Paloma Núñez-Pertejo obtained an MA in English Language and Literature from the University of Santiago de Compostela in 1991 and a PhD in 2001. Her doctoral dissertation, supervised by Teresa Fanego, focused on the development of the English progressive. From October 1993 to December 2007, she worked as a researcher and lecturer in the English Department at the University of Santiago de Compostela, where she was appointed to a permanent position as Senior Lecturer in English in January 2008. She has also carried out research at several universities abroad, including the University of Freiburg (2004), the University of Göteborg (2011), and the University of Edinburgh (September–December 2016), the latter as the recipient of an MECD mobility grant (PRX16/00237).

Her research has focused primarily on verb categories from both synchronic and diachronic perspectives, as well as on intensifiers and intensification strategies. In this area, she has investigated the use of intensification in the language of British and Spanish teenagers, with particular attention to differences between adolescent and adult language. More recently, her research has turned to binomial constructions. She also has a keen interest in applied topics, including the use of new technologies in translation, linguistics, and language teaching.

Paloma has been actively involved in academic publishing and journal editing. Between 2005 and 2013, she served on the Editorial Committee of Folia Linguistica, and from 2016 to 2023 she was a member of the Advisory Board of Atlantis, the official journal of the Spanish Association for English and American Studies (AEDEAN). On behalf of AEDEAN, she convened the Historical Linguistics section at the association’s annual conferences from 2013 to 2016.

She also has extensive experience in the organisation of academic and research events. She was one of the organisers of the First International Conference on English Language Teaching and Learning (ICELTL1), held in Santiago de Compostela in September 2008, and of the International Conference on Spoken English (ICSE2014), held in Santiago de Compostela in June 2014. In addition to her research and organisational activities, she has been involved in doctoral supervision. She co-supervised the PhD thesis of Eduardo Coto-Villalibre, defended in December 2014, together with Teresa Fanego and Elena Seoane, and is currently supervising the PhD projects of Imene Assia Oumouna, Yating Chen and Iria-Gael Romay Fernández.

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

López-Couso, María José, Zeltia Blanco-Suárez, Tamara Bouso, Teresa Fanego, Fátima Faya-Cerqueiro, Belén Méndez-Naya, Paloma Núñez-Pertejo & Paula Rodríguez-Abruñeiras. 2025. Contribuíndo ao avance das Humanidades Dixitais: Recursos para o estudo do inglés histórico e contemporáneo. In II Xeira CLARIAH-GAL. Santiago de Compostela: Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21352050 

Núñez-Pertejo, Paloma & Ignacio Palacios. 2025. The use of please in the expression of (im)politeness in the language of London teenagers and adults. Language Sciences 108. 1-17. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.langsci.2024.101703

Complete list of publications

15-18 June 2026: “Double trouble: Binomial constructions in the diachrony of English legal discourse» [with Paula Rodríguez-Puente, paper within the workshop Perspectives on conventionalized multi-word constructions in the history of English, convened by Gabriele Knappe & Claudia Claridge], 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, Belén Méndez-Naya, Cristina Blanco-García, Zeltia Blanco-Suárez, Tamara Bouso, Teresa Fanego, Jorge Fernández-Avilés & Amira Oumouna], III Xeira CLARIAH-GAL, University of Santiago de Compostela.

12-14 November 2025: “Grammatical variation in London English across time: A comparison of teen talk and adult language” [with Ignacio Palacios], 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, Belén Méndez-Naya & Paula Rodríguez-Abruñeiras], II Xeira CLARIAH-GAL, University of Santiago de Compostela.

6-8 November 2024: “A case study on the use of social media as resources for English language learning and research” [with Ignacio Palacios], 47th AEDEAN Conference, Pablo de Olavide University, Seville.

8 May 2024: “British and Spanish youth talk in focus: A contrastive overview” [invited lecture], Department of Spanish, Modern and Classical Languages, University of the Balearic Islands. 

29 November-1 December 2023: “El aprendizaje y la investigación lingüística a través de las redes sociales: Un estudio piloto con alumnado del grado en Estudios Ingleses” [with Ignacio Palacios], XXIV Congreso Internacional SEDLL, University of Santiago de Compostela.

9 October 2023: “Novas prácticas lingüísticas dos falantes urbanos xoves de Londres e Madrid. Un estudo contrastivo baseado en corpus” [with Ignacio Palacios], II Xornada sobre Variación e Cambio Lingüístico, University of Santiago de Compostela & Instituto da Lingua Galega.

10-12 May 2023: “The role of age in the use of emoji and emoticons in Twitter discourse” [with Ignacio Palacios], 14th International Conference on Corpus Linguistics – CILC 2023, University of Oviedo.

16-18 November 2022: “The expression of (im)politeness in the language of teenagers: The courtesy marker please, taboo vocatives and swear words as three cases in point” [with Ignacio Palacios], 45th AEDEAN Conference, University of Extremadura (Cáceres).