Kaitlyn Sabb

Until the age of twelve, I struggled with a lisp, which was a source of endless amusement for my sisters. This was even more evident when they tried teaching me Spanish. "It's not 'thoy de Ann Arbor,' Kaitlyn. It's 'soy,'" my sisters corrected me, but my pronunciation remained. Despite this, growing up in Ann Arbor's multicultural community, I constantly seized opportunities to learn languages through school, home, and friends. These experiences created my passion for exploring different cultures, ultimately inspiring me to major in Spanish and seek opportunities to learn abroad. 


When I started at the University of Michigan, both of my sisters, Megan and Alison, had already declared Spanish majors, which encouraged me to continue developing my language skills. While they gravitated toward classes in literature and culture, I found myself drawn to the structure of the language itself: the sounds, patterns, and regional differences. I enrolled in Spanish 298: Introduction to Spanish Linguistics, without quite knowing what linguistics even meant. However, by the end of the course, I knew I wanted to double major. That curiosity only grew while studying abroad in Spain, where I took Spanish 416: Spanish Sociolinguistics with Professor Nicholas Henriksen. Living with a host family and traveling throughout the country exposed me to dialects and colloquial language I'd never heard before. Including the widespread use of "th" sound in Spain, which suddenly made my childhood lisp feel less like a flaw and more like a natural variation. 


Back on campus, I continued exploring linguistic diversity and enrolled in Spanish 487: "Do You Speak Andalusian?", also with Professor Henriksen. The material--focused on the interrelationship between culture, history, and language variation in Andalusia, Spain--was so intriguing that I asked if I coudl pursue an Honors Thesis on a related topic. Under his mentorship, I learned to use tools like Praat for phonetic analysis, collected and analyzed data over the summer, and met weekly to refine my work. The project allowed me to merge my interests in both Spanish and Linguistics through hands-on work that connected directly to real-world language use. My project specifically focused on innovative ways in which Andalusian speaker produce plural words despite not pronouncing the final "-s" at the end of the syllables. 


Completing my Honors Thesis and receiving the Agnes Nicolini Vincenti Award for an Outstanding Honors Thesis was incredibly meaningful. It feels amazing to have this kind of recognition for the months of work I poured into the project: the hours spend analyzing recordings, revising my writing, and combing through article after article to ensure my research was thorough and accurate. 


After graduation, I plan to teach English in Spain through NALCAP, continuing to follow in my sisters' footsteps as they too are teaching in English in the Canary Islands. In the meantime, I'm planning a trip to yet another Spanish-speaking country with my mom, who, as always, will be counting on me to translate everything from menus to museum tours.