Staff in English Language and Linguistics

We have been at the forefront of research in English Language and Linguistics for over fifty years and we continue to make cutting-edge contributions to the field.

Full list of Academic Staff in English Language and Applied Linguistics

Lorraine Adriano

Lorraine Adriano

Teaching Fellow

I am a Teaching Fellow in the English Language and Linguistics Department. I have a background in teaching English in England and Italy.

Clare Anderson

Clare Anderson

Teaching Fellow

As a business as well as an academic practitioner I am particularly interested in taking analytical approaches from the classroom (e.g. conversation analysis, critical discourse analysis) and applying them to real-world problems.

Through my consultancy business I advise global companies on language in practice across different areas related to my research specialisms:  language and ...

Peter Browning

Peter Browning

Teaching Fellow

Peter is a sociolinguist with a background in English language teaching and teacher education who works at the intersections of Applied Linguistics, Sociolinguistics and TESOL. He has carried out research and taught in a number of HE contexts both in the UK and abroad and is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

Dr Gareth Carrol

Dr Gareth Carrol

Senior Lecturer in Psycholinguistics

I am a senior lecturer in psycholinguistics, with a particular interest in idiomatic and formulaic language in native and non-native speakers.

Professor Ewa Dąbrowska

Professor Ewa Dąbrowska

Professor

My research interests include cognitive linguistics, language acquisition, the mental status of linguistic knowledge, and individual differences in linguistic knowledge.

Professor Dagmar Divjak

Professor Dagmar Divjak

Professorial Research Fellow in Cognitive Linguistics and Language Cognition

My main research interest is in understanding how our cognitive capacities give rise to the patterns we see in language and how language learners might use these patterns to build up knowledge of their language. I work with the Out Of Our Minds team to understand language knowledge and optimize language learning and am Editor-in-Chief of the journal Cognitive Linguistics.

David Evans

Teaching Fellow

I have a background in English language teaching. My main research interest is in the interface between language teaching and corpus linguistics.

Ms Samantha Ford

Ms Samantha Ford

Research Assistant

Samantha has worked as a Research Assistant for the EMMA project since 2018 alongside Professor Jeannette Littlemore, Dr Paula Pérez-Sobrino, and Dr David Houghton that explores multimodal metaphor in advertising. The EMMA projectinvestigates how multimodal metaphor is used creatively in advertising across the world and involves collaborations with international advertising agencies to ...

Phil Freestone

Phil Freestone

Teaching Fellow

I am a Teaching Fellow in Linguistics with a focus on sociolinguistics and sociocultural approaches to discourse analysis. 

Dr Matteo Fuoli

Dr Matteo Fuoli

Associate Professor of Corpus-based Discourse Analysis
International Exchange Tutor

My work combines corpus linguistic and experimental methods with discourse analysis to study the linguistic factors at the heart of important societal issues such as trust, polarization and climate change.

Dr Ivan Ghio

Dr Ivan Ghio

Teaching Fellow

I am a Teaching Fellow in the English Language and Linguistics Department. My research interests span the fields of discourse analysis, stylistics, pragmatics and multimodality.

Dr Jason Grafmiller

Dr Jason Grafmiller

Lecturer in corpus-based sociolinguistics

I am a lecturer in corpus-based sociolinguistics in English Language and Linguistics. My research focuses on the quantitative analysis of grammatical variation.

Professor Jack Grieve

Professor Jack Grieve

Professor of Corpus Linguistics

My research focuses on understanding language variation and change through the quantitative analysis of large corpora of natural language data.

Dr Nicholas Groom

Senior Lecturer in Applied Linguistics

I am a corpus linguist. The main focus of my work is on using computers to study latent patterning in very large collections of naturally occurring language data.

Dr Gregory Hadley

Dr Gregory Hadley

Teaching Fellow

Gregory Hadley received his PhD in Applied Linguistics from the University of Birmingham (UK), where his primary focus was in the Sociology of English Language Teaching. A Professor of Sociolinguistics and Western Cultural Studies at Niigata University, Japan, and a Visiting Fellow at the University of Oxford, he is also the author of English for Academic Purposes in Neoliberal Universities: A ...

Dr Sten Hansson

Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow

I am developing new frameworks for analysing government communication and political blame games.

Robert Holland

Lecturer in Applied Linguistics

I am a lecturer in Applied Linguistics in English Language Studies at the University of Birmingham. I have a background in English Language teaching, teacher-training and language education project management.

Dr Jing Huang

Dr Jing Huang

Lecturer in TESOL

I am a Lecturer in TESOL. I teach several core and optional modules of the MA Applied Linguistics and MA TESOL programmes. My research focuses on using ethnographic methods combined with secondary data analysis to research sociolinguistic practices of individuals, families, schools, and communities.

