My main areas of interest in research and teaching include pragmatics (particularly Gricean and neo-Gricean pragmatics), the roles of pragmatics and semantics in language use and interpretation, discourse analysis, cognitive and functional linguistics, discourse reference and anaphora, discourse connectives and markers, Spanish/English contrastive pragmatics, L2 pragmatics, and applied linguistics. My research has focused on  pragmatic, semantic, and cognitive motivations influencing native Spanish speakers' and L2 Spanish learners' use of referring expressions (e.g., NPs, pronouns, null subjects), linguistic evidence of cognitive and interactional frames in spoken discourse, and the meanings and functions of discourse connectives in Spanish and English. I was Special Issues Editor of the Journal of Pragmatics from 2003-2008 and continue to serve on the editorial board of the journal.

Books:

• Blackwell, Sarah E. 2003. Implicatures in Discourse: The Case of Spanish NP Anaphora. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
• Selected Proceedings of the 15th Hispanic Linguistics Symposium (2013). L. Chad Howe, Sarah E. Blackwell, & Margaret L. Quesada (eds.). Sommerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project.

Selected Articles and Book Chapters (refereed):

• Blackwell, Sarah E. 2022. “Epistemic causality in Spanish narratives as evidence of knowledge frames.” Contexts of Co-Constructed Discourse: Interaction, Pragmatics, and Second Language Applications, Lori Czerwionka, Rachel Showstack, & Judith Liskin-Gasparro (eds.), 136-159. Abingdon, UK and New York: Routledge. 
• Blackwell, Sarah E. 2021. "Implicature and Spanish speaker's meaning." The Routledge Handbook of Spanish Pragmatics, Dale A. Koike & J. César Félix-Brasdefer (eds.), 15-36. Abingdon, UK and New York: Routledge.
• Blackwell, Sarah E. 2018. "Frames of reference and antecedentless anaphora in Spanish conversation." Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 47, 283-305.
• Blackwell, Sarah E. & Margaret Lubbers Quesada. 2016. “Semantic and pragmatic causal relations in native speaker and L2 learner discourse: The uses of the connective porque in four narrative tasks.” Pragmatics & Language Learning, 37-64.
• Blackwell, Sarah E. 2016. “Porque in Spanish oral narratives: Semantic porque, (meta)pragmatic porque or both?” Interdisciplinary Studies in Pragmatics, Culture and Society, Alessandro Capone and Jacob L. Mey (eds.), 615-651. Heidelberg: Springer.
• Blackwell, Sarah E. 2016. “Implicatura y presuposición”. Enciclopedia de lingüística hispánica, Javier Gutiérrez Rexach (ed.), 632-649. London/New York: Routledge.
• Blackwell, Sarah E. & Margaret Lubbers Quesada. 2012. “Third-person subjects in native speakers’ and L2 learners’ narratives: Testing (and revising) the Givenness Hierarchy for Spanish.” Selected Proceedings of the 14th Hispanic Linguistics Symposium, Kimberly Geeslin, & Manuel Díaz-Campos (eds.), 142-164. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project.
• Blackwell, Sarah E. 2012. “Semántica y pragmática: El significado de las palabras vs. el significado del hablante”. Modelos y fundamentos de la pragmática y sociolingüística hispánica, Susana de los Heros and Mercedes Niño-Murcia (eds.), 3-28. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press.
• Blackwell, Sarah E. 2010. “Evaluation as a pragmatic act in Spanish film narratives.” Journal of Pragmatics 42, 2945-2963.
• Blackwell, Sarah E. 2009. “What’s in a pear film narrative? Framing and the power of expectation in Spanish.” Spanish in Context 6.2, 249-299.

• Quesada, Margaret Lubbers and Sarah E. Blackwell. 2009. “The L2 acquisition of null and overt Spanish subject pronouns: A pragmatic approach.” Selected Proceedings of the 11th Hispanic Linguistics Symposium, Joseph Collentine, Barbara Lafford, & Maryellen García (eds.), 117-130. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project.

   

COURSES TAUGHT AT UGA (1994-2025)

Undergraduate

• SPAN 3010              Spanish Cultural Dialogues
• SPAN/LING 3050    Introduction to Spanish Linguistics
• SPAN 4120              Topics in Spanish Semantics and Pragmatics
• SPAN/LING 4650     Spanish Phonetics and Phonology 
• SPAN/LING 4651     Advanced Spanish Grammar
• SPAN 4150              Business Spanish (1994-1997)

Graduate

• SPAN/LING 6350     Hispanic Linguistics: Theory and Analysis
• SPAN/LING 6650     Spanish Phonetics and Phonology
• SPAN/LING 6850     Spanish Applied Linguistics  
• SPAN/LING 6950     Spanish Semantics and Pragmatics
• SPAN 7750              Teaching College Spanish (1995-2000)
• ROML 8000/LING 8080 Topics in Discourse Analysis and Intercultural/Cross-cultural Pragmatics
• ROML 8000/LING 8080 Seminar in Pragmatic Theory and Applications
• SPAN/LING 8950     Advanced Topics in Spanish Pragmatics and Discourse Analysis