Rate My Professor Emmanuel Nikiema

Emmanuel Nikiema is an Associate Professor of French and Linguistics in the Department of Language Studies at the University of Toronto Mississauga. He holds a PhD in Linguistics (1992) and an MA in Linguistics from the Université du Québec à Montréal, as well as a Maîtrise ès-Lettres and a Licence ès-Lettres from the Université de Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso. Following a two-year research fellowship at Université Laval, he joined the University of Toronto in 1994. Nikiema has been a visiting scholar at the University of Chicago (2000), CNRS (2001), Université de Provence (2002), Kwansei Gakuin University in Japan (2007), and Chonbuk National University in South Korea (2011). Currently on secondment as Associate Professor in French Studies within Language Studies, he maintains a graduate appointment in the Graduate French Program and serves as Chair of the Department of French. He acts as Associate Editor of Mosaic, a refereed journal for language teachers, and reviews for numerous linguistic journals.

Nikiema's research centers on linguistic theory and descriptive analyses, with specializations in the phonology and morphology of Creole, Romance, and African languages, as well as the theory of the syllable and licensing mechanisms. His current projects focus on syllabic representations and the phonology of Creole languages. Notable publications include the co-authored book Phonologie et morphologie du français (2001) with A.-M. Brousseau, and as editor, Second Language Pedagogies: From Theory to Practice, vol. 1 (2020). Key articles are 'R Diphthongs in French Lexifier Creoles: Evidence from Haitian' (2004, with P. Bhatt), 'Empty positions in Haitian Creole Syllable Structures' (2006, with P. Bhatt), 'From Gbe to Haitian: The multi-stage evolution of Syllable Structure' (2006, with A.-M. Brousseau), and 'The Augment in Kirundi: When Syntax Meets Phonology' (2012, with J. Ndayiragije and P. Bhatt). He has secured SSHRC Research Grants as co-investigator (1999–2002 and 2007–2010), an Interdisciplinary Team Research Grant from the Canada Foundation for Innovation (2002), and a Research Fellowship from the French CNRS (2000).