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Jeffrey Steele

Professor, French Studies
Language Studies

Graduate appointments: Graduate French Program, Language & Literacies Education (OISE)

Born and raised in Winnipeg, Jeffrey has had a passion for language – French, in particular – since a very young age. Trained as a formal linguist with a special interest in sound structure, his research investigates both the ways in which people acquire second languages as well as various aspects of the French sound system. He is also a musician and holds two performer’s diplomas (Associate of the Royal Conservatory of Music, Toronto; Premier prix, Conservatoire international de musique, Paris).

Education

  • PhD, Linguistics, McGill University
  • MA, French Linguistics, Queen’s University
  • BA Hons, French, University of Manitoba

Areas of Teaching and Research Interests

  • Second language acquisition
  • Laboratory phonology
  • Language assessment
  • Evidence-based pedagogy
  • Pronunciation instruction
  • Bilingual literacy

Selected Publications

Books

  • Colantoni, L., Steele, J., & Escudero, P. (In preparation). Second language speech: Theory & practice (2nd ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  • Steele, J. (Ed.) (In preparation). Second language acquisition of French: Linguistic perspectives. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Articles & Book Chapters

  • Steele, J. (2024). Acquisition of segmental phonology in adult bilingualism. In M. Amengual (Ed.), The Cambridge Handbook of Bilingual Phonetics and Phonology (pp. 448–470). Cambridge University Press.
  • Colantoni, L., Kochetov, A., & Steele, J. (2023). Pathways to depalatalization of the French palatal nasal in Quebec & Hexagonal French: An EPG study. Journal of French Language Studies. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0959269523000212.
  • Patience, M., & Steele, J. (2022). Relative difficulty in the acquisition of the phonetic parameters of obstruent coda voicing: Evidence from Mandarin-speaking learners of French. Language & Speech. 238309221114143–238309221114143. https://doi.org/10.1177/00238309221114143

Other

Selected Grants, Fellowships and Awards

  • SSHRC Insight Development Grant, Co-investigator, 2022–2027, Reading Comprehension among Majority and Minority Language Children in French Immersion: The Contribution of Oral Language Skills and Reading Strategies