Professor Susan Hunston

Professor Susan Hunston

Professor of English Language

I have a background in English Language and Applied Linguistics and have worked in three countries. I enjoy research and teaching at all levels and I especially like supervising Doctoral Researchers.

Professor Suganthi John

Professor Suganthi John

Professor of English Language
Deputy Director of Education (Distance and Digital Education)

I am a Professor of English Language in the Department of English Language and Linguistics at the University of Birmingham. I teach a range of modules at undergraduate and postgraduate levels and supervise PhD students in English Language and Linguistics. My research focusses on self-representation and identity in academic texts. I am also interested in writing development across boundaries ...

Dr Alexander Laffer

Teaching Fellow

Dr Alexander Laffer is a lecturer and research and editorial consultant. His academic research combines discourse analysis and literary linguistics and he is currently exploring the interaction between digital fiction and empathy. He has taught modules in digital media discourse, professional communication, sociolinguistics and discourse analysis. He has received Santander Universities funding to ...

Professor Jeannette Littlemore

Professor Jeannette Littlemore

Professor of English Language and Applied Linguistics

Jeannette Littlemore is a Professor of Applied Linguistics in the Department of English Language and Linguistics at the University of Birmingham. Her research focuses on figurative language and explores the facilitative and debilitative role played by metaphor and metonymy in language education and in cross-linguistic communication. She is interested in the ways in which emotional ...

Alexandra Lorson

Alexandra Lorson

Postdoctoral Research Fellow

I am a postdoctoral research fellow on the `Making Numbers Meaningful’ project lead by Dr Bodo Winter. I am doing research in the field of experimental Pragmatics, and I am interested in strategic communication; for example, I focus on how speakers’ formulation choices change depending on the communicative goals they pursue.

Open Research plays a crucial role in my research process, ...

Hannah Lutzenberger

Hannah Lutzenberger

Postdoctoral Research Fellow

I am a postdoctoral research fellow on the SignMorph project in which I will focus on studying Kata Kolok, a sign language used in a Balinese village. My research interests cover language documentation, language variation, and language acquisition.

Professor Michaela Mahlberg

Professor Michaela Mahlberg

Chair in Corpus Linguistics
Director, Centre for Corpus Research

As a corpus linguist, I am interested in language as a social phenomenon and the way in which we use language to understand and shape the world we live in. A large part of my research focuses on the language of Dickens’s fiction, literary linguistics, and discourse analysis.

I am currently Principal Investigator on the AHRC funded CLiC Dickens project.

I speak about Corpus ...

Joanne McCuaig

Joanne McCuaig

Teaching Fellow

Joanne McCuaig is a Doctoral Researcher investigating the language use of purportedly co-opted medical terminology from psychology. She uses corpus linguistics and discourse analysis for her interdisciplinary research.

Dr Akira Murakami

Dr Akira Murakami

Birmingham Fellow

My applied linguistics research spans two areas, second language acquisition (SLA) and corpus linguistics. I am trying to bring the two areas together so that developmental research in SLA can benefit from large-scale corpus data.

Dr Gerardo Ortega

Dr Gerardo Ortega

Lecturer

I am a lecturer interested in the acquisition and emergence of manual communication. I specialise in the acquisition of a sign language as a first and second language, sign language processing, and the similarities between sign and gesture. I also explore the role of gesture and iconicity in sign language emergence and evolution.

Dr Ruth Page

Dr Ruth Page

Reader in Stylistics
Student Experience Academic Lead for ELAL

I am a Reader in Stylistics. My main research explores the language people use when they tell stories, particularly in social media contexts.

Dr Amanda Patten

Dr Amanda Patten

Senior Lecturer in Historical Linguistics

I am a lecturer in Historical Linguistics in the Department of English Language and Linguistics at the University of Birmingham. I teach a range of modules at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. My research interests fall into the areas of historical linguistics, corpus linguistics, construction grammar, and Pattern Grammar.

Dr Florent Perek

Dr Florent Perek

Senior Lecturer in Cognitive Linguistics
Deputy Director of the Centre for Corpus Research

I am a cognitive linguist, a quantitative corpus linguist, and a construction grammarian. I teach classes on topics surrounding the grammar and semantics of English.

Dr Marcus Perlman

Dr Marcus Perlman

Lecturer in English Language and Linguistics
Acting Director of PGR for ELAL

I am a lecturer in English Language and Linguistics. My research examines iconicity in speech and gesture, with special interest in the evolution of human communication. I also study the gesturing and vocal behaviour of great apes.

