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. I also have interests in the analysis of written discourse, including social media communication and news reporting. 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; I sit on the committee of the BAAL Corpus Linguistics Special Interest Group as Communications Officer; and I am a member of the IVACS Advisory Board. At Aston, I am convenor of the Aston Corpus Linguistics Research Group, which is housed within the Aston Centre for Applied Linguistics, and I am the host of CorpusCast, a podcast about corpus linguistics and what it can do for society.

Before joining Aston, I held research positions at the University of Leeds and Cambridge Assessment English (University of Cambridge).

I offer linguistics consultancy on a freelance basis, regularly working with non-academic partners to apply linguistic research to industry challenges. Please contact me if you are interested in working with me.

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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

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Curriculum Vitae | Google Scholar | ORCiD