Snejina Sonina
Associate Professor, Teaching Stream
Email
Telephone number
647-601-4556
Program
French
Biography
Snejina Sonina has been a part-time student and part-time professor throughout her academic career. Thus, in addition to her PhD in French Linguistics from the University of Toronto, she holds several postgraduate degrees: a KN in Romance Philology (Herzen University), an MA in Medieval Studies (Central European University), an MA in Classical Studies (University of Toronto), and an MSt in General Linguistics and Comparative Philology (University of Oxford).
Dr. Sonina teaches mainly French Linguistics courses—Phonetics and Phonology, Morphology and Syntax, History of the French Language—but also counts Business French and French language courses among her offerings. In her language and linguistics classes, she explores computer-assisted methodologies and incorporates historical, cultural, and comparative elements to make learning more accessible, improve students’ understanding of linguistic phenomena, and broaden their cultural horizons.
In 2021, Dr. Sonina licensed a new version of her Pictographic Phonetic Alphabet (PPA or Pictabet, previously ArtAlph)—an alphabet representing sound articulation—and is now working on its applications in historical linguistics, language comparison, and, of course, in teaching pronunciation.
Research Interests
Computer- and web-assisted phonetics and didactics; innovative and experiential pedagogy; historical and comparative linguistics; lexicology/terminology; interdisciplinary research.
Websites
Awards & Grants
Northrop Frye Award (Team with M. Lefaive – IT and B. Tang -administrator) 2025
Assistant Professor/Lecturer Teaching Award 2017