Dr Jason Grafmiller

• PhD in Linguistics, 2013, Stanford University
• BA with distinction in Linguistics, 2006, The Ohio State University

I joined the Department of English Language and Linguistics in June 2017. Before coming to the University of Birmingham, I was a postdoctoral fellow in the Quantitative Lexicology and Variational Linguistics (QLVL) research unit in the Department of Linguistics at the University of Leuven (KU Leuven), Belgium.

At the undergraduate level in academic year 2017-18, I will be teaching the modules Research Skills in English Language and Sounds, Structures, and Words. At the postgraduate level, I’ll be teaching the Sociolinguistics and English as an International Language modules.

I am interested in supervising MA and PhD research in linguistic variation of all stripes, particularly work focused on investigating usage-based models of social and/or cognitive factors shaping morphosyntactic variation in English (or other languages).

Find out more - our PhD English Language and Applied Linguistics  page has information about doctoral research at the University of Birmingham.

My research aims to better understand the nature of syntactic variation in the context of natural language use. Most recently I have been investigating grammatical alternations in World Englishes, e.g. the particle placement alternation (I picked the book up ~ I picked up the book). Other areas of interest include: the interaction of syntactic, semantic and other cognitive factors in stylistic variation across registers and genres; the nature of so-called "end-weight" effects in word order variation; and the role of semantic features (esp. agency and animacy) in argument realization and transitivity alternations.

• Website: https://sites.google.com/site/jegrafmiller/ 
• ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Jason_Grafmiller