Eniko Csomay, Ph.D.

Professor, Graduate Advisor, and former Associate Dean for the College of Arts and Letters (2009-2016)

Eniko Csomay

Eniko Csomay (ORCID: 0000-0002-6239-6771) has been a faculty member at SDSU since 2002. A native of Hungary, she obtained her B.A. in English Language and Literature from Eötvös University in Budapest (HU.) and finished her M.A. in Applied Linguistics at the University of Reading (U.K.). After her studies in England, she returned to Hungary and continued to work as a teacher educator at her alma mater. She moved to the United States in 1999 to complete her Ph.D. at Northern Arizona University (U.S.A.) in Applied Linguistics in 2002.

As an applied linguist, she has published articles in highly ranked international journals, for example, in Applied Linguistics (2013)Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory (2012)Linguistics and Education (2005), the Journal of English for Academic Purposes (2006, 2007, 2018), Register Studies (2020), and the International Journal of Corpus Linguistics (2021). She edited a special issue of the journal Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory in 2012, titled Contemporary Perspectives on Discourse and Corpora. She has several book chapters in edited volumes as well (please contact her for details). Her co-edited volume titled Corpus-based Research in Applied Linguistics. Studies in Honor of Doug Biber appeared with Benjamins (2015), and her co-authored textbook titled Doing Corpus Linguistics came out in 2016 with Routledge (second edition available in 2024). She also co-edited the Routledge Handbook of Corpus Linguistics and Language Teaching and Learning  (2022) and is currently editing a Special Issue of the International Journal of English for Academic Purposes titled Corpora and EAP, slated for publication in Spring 2024. As she likes to inform colleagues in her field about her findings, she presents her research annually at conferences. She shared her latest findings about a corpus-based perspective on teaching styles at the American Association for Applied Linguistics (AAAL) in Portland, Oregon, in March 2023.

In her current research, she continues to apply data-driven approaches to text processing and corpus-based methods to text analysis, and remains interested in analyzing classroom discourse. In her earlier work, she reported on ways in which teachers use language differently from students in varying disciplines and levels of instruction in a university setting. She also documented turn-taking patterns in university classes, and reported on the relationship between interactivity and lexical and grammatical patterns used by teachers and students. She looked at lexical bundles in discourse structure, and also explored student talk in different contexts in an academic setting. She also explored cultural differences in the way discourse is organized in university classes in three disciplines in English Medium Instructional (EMI) settings. While she continues to be interested in university classroom discourse, she is also analyzing academic vocabulary use, lexical bundle use, syntactic complexity features, and stance in college-level writing by students in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) contexts. Some of her recent work is co-authored with her former graduate students. For example, the journal article with Ryan Young, shows changing gender roles as portrayed in telecinematic discourse depicted through a diachronic keyword analysis in Star Trek, and the one with Katy Bailey explores lexical differences in papers written by second language students in a US-based writing program and outsourced papers. She has several other works in progress, which she will report on when published.

Dr. Csomay was recently named as “Most Influential Professor (May, 2021)” by the “Outstanding Graduating Student” at her department. She was awarded multiple international fellowships and scholarships, among which the most competitive ones were two Soros Research Fellowships, including a 9-month scholarship as a Soros-Oxford Fellow to the U.K. and one to support English Language Teachers in Serbia, a British Council Fellowship to complete her Master’s degree, and a Fulbright Scholarship to teach at Northern Arizona University (1995-96). In 2009, in 2015, and in 2022, she was given an English Language Specialist Fellowship grant by the U.S. Department of State to lead workshops for English teachers in Morocco, to work with faculty and doctoral students at the University of Pécs in Hungary, and to train subject-matter teachers for English Medium Instructional settings in Taiwan, respectively. Since 2012, she has been collaborating with faculty at the National University in Singapore on a joint research project. She has also worked in other local and international settings as a teacher educator such as, Chinle and Kayenta (Navajo Reservation) in the United States; Nikšic in Montenegro; Eötvös University (Budapest) and University of Pécs (Pécs) in Hungary; Universidad Autónoma de Baja California Sur (La Paz) and Escuela Normales (Atlacomulco) in Mexico; and the Ecole Normale Superieure (Rabat) in Morocco. She also worked extensively with faculty from (country) Georgia for many years.

Dr. Csomay served as Associate Dean for the College of Arts and Letters for seven years (2009-2016). During this time, besides the daily administrative duties, she championed multiple projects such as, for example, a) the design and implementation of a faculty-led study abroad program for students to explore Cultures of Central Europe; b) the development and implementation of a B.A. degree program in Comparative International Studies; c) the design, development, and implementation of a large-scale, faculty-driven college-wide research project on General Education (GE); d) the facilitation and inaugural implementation of the Undergraduate Research Journal for the College of Arts and Letters; e) the design and implementation of the GE portion of the SDSU-Georgia program that offers STEM degree programs in Tbilisi, (country) Georgia.

Since at SDSU, Dr. Csomay has engaged in other leadership roles as well. She recently became the graduate advisor for the department (2021-2024). In previous years she was an assessment coordinator at her department (Department of Linguistics and Asian/Middle Eastern Languages) for four years as well as for the College of Arts and Letters (CAL) for three years. She was a member for seven years and chaired the college’s Curriculum Committee for three years. She was a Senator for a decade representing CAL faculty at the University Senate. During that time, she was the Chair of SDSU’s Constitution and Bylaws Committee for seven years, and she also served on the University Senate Executive Committee. In addition, she chaired the University General Education Curriculum Committee. Together with a team of interdisciplinary faculty across campus, she developed “GEN S 290 – Undergraduate Research”, which is offered as one of the lower division General Education options for students to take. She believes that research is part of one’s (academic) life no matter how early it starts – and the earlier the better -- and that evidence-based understandings of the world around us is the way to see ourselves as individuals, citizens, and academics. She also serves as a Senator (2018-2024) at the Statewide Academic Senate (ASCSU), representing SDSU in the California State University system. In that capacity, she is currently (2022-2024) the Chair of the General Education Advisory Committee (GEAC), and Chair (2023) of the Cal-GETC Standards Committee appointed by the Intersegmental Committee of Academic Senates (ICAS). She is also an active member of the Academic Affairs Committee and was a liaison for the International Programs Council. As for her service to the broader community, she was the President of the Fulbright Association's San Diego Chapter for five years and a reviewer for the National Screening Committee for Fulbright for six years, with a renewed invitation for next year. She likes art and is a permanent usher for the Old Globe Theatre in San Diego.

 Last update: 8/2/2023