Edna Andrews

Edna Andrews is Professor of Linguistics and Cultural Anthropology, Nancy & Jeffrey Marcus Distinguished Professor of Slavic & Eurasian Studies, and Chair of the Linguistics Program at Duke University. She received her PhD from Indiana University and holds an honorary doctorate from St. Petersburg State University (Russia). Her books include Markedness theory: The union of asymmetry and semiosis in language (1990), About Sintetizm, Mathematics and Other Things: E.I. Zamiatin's novel WE (1994, in Russian), The Semantics of Suffixation (1996), Conversations with Lotman: Cultural semiotics in language, literature and cognition (2003), A Calculus of Meaning: Studies in Markedness, Distinctive Features and Deixis (1996, edited volume). Her newest book is Neuroscience and Multilingualism (Cambridge University Press, 2014). Recent articles in cognitive neuroscience and semiotics include "H.M's Language Skills: Clues about Language and the Medial Temporal Lobe" (2005), "Semiospheric transitions: A key to modelling translation" (2009), "Language and Brain: Recasting Meaning in the Definition of Human Language" (2011). Professor Andrews is the guest editor for a special issue devoted to brain and language of the journal Brain Sciences (2013). Her current research includes an extensive longitudinal fMRI study of second language acquisition and multilingualism. The first paper published from this study appeared in Brain Sciences 2013, 3(2), 849-876 (Multilingualism and fMRI: A Longitudinal Study of Second Language Acquisition. Co-authored with C. Casabo-Voyvodic, J. Voyvodic and J. Wright.) Professor Andrews was awarded the University Scholar/Teacher award on September 26, 2013 by the President of Duke University, Richard Brodhead.