Rate My Professor Dorcas Zuvalinyenga

Dorcas Zuvalinyenga completed her Doctor of Philosophy in Linguistics at the University of Newcastle in 2021, within the College of Human and Social Futures, School of Humanities, Creative Industries and Social Science, Department of Linguistics. Her doctoral thesis, titled "Naming practices, identity, power, and communication in Bindura, Zimbabwe," was principally supervised by Dr. Alan Libert. Prior to her PhD, she earned a Master of Arts in Applied Linguistics and a Bachelor of Arts Honours in English from Bindura University of Science Education, complemented by a Diploma in Education from the University of Zimbabwe. At Bindura University of Science Education, she served as a faculty member in the Department of Languages and Communication Skills.

Zuvalinyenga's research specializes in applied sociolinguistics and onomastics, with a focus on naming practices, linguistic landscapes, and identity construction in urban Sub-Saharan Africa. Key publications include "Gender-biased Street Naming in Urban Sub-Saharan Africa: Influential Factors, Features and Future Recommendations," published in the Journal of Asian and African Studies in 2020 (co-authored with Liora Bigon); "An analysis of the relationship between toponyms and a variety of historical and cultural specificities in the discursive construction of identity in a regional town in Zimbabwe," in Onoma in 2019 (with Alan Libert); "‘We shall know a place by its names’: Co-existing place names in Bindura, Zimbabwe," in EchoGéo in 2020; and the chapter "Rituals of revolution? Place renaming and the crisis of transition in Zimbabwe" in 2021. Earlier works encompass "An expose of how the themes of violence, victimisation and brutality preoccupy the short stories in the collection: We Killed Mangy Dog and Other Mozambique Stories," in the International Journal of English and Literature in 2013, and contributions to the Greener Journal of Educational Research on language teaching and second language acquisition. From November 2021 to December 2023, she was an ELICOS Teacher at the University of Newcastle Language Centre. In 2023, she was a finalist in the University of Newcastle's Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Award as part of the Social and Economic Resilience of Young Migrant and Refugee Women team.