The University of Edinburgh. 2006-10 (PhD: funded by an AHRC Studentship)
The University of Edinburgh. 2005-2006 (MSc by Research: funded by an AHRC Studentship)
St. Martin’s College, Lancaster. 1999-2000 (PGCE)
The University of Edinburgh. 1995-1999 (MA Honours)
Queen Katherine School, Kendal. 1988-1995 (GCSE and A Level)
September 2010: Submitted PhD Thesis: The sociophonology of rhoticity and r-sandhi in East Lancashire English. Thesis examined November 2010.
November 2006: MSc by Research in English Language (with Distinction). Dissertation title: The SQUARE/NURSE merger in Greater Manchester: the impact of social and spatial identity on phonological variation.
July 2000: PGCE Secondary English, Drama and Media Studies
June 1999: MA (Honours) English Language and Literature, First Class. Honours courses: English in its social context; The history of English from 1450; Writing English: English Writing (Hallidayan Functional Grammar); Stylistics; Sidney and Spenser; Shakespeare’s Comedies; Drama and Naturalism in 19th Century Europe; Postmodernism: Who Needs It? Dissertation title: Turning over a new leaf? Autonomous and situated language at the beginnings of prose texts.
June 1997: University of Edinburgh Class Medal for English Language.
June 1995: A Level. English Literature, Mathematics, Physics, General Studies (all at Grade A).
June 1993: GCSE. English Literature, English, Mathematics, Physics, Biology, Chemistry, French, German, History, Religious Studies (all at Grade A).
December 2011: ‘Attrition in the dialects of the Scottish fishing communities’. Forum for Research on the Languages of Scotland and Ulster 2011, University of Aberdeen.
September 2011: ‘The role of sociophonology in sociolinguistic investigation’. UKLVC 2011, Edge Hill University.
April 2011: ‘The development of intrusive-r in variably-rhotic East Lancashire English’. VaLP 2011 – Variation and Language Processing: from experimental pragmatics to sound change, University of Chester. [Awarded the conference prize for Best Student Paper]
April 2010: ‘Why do some apparently rhotic speakers in East Lancashire produce intrusive-r?’ Fourth Northern Englishes Workshop, University of Sheffield.
December 2009: ‘Why do some apparently rhotic speakers in East Lancashire produce intrusive-r?’ English Language Research Group, University of Edinburgh.
June 2009: ‘Lancashire English’. Guest lecture given on the postgraduate seminar series on English Linguistics in the Faculty of Philology and History at the University of Augsburg.
May 2009: ‘I like spontaneous speech data and I like standardised elicitation task data, but which is better? There’s only one way to find out…’ LEL Postgraduate Conference, Edinburgh.
May 2009: ‘The meister-builder: generative processes in nickname formation’. LEL Postgraduate Conference, Edinburgh (with Remco Knooihuizen and Lauren Stewart).
May 2009: ‘Rhoticity and r-sandhi in East Lancashire English’. Invited talk at the School of English Literature, Language and Linguistics, The University of Sheffield
April 2008: ‘“We would say ‘a bit Gretnarish’ and we’d put an r inâ€: rhoticity and r-sandhi in East Lancashire speech’. LEL Postgraduate Conference, Edinburgh.
July 2007: ‘Is word-frequency a factor in phonological demergers? The sociophonology of SQUARE and NURSE in Lancashire English’. Second International Conference on the Linguistics of Contemporary English, University of Toulouse le Mirail (with Patrick Honeybone and Graeme Trousdale).
March 2007: ‘“You are now in Salfordâ€: the spread of a SQUARE/NURSE contrast in Greater Manchester’. Second Northern Englishes Workshop, University of Edinburgh.
June 2006: ‘The Exhalations Whizzing In The…Er? square and nurse in Lancashire English’. LANGUE Conference, University of Essex.
April 2006: ‘The Exhalations Whizzing In The Air: SQUARE and NURSE in Lancashire English’. LEL Postgraduate Conference, Edinburgh.
February 2006: ‘The SQUARE-NURSE Merger in Lancashire English’. English Language Research Group, University of Edinburgh.
December 2005: ‘NURSE-SQUARE research project’. Language in Context Research Group, University of Edinburgh.
Academic
Presentations
2012:Â The University of Manchester. Research Associate on the project Regional identity and the indexical field.
