotional reactivity in reading Korean literature: Galvanic skin response study [한국어 학습자의 한국 문학작품 읽기에서의 감정 활성화: 피부전도도 연구]. The Korean Language and Literature [국어국문학], 195, 427-459. (in Korean) DOI: 10.31889/kll.2021.06.195.427 ^KCI 

• Ahn, S., Gye, E., Kim, Y. (2021). The comparison of emotional reactivity between native speakers and advanced learners in reading Korean literature [한국 문학작품 읽기에서의 모어 화자와 고급 학습자의 감정 반응]. Journal of Korean Language Education [한국어교육], 32(3), 161-188. (in Korean) DOI : 10.18209/iakle.2021.32.3.161 ^KCI  

• Ahn, S., & Kim, Y. (2017). The effects of comprehensible output on learning Korean grammar and vocabulary according to output modes [한국어 문법 및 어휘 습득에서 이해 가능한 출력의 출력 양상별 효과]. Language Information [언어정보], 25, 57–92. (in Korean) ^KCI