Andrew McKishnie

My newest professional endeavour is that of a web developer. I studied various different areas of web development from the University of Michigan via Coursera. As my academic background was in theoretical syntax (the structure of sentences), coding and programming come very naturally to me. Since completing my training in web development, I have experience in creating websites and building web applications from scratch. This includes front-end (client-side) development, back end (server-side) development, and database management. I am particularly interested in building and managing database applications as this type of logic, heirarchical organization and problem-solving follows very naturally from my linguistics training.

In the future I hope to combine my skills in web development and linguistics as a computational linguist. My experience using programming languages such as Python to perform web crawling and data scraping is the perfect complement to my extensive knowledge in theoretical syntax and semantics. I am well versed in syntactic and semantic annotation to any level of detail, making me an ideal candidate for such a role.

Though something I have only recently gotten into, web design is something that I have very quickly become quite passionate about. I am able to draw on all of my skills as a linguist such as pattern recognition, concepts like function-argument application, logical reasoning and theory crafting. I am then able to apply these skills to solve a real-world problem by creating an application that addresses the problem. An aspect of web development that I personally find to be quite attractive when compared to academia is that web design is much more collaborative, where a team often works together, synthesizing strengths and complementing weaknesses, in order to create the ideal finished product. Having been involved in numerous team sports throughout my life, this is a familiar feeling that I am excited to experience again after feeling somewhat isolated throughout my time in graduate school.

Currently, I offer a full range of web-related services. From the design phase, to building, to ongoing maintenance, I can oversee and implement the construction of your website or web application from start to finish. Whether you're looking for am interactive learning management system, an in depth detailing of all your business's offerings,services and an online store, or something as simple as a photo gallery, I can provide you with the solutions you need. I am very easy to work with, and allow you to remain in control while also providing you with options and ideas on the best way to proceed at every turn.

This web application is an example of my work, with a more extensive portfolio coming soon!

My linguistics career began many years ago when I was in my second year of university at the University of Western Ontario. I was wrapping up my second year in a chemistry program, in which I was not succeeding, nor was I terribly interested. I was, however, doing very well in the Russian language course that I was taking.

I was fascinated by the structure of Russian. Case in particular was extremely interesting for me. I found learning a completely new system of expressing grammatical relations to be particulary intriguing.

This led me to switch my major from chemistry to linguistics, where I began to thrive. Naturally, due to my interest in Case, I was particularly attracted to syntax, or the study of sentence structure. I found it to be a much smoother transition from chemistry than may initially seem. For example, both fields involve the combination of smaller parts (e.g. morphemes/words vs. atoms/molecules) to form larger structures, and the behaviour of those smaller parts within the larger whole is constrained by the way in which they were combined.

The majority of my research has been on Russian syntax. I have done extensive investigation into topics such as Case in secondary predication, the nature of Case assignment in the syntax, and the syntax-semantics interface. Most recently, my research has focused on the effects of reflexive marking of inchoatives, comparing English, French, Russian and Norwegian.

A secondary research interest is in phonology. I have always found solving phonological problems to be extremely interesting, the way that phonological rules are patterned and interact. My research in phonology was fairly theoretical, mostly on Optimality Theory (OT) and post-OT models such as Harmonic Serialism. These types of models always intrigued me as a different way of thinking about phonological computation and their use for predictive modelling of phonological aquisition and change. Solving these types of phonological 'puzzles' is a skill that has transferred well to web development.

Throughout my time as a graduate student, I became particularly passionate about teaching lingustics. One of the aspects that I enjoyed the most was that it was a subject area that most students at the undergraduate level generally had little to no idea about before taking their first class (myself included during my undergad studies). It gave me a unique opportunity to be able to teach a huge range of abiity levels, starting with complete beginners all the way up to the most advanced. I found this to be extremely valuable as it forced me to break concepts down to numerous different levels of complexity in order to effectively communicate to the widely varying skill levels. This in turn gave me a much more thorough understanding of these concepts, allowing me to grow in my own grasp of lingustic concepts.

I continue to enjoy teaching linguistics today in the capacity of a private tutor. If you're interested in my tutoring servies feel free to contact me with any inquiries.

For a more complete summary of my research and teaching background, please see my CV.