Professor Jeannette Littlemore BA, MA, PhD, PGCHE

• Post Graduate Certificate in Learning and