2011:Â The University of York. Fieldworker on the AISEB project, conducting perception interviews in Berwick, Eyemouth, Gretna and Carlisle.
2011: The University of York. Lecturer for two third year courses: ‘Accents of Britain: English Dialect Phonetics, Phonology and Morphology’ and ‘Research in Language Variation and Change’.
2011: The University of Aberdeen. Lecturer for ‘Sounds of English’ second year course.
2010-2011: The University of Aberdeen. Research Assistant for the ‘Fisherspeak’ project.
2009: The University of Edinburgh. Lecturer for English Language 1 module ‘The Sounds of English’.
2009: Fieldworker for the Northern English and Scots Phonology and Syntax research project (the Universities of Edinburgh and Newcastle).
2008-9: First-pass phonetic transcription and proof-reading for Corrigan, K. P. (2010). Irish English 1: Northern Ireland. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
2008-ongoing: Assistant for the creation and maintenance of the web resource site for volumes in the Edinburgh University Press series Dialects of English (www.lel.ed.ac.uk/dialects)
2008: The University of Edinburgh. Teaching Assistant for Figurative Language Honours Course.
2006-9: Tutor for Linguistics 2: Empirical Methods.
2006: The University of Edinburgh. Teaching Assistant for Northern Englishes Honours Course.
2005-9: The University of Edinburgh. Tutor for English Language 1.Â
Academic
Employment
2000-2005: Teacher of English, Dallam School, Haverflatts Lane, Milnthorpe, LA7 7DD. This post entailed teaching students aged 11 to 18 of all academic abilities, including teaching the sixth form. 2003-2005: Additional management responsibility for school marketing and publicity, Dallam School.
Other
Employment
2006-9: Arts and Humanities Research Council Doctoral Award
2005-6: Arts and Humanities Research Council Research Preparation Masters Scheme Studentship
2009: Ran a workshop on the use of the ELAN annotation software at the University of Sheffield.
2008: Gave a presentation on the use of the ELAN annotation software package to the Language in Context Research Group at the University of Edinburgh.
2008: Attended the European Corpus Phonology Summer School at the University of Augsburg.
2008: Redesigned and consolidated the University of Edinburgh Linguistics and English Language departmental website (www.lel.ed.ac.uk).
2007-8: Facilitator at two ‘Transkills’ transferable skills workshops for PhD students at the University of Edinburgh.
2007: Co-organiser of the LEL Postgraduate Conference, University of Edinburgh
2007: Co-organiser of the Postgraduate Workshop Sessions at the Second Northern Englishes Workshop, University of Edinburgh
2006-7: Creation of the web resource site for the Committee for Language Awareness in Scottish Schools (www.lel.ed.ac.uk/class)
Other academic
activities
I have recently finished a PhD in Linguistics and English Language at the University of Edinburgh. My thesis considered the sociophonology of rhoticity and r-sandhi in East Lancashire. I have just finished working as a postdoctoral research assistant at the University of Aberdeen on the Fisherspeak project and will be teaching at the University of York in the summer term 2011.
I graduated with an MA in English Language and Literature from the University of Edinburgh in 1999, going on to take a PGCE in Secondary School English, Drama and Media Studies at St Martin’s College, Lancaster, in 2000. I then taught at Dallam School in Milnthorpe, Cumbria from 2000 to 2005. As well as teaching my subject during this time, I also saw my form group all the way through from Year 7 (age 11) to Year 11 (age 16). This experience was challenging but very rewarding and it is still nice to hear from my form from time to time: some of them are starting university this year. I gained a lot from my time as an English teacher, and the teaching of the school subject ‘English’ continues to be an interest of mine: I help to run the website for the Committee for Language Awareness in Scottish Schools (CLASS). However, after working as a secondary school teacher for five years, I decided to return to university.
I took an MSc by Research in English Language in 2005-6 which focused on the NURSE-SQUARE merger in southern Lancashire speech and also considered the potential spread of linguistic influence of urban Manchester on neighbouring more outlying parts of Greater Manchester and southern Lancashire. I continued to carry out research combining sociolinguistic investigation with phonological theory while working on my PhD and this continues to be my main research interest.
As well as carrying out my research, I have taught at the Universities of Edinburgh, Aberdeen and York and have given a guest lecture at the University of Augsburg.
