graduate studies
MA Thesis Defence: Amber Rynearson
Date: July 15, 2026
Time: 9:00am - 10:00am
Location: RCB 7402 & Zoom
Link: Email lingcomm@sfu.ca
Title
Women, words and wrestling: A CADS approach to women's representation in the UFC
911³Ô¹Ï Amber Rynearson
Prior to 911³Ô¹Ï, I graduated from Western Oregon University in 2020, where I completed my BA in English Studies, with a concentration in linguistics and a TEFL certificate. While in undergrad, I spent time working as a research assistant under Dr. Robert Troyer, mainly assisting with corpus compilation and qualitative data analysis of his linguistic landscape research. I also worked with international students in the university’s English tutoring center and used those skills while volunteering in ESOL classes at Portland Community College.
Throughout my time at 911³Ô¹Ï, I worked in Dr. Taboada's Discourse Processing Lab, studying the use of metaphors and other figurative language in online comments of current events, with the hope that findings from this project can be used to later train LLMs (Large Language Models) to better detect hate speech and negative rhetoric online. I have presented this research at RaAM (Researching and Applying Metaphor) and will present my own thesis research at the upcoming CLA (Canadian Linguistic Association) conference in June.
Exam committee
- Dr. Maite Taboada (Supervisor)
- Dr. Sara Ng (Committee Member)
- (External examiner, Carleton University)