Maria Hasler Barker, Ph.D.

Maria Hasler Barker is an Assistant Professor of Spanish at SHSU. She earned her MA and PhD in Hispanic Linguistics from Indiana University - Bloomington with emphasis on interlanguage pragmatics and second language acquisition (SLA). At SHSU, Dr. Barker teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in these areas, as well as introduction to Spanish linguistics, Spanish grammar and composition, and Spanish conversation. She also teaches Spanish language courses at the 1000- and 2000-level. Dr. Barker leads the SHSU study abroad program in Santa Ana, Costa Rica.

Dr. Barker’s research agenda in SLA has primarily focused on interlanguage pragmatics and second and foreign language pedagogy. She has examined the benefits of explicit instruction about culturally-appropriate interactional resources for Spanish language students. In addition to her work on the acquisition of pragmatics, she collaborates with researchers in other fields. Dr. Barker received grant funding from SHSU, Indiana University, the American Library Association, and the Association for Library and Information Science Education (ALISE) for an interdisciplinary project to understand bilingual service encounters in public libraries.

Dr. Barker regularly presents both her own research and her collaborative projects at peer-reviewed conferences in the United States and Canada. She has published her research in a variety of peer-reviewed venues.

Selected Publications and Conferences

Hasler-Barker, M. (2018) Pragmatics. In Geeslin, K. (Ed.) The Cambridge Handbook of Spanish Linguistics (pp. 437-456). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Félix-Brasdefer, J.C. & Hasler-Barker, M. (2017) Elicited data. In A. Barron (ed.), Pragmatics Handbook (pp. 27-40). Germany: Mouton De Gruyter.

Hasler-Barker, M. (2016) Effects of metapragmatic instruction on the production of compliments and compliment responses: Learner-learner role-plays in the foreign language classroom. In Bardovi-Harlig, K. and Félix-Brasdefer, C. (Eds.) Pragmatics and Language Learning, vol. 14 (pp. 125-152). Honolulu, HI: National Foreign Language Resource Center.

Artamónova, T. & Hasler-Barker, M. “First-year Spanish L2 learners in a conversational language lab: Beliefs and attitudes at play”. The American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese, San Diego, California, 8-11 July, 2019. 

Hasler-Barker, M. & Artamónova, T. “’Hoy hacido un día estresado’: Insights from HL learners’ informal writing”. 6th National Symposium on Spanish as a Heritage Language, McAllen, Texas, 21-23 February 2019.

Frye, J.M. & Hasler-Barker, M. Report on grant: “Silence or share: How bilingual librarians use language to support or resist hegemony”. American Library Association Midwinter Meeting, Seattle, Washington, 25-29 January 2019.

List of courses regularly taught at SHSU

Spanish 1411: Elementary Spanish 1

Spanish 1412: Elementary Spanish 2

Spanish 2311: Intermediate Spanish 1

Spanish 2312: Intermediate Spanish 2

Spanish 3361: Spanish Grammar and Composition

Spanish 3367: Principles of Spanish Linguistics

Spanish 3369: Spanish Conversation 2