Mihaela PirvulescuView profile
Professor
Mihaela Pirvulescu is a Professor in French Studies at the University of Toronto Mississauga (UTM), currently on leave but maintaining active research and teaching commitments including courses FRE378 and JLP388 for the 2025-26 academic year. She is affiliated with the Department of Language Studies and holds a graduate appointment in the Graduate French Program. Her educational background includes: PhD in French Linguistics from the University of Toronto MA in French Linguistics from the University of Toronto BA in Romanian/French Philology and Literature from the University of Bucharest, Romania Dr. Pirvulescu specializes in language acquisition dynamics, particularly first language acquisition, multilingual development, and early second language acquisition within anglophone environments. Her research explores heritage language maintenance mechanisms and the acquisition of French as a third language, with emphasis on syntactic phenomena like object clitics across monolingual and multilingual child learners. This work bridges theoretical linguistics and practical applications for language education. Analysis of her recent publications reveals sustained focus on multilingual language development in Canadian contexts, especially trilingual children's syntactic acquisition. Key trends include cross-linguistic comparisons of object clitic systems, adverb acquisition in L3 French, and the interplay between heritage language maintenance and official language proficiency. Her methodology combines experimental comprehension studies with naturalistic production analysis. Dr. Pirvulescu has secured significant research funding through competitive grants: SSHRC Insight Grant (2017-2023) as Principal Investigator for 'Multilingualism in the Canadian context: language interaction and development in trilingual children' Jackman Institute Working group (2016-2017) as Principal Investigator for 'Canadian Multilingualism' UTM Research and Scholarly Activity Fund (2015) for 'Trilingual language development and maintenance in the French immersion system' SSHRC Aid to Research Workshops (2010) for 'Generative Approaches to Language Acquisition North America (GALANA, 4)' SSHRC Insight Grant (2009-2013) as Principal Investigator for 'The acquisition of object clitics by children learning French as their first or second language' SSHRC Insight Grant (2005-2008) as Co-investigator for 'Object omission and transitivity in child language' She advises graduate students in the Graduate French Program and leads collaborative research teams involving national and international scholars. Her current SSHRC project examines language interaction patterns in multilingual acquisition, while her editorial work includes co-editing special journal issues on French language acquisition. Dr. Pirvulescu actively contributes to academic discourse through conference organization and scholarly publications spanning theoretical syntax and applied multilingual education.
