I am a Lecturer in English Language in the Department of English, Languages and Applied Linguistics (ELAL), School of Social Sciences and Humanities at Aston University, UK. I am a researcher and educator in English language and linguistics, with a specialism in corpus linguistics. Before joining Aston, I held research positions at the University of Leeds and Cambridge Assessment English (University of Cambridge). I have a PhD in Linguistics from Lancaster University.
I mainly research spoken English – how it varies and how it is changing – using corpus methods. My book “Overcoming Challenges in Corpus Construction” (Routledge, 2020) describes my work on the creation of the spoken component of the British National Corpus 2014. I am currently conducting research which uses this and other spoken corpora to explore recent change in spoken grammar and discourse. In a nutshell, my research harnesses the power of technology to better understand how people use language and, ultimately, help people to communicate more effectively.
I am a member of the British Association for Applied Linguistics (BAAL) Executive Committee, and I sit on the committee of the BAAL Corpus Linguistics Special Interest Group as Communications Officer. At Aston, I am convenor of the Aston Corpus Linguistics Research Group, which is housed within the Aston Centre for Applied Linguistics.
I offer linguistics consultancy on a freelance basis, regularly working with non-academic partners to apply linguistic research to industry challenges.
Qualifications:
Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA), Advance HE, 2021
PhD Linguistics, Lancaster University, 2018
MA Language and Linguistics, Lancaster University, 2014
BA Hons Linguistics, Lancaster University, 2013
Curriculum Vitae | Google Scholar | ORCiD
