Foundation Scholar Mackenzie Gentz
| The Chicago Chapter of the Circumnavigators Club and Northwestern University have sponsored Mankenzie Gentz to make a circumnavigation in 2021 while conducting research on her topic entitled: "Linguistic Baggage: A Global Examination of Adult Accent Training in English as a Second Language". This is explained below in more detail in the section on her Research Topic. |
Background on Mackenzie Gentz
Mackenzie Gentz will graduate from Northwestern University in June 2022 with dual degrees in oboe performance, honors German and linguistics. Language has always been a deep-seated interest for Mackenzie, as she grew up in a Norwegian-Korean family—in English-Spanish-speaking Tucson, Arizona.
After graduation, Mackenzie plans to move to Germany in pursuit of a master's in linguistics. Her most recent travels include a trip to Nuremberg, Germany in December 2020 and upcoming trips to Cleveland and Tucson in February and March 2021.
In her free time, Mackenzie reads copious amounts of literature, prepares podcasts for her show The Book Album, explores the gastronomy of Chicago, and sketches with charcoal.
Mackenzie Gentz Research Topic
The linguistic literature shows that early accent training is crucial for language development as a whole, but society often treats accent on a model where the quality of a person's accent is equivalent to that person's intelligence or overall worth, making accent a painful and loaded topic for many ESL learners (Munro 285; Ostojic 20).
Her trip will investigate the frequency and type of accent training in adult ESL programs around the world, with the goal of being able to apply the knowledge learned towards the way our ESL programs in the United States structured. Such a widespread review of language programs throughout the world will allow for an informed consideration of the efficacy of ESL programs in the United States for different language backgrounds, which at this point are largely decentralized. Gathering data from such a large sample of languages, program types, and cities will allow for a broader discussion of migrant integration through the study of ESL in the future.
Itinerary of Circumnavigation
Mackenzie visited these countries during her circumnavigation in the summer of 2021.
- 26 June - 12 July Cusco, Peru
- 12 July - 25 July Málaga, Spain
- 25 July - 7 August Prague, Czech Republic
- 7 August - 25 August Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
- 25 August - September 4 Melbourne, Australia