Natalia Rakhlin

Natalia Rakhlin is an Associate Professor in the Department of Linguistics at Wayne State University, within the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. She holds a Ph.D. in Linguistics from the University of Connecticut and completed postdoctoral training at the Yale Medical School Child Study Center. Her research focuses on child language acquisition, developmental language disorders, and the intersection of language and cognitive development in diverse populations. She investigates linguistic diversity, particularly Arabic language acquisition in heritage bilinguals and contexts of diglossia, as well as language disorders in children from culturally and linguistically marginalized groups.

Her work emphasizes practical applications, such as developing reliable assessment tools for language disorders in multilingual populations. She actively contributes to theoretical debates on language structure and its role in cognitive development. Courses taught include child language acquisition, language disorders, and studies on global language systems through courses like Eng 6720 and Lin 5360.

Rakhlin’s research bridges clinical and theoretical linguistics, aiming to improve diagnostic practices for language impairments while advancing understanding of language as a cognitive system. Her studies on Arabic diglossia and diaspora populations highlight the impact of sociolinguistic environments on developmental trajectories.