Dr Stephen Pihlaja

Teaching Fellow

Stephen is the author of several books on language and religion including Antagonism on YouTube (Bloomsbury, 2014) and Religious Talk Online (Cambridge University Press, 2018). His newest book, Talk about Faith, focuses on the public discussion of religious faith on social media, podcasts, and in debates about religion. He’s co-authored a book called Cognitive Linguistics and Religious ...

Dr Garry Plappert

Associate Professor in Applied Linguistics

Corpus Linguistics, EAP and the linguistics of epistemology.

Dr Abi Rhodes

Dr Abi Rhodes

Assistant Professor in Language and Communication

I am an experienced higher education lecturer and third sector project coordinator with an interest in social movement communication and grassroots storytelling. My main areas of research include the political and social role of digital, new and legacy media and I specialise in content and discourse analysis in the digital environment.

Professor Adam Schembri

Professor Adam Schembri

Professor in Linguistics

I am a Professor in Linguistics in the Department of English Language and Linguistics at the University of Birmingham.  I teach modules on sociolinguistics, language and gesture, and linguistic diversity. My research focuses on the linguistics of sign languages, especially Australian Sign Language (Auslan) and British Sign Language (BSL).

Dr Petra Schoofs

Dr Petra Schoofs

Lecturer in TESOL

I have joined Birmingham University in September 2015, and am teaching MA modules on campus. I am also responsible for Distance Learning modules and DL tutors. My research interests lie in bi- and multilingualism, psycholinguistics and in application of these to TESOL.

Dr Joe Spencer-Bennett

Dr Joe Spencer-Bennett

Senior Lecturer in Applied Linguistics
Head of English Language and Linguistics

I am Head of the Department of English Language and Linguistics, and teach on a number of the department’s programmes. I research relations between language, communication and politics, using approaches from discourse analysis, sociolinguistics, and archival research. My current research looks at issues to do with the simplicity, informality and clarity of political language, in Britain ...

Dr Paul Thompson

Dr Paul Thompson

Reader in Applied Corpus Linguistics
Deputy Director, Centre for Corpus Research

I have been at the University of Birmingham since September 2009, and I am the Deputy Director of the Centre for Corpus Research, as well as being Deputy Director of the College of Arts and Law Graduate School. I am a corpus linguist with particular interest in specialised discourses, and I have a background in English Language Teaching (ELT) and English for Academic Purposes (EAP).

The project ...

Dr Crayton Walker

Dr Crayton Walker

Senior Lecturer in Applied Linguistics

I am a lecturer working in the Department of English Language and Linguistics. I work with both undergraduate and postgraduate students who are following our campus and distance programmes. My main areas of expertise are associated with language teaching and corpus linguistics. 

Dr Rosalind White

Dr Rosalind White

Research Fellow

Dr Rosalind White is Research Fellow in Corpus Linguistics at the Centre for Corpus Research and editor of the CLiC Fiction Blog. She is a Victorianist interested in questions of materiality, and the growing field of research on the history of emotions. Her doctoral thesis interpolated between the history of science and the history of emotions, two interdependent fields that ...

Dr Viola Wiegand

Dr Viola Wiegand

Lecturer in TESOL

As Lecturer in TESOL, I teach across the Department’s MA TESOL and MA Applied Linguistics programmes. My research interests span applied linguistics, corpus linguistics and digital humanities, as well as discourse analysis. I am Assistant Editor of the International Journal of Corpus Linguistics and have co-edited the volume Corpus Linguistics, Context and Culture (2019, De Gruyter).

Dr Bodo Winter

Dr Bodo Winter

Associate Professor in Cognitive Linguistics

I am an Associate Professor in Cognitive Linguistics and a UKRI Future Leaders Fellow. My research uses data science-driven linguistics to study multimodal communication, including iconicity, gesture and metaphor. For my Future Leaders Fellowship, I investigate how people communicate numerical information across different communication channels. 

Webpage: http://www.bodowinter.com
Twitte ...

Emeritus and Honorary Academic Staff

Professor Chris Kennedy

Honorary Senior Research Fellow in English Language

I started my teaching career as a volunteer in Nigeria, followed by several ELT jobs in Africa and South-East Asia, before joining Birmingham to set up ELT teacher development and applied linguistics programmes.

Dr Rosamund Moon

Honorary Research Fellow

My research and specialist teaching is primarily in the broad field of lexis and also lexicography.

Professor Wolfgang Teubert

Emeritus Professor

Now increasingly retired, I gradually move away from corpus linguistics into discourse analysis, from a hermeneutic and neo-pragmatic perspective, believing that the social and natural world we encounter is constituted by the discourse in which we take part.