About

I am a variationist sociolinguist interested in how and why language changes. My work adopts a number of different methodologies, across a range of different projects. I am particularly interested in the sociolinguistic role of children, and how changes which occur during acquisition and social development contribute to community-wide patterns of change.

research


Children and language change

My Generation Why project combines real and apparent time methodologies to track the early lifespan changes made by young speakers within the context of change ongoing in the community. This work examines the social and linguistic developmental trajectories of young speakers, and how these impact on patterns of variation and change.

For instance, how these shifts contribute to the incrementation of language change.

Or how the development of gendered behaviours manifest in linguistic variation as the young speakers enter adolescence.

gENDER AND EVALUATION OF FOOTBALL COMMENTATORS

In a project with Matthew Hunt (Southampton), and Louis Strange (Glasgow) we are investigating attitudes towards women football commentators. Using an experimental approach we examine how gender typicality (manipulations of pitch) affect listener ratings of football match commentary as it is delivered by a man or a woman. We find a three way interaction between speaker and listener gender, and whether the voice was manipulated. Our recent presentation at UKLVC Edinburgh illustrates these findings.

bidialectalism & language change

I worked with Jennifer Smith as a Postdoctoral Research Assistant on a large scale ESRC project examining bidialectalism - where speakers have command of more than one dialect. I led the analysis across a large number of variables at multiple levels in the grammar (phonetic, morphosyntactic, syntactic, lexical etc.) this enabled us to examine the linguistic nature of bidialectalism - is it the same as having more than one language, existing as separate systems, or do dialects sit within the same mental grammar?

Gender, stance and reality television

In my work with Erez Levon we employ a synchronic perspective using reality television data to investigate how speakers’ use of linguistic variability across stance-oriented goals can explain the actuation of socially motivated change. We examined this process through a variable analysis of /s/-fronting, find links to our published work here and here. Our more recent work examines articulatory setting as it relates to stylistic practice, the physical embodiment of social personae and how these are implicated in sound change.

WORK

I am a Senior Lecturer in Sociolinguistics in the Department of Linguistics at Queen Mary University London (QMUL).

I am also the department’s Director of Postgraduate Research.

TEACHING & SUPERVISION

I currently supervise a range of PG students at both Masters and PhD level.

I am happy to consider applications for Postgraduate supervision in sociolinguistics/phonetics/sociophonetics with a focus on the following topics:

  • Language change

  • Acquistion of variation

  • Developmental sociolinguisitcs

  • Language & gender Language & identity

I teach sociolinguistics across our Undergraduate and Postgraduate courses, taught modules include:

Undergraduate:

  • LIN4211: English in Use

  • LIN6019/7019 Sex, Gender & Language

Postgraduate:

  • LIN7023 Research Methods in Sociolinguistics

  • LIN7002 Sociolinguistic Theory

  • LIN7027 Trends in Linguistic Research

Prior to by appointment at QMUL, I worked as a Lecturer in Linguistics at the University of Southampton where I was course lead for the BA Undergraduate Degree in English Language and Linguistics.