Belén Méndez-Naya is Full Professor of English Language and Linguistics at the Universidade de Santiago de Compostela. She received her MA in English Language and Literature from the Universidade de Santiago de Compostela in 1987 and completed her PhD in English Linguistics in 1995 with a dissertation on finite complementation in Old English, supervised by Teresa Fanego.

Her research focuses on language change in the history of English, particularly grammaticalization and constructionalization processes. She has published extensively on clausal complementation and mood selection in Old and Middle English, parenthetical constructions and pragmatic markers. She is especially known for her work on the development of intensifiers and intensification strategies in the history of English.

Belén has supervised the doctoral dissertations of Cristina Suárez-Gómez (2004), Fátima Faya-Cerqueiro (2013), and, jointly with Teresa Fanego, of Tamara Bouso (2018) and Mario Serrano-Losada (2018). She currently co-supervises the PhD project of Amira Oumouna with María José López-Couso.

She has taught and conducted research at several Spanish and international universities, including Edinburgh, Freiburg, Glasgow, Manchester, RWTH Aachen and Trier. She has also been invited to deliver keynote and plenary lectures at institutions and conferences across Europe, including the Universities of A Coruña, Augsburg, Helsinki, Jaén, Pablo de Olavide (Seville), the School of Oriental and African Studies (University of London), Zurich, La Rioja (Old English Syntax and Semantics Seminar), Mons (Belgian Association of Anglicists in Higher Education, BAAHE) and Vigo (SELIM International Conference 28).

Together with María José López-Couso, Belén has served as Principal Investigator of three consecutive research projects on constructionalization funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation: FFI2017-86884-P (2018–2021), PID2020-114604GB-I00 (2021–2024), and PID2023-146887NB-I00 (2024–2027). 

Belén serves on the editorial boards of Folia Linguistica, SELIM, Verba: Anuario Galego de Filoloxía, and EJES (European Journal of English Studies), the official journal of the European Society for the Study of English (ESSE). From 2011 to 2016, she served as Treasurer of AEDEAN (the Spanish Association for English and American Studies). Between 2022 and 2026, she held the position of Deputy Vice-Rector for Internationalization at the Universidade de Santiago de Compostela.

Pons-Sanz, Sara, Belén Méndez-Naya, Marcelle Cole & Andrew Cooper (eds.). Forthcoming, 2026. The Language of the Ormulum. (Studies in the Early Middle Ages). Turnhout: Brepols. 

Méndez-Naya, Belén. Forthcoming, 2026. Orrm’s use of intensification devices: Innovative or idiosyncratic? In Sara Pons-Sanz, Belén Méndez-Naya, Marcelle Cole & Andrew Cooper (eds.), The Language of the Ormulum. Turnhout: Brepols.

López-Couso, María José, Belén Méndez-Naya, Cristina Blanco-García, Zeltia Blanco-Suárez, Tamara Bouso, Teresa Fanego, Jorge Fernández-Avilés, Paloma Núñez-Pertejo & Amira Oumouna. 2026. Humanidades Dixitais aplicadas ao estudo da variación e o cambio lingüístico: Construcións e construcionalización no inglés histórico e contemporáneo. In III Xeira CLARIAH-GAL. Santiago de Compostela: Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.20608552

Complete list of publications

19-20 November 2026: “Intensification in Middle English: Evidence from Havelok the Dane”, II Conferencia Internacional de Investigación en Linguas (CIIL2026), University of Vigo.

5-7 November 2026: “Expanding the inventory of see-based parentheticals: Evidence from American English” [with María José López-Couso], 7th Conference of the American Pramatics Association (AMPRA-7), live-broadcast online event.

23-25 September 2026: “Ways of seeing: On the stance parentheticals as I see it and (the) way I see it in American English” [with María José López-Couso], 7th International Discourse-Pragmatic Variation and Change Conference (DiPVaC 7), University of Salzburg (Austria).

15-18 June 2026: “Stance parentheticals with the verb see in American English: A constructional network” [with María José López-Couso], 23rd International Conference on English Historical Linguistics(ICEHL-23), University of Milan (Italy).

29 May 2026: “Humanidades Dixitais aplicadas ao estudo da variación e o cambio lingüístico: O proxecto Construcións e construcionalización en inglés histórico e contemporáneo” [poster; with María José López-Couso, Cristina Blanco-García, Zeltia Blanco-Suárez, Tamara Bouso, Teresa Fanego, Jorge Fernández-Avilés, Paloma Núñez-Pertejo & Amira Oumouna], III Xeira CLARIAH-GAL, University of Santiago de Compostela.

12-14 November 2025: “Low frequency intensification strategies in Middle English: The Ormulum as a case in point” and “Parentheticals and epistemic stance: Tracing the evolution of (the) way I see it” [with María José López-Couso], 48th AEDEAN Conference, UPV/EHU, Vitoria-Gasteiz.

9 May 2025: “Contribuíndo ao avance das Humanidades Dixitais: Recursos para o estudo do inglés histórico e contemporáneo” [poster; with María José López-Couso, Zeltia Blanco-Suárez, Tamara Bouso, Teresa Fanego, Fátima Faya, Paloma Núñez-Pertejo & Paula Rodríguez-Abruñeiras], II Xeira CLARIAH-GAL, University of Santiago de Compostela.

6 March 2025: “Intensification in the Ormulum” and “The Ormulum as a witness to a language in transition” [invited lectures], Englisches Seminar, University of Zurich (Switzerland).

6-8 November 2024: “Superangelical and supercool: Intensifying super– in the history of English” and “Clausal complementation with impersonal look: Complementizer variation in focus” [with María José López-Couso], 47th AEDEAN Conference, Pablo de Olavide University, Seville.

26-28 September 2024: “Study finds, experts warn: Conveying evidentiality in Contemporary American English” [with María José López-Couso], 10th Biennial Conference on the Linguistics of Contemporary English (BICLCE), University of Alicante.