Eniko Csomay, Ph.D.
Professor, Graduate Advisor (2021-2027), Statewide Senator (2018-2027), and former Associate Dean for the College of Arts and Letters (2009-2016)
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, Professor Csomay 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 special issues for journals such as Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory (2012), titled ‘Contemporary Perspectives on Discourse and Corpora’, and the International Journal of English for Academic Purposes titled ‘Corpora and EAP’ (2024). She has several book chapters in edited volumes as well (please contact her for details). Her co-edited volume, Corpus-based Research in Applied Linguistics. Studies in Honor of Doug Biber, appeared with Benjamins (2015), and the second edition of her co-authored textbook, Doing Corpus Linguistics, came out in 2024 with Routledge. She also co-edited the Routledge Handbook of Corpus Linguistics and Language Teaching and Learning (2022). As she likes to inform colleagues in her field about her findings, she presents her research annually at conferences. Her latest findings about a corpus-based perspective on teaching styles was shared at the American Association for Applied Linguistics (AAAL) in Portland, Oregon in 2023, and since her findings there led her to new perspectives, she is sharing those at IVACS and at AACL in 2024.
In her current research, Professor Csomay continues to apply data-driven approaches to text processing and corpus-based methods to text analysis. She remains interested in analyzing classroom discourse but during the past few years she explored other registers as well. 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 analyzed student talk in varying academic settings. 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. More articles to come in this area. But for now, the journal article with Ryan Young, shows changing gender roles as portrayed in telecinematic discourse depicted through a diachronic keyword analysis in Star Trek. Another journal article, with Katy Bailey, explores lexical differences in papers written by second language students in a US-based writing program and outsourced papers (pre-ChatGPT). In her most recent journal articles (2024), she looks at referential pronouns in university classrooms (co-authored with Crawford) and investigates ‘proximity’ in TED talks (co-authored with Wang). She has several other works in progress, which she will report on when published.
Professor Csomay was named “Most Influential Professor” in 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 nine-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 and conduct research 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 at all levels of education in Morocco, to work with faculty and doctoral students at the University of Pécs in Hungary, and to train teachers and trainers in English Medium Instructional (EMI) settings in Taiwan, respectively. Since 2012, she has been collaborating with faculty at the National University in Singapore on several joint research projects. 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 while SDSU established its joint-program with universities in Tbilisi, Georgia.
Professor 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, 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, Professor Csomay has engaged in other leadership roles as well. She was recently re-appointed as the graduate advisor for her department (2021-2027). In previous years she was an assessment coordinator at her department for four years and also 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 over a decade representing CAL faculty at the SDSU University Senate. During that time, she was the Chair of 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 was recently re-elected for a third term to serve as a Senator (2018-2027) at the Statewide Academic Senate (ASCSU) representing SDSU in the California State University system. In that capacity, she Chaired the General Education Advisory Committee (GEAC) for two years (2022-2024), and Chaired the Cal-GETC Special Committee on Standards (2023-2024) for a year and a half, the latter of which was a role appointed by the Senates of three educational segments in California (California Community Colleges, California State University, University of California), called Intersegmental Committee of Academic Senates (ICAS). She is also an active member of ASCSU’s 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 reviewer for the National Screening Committee for Fulbright for seven years – among other community activities.
Last update: 6/21/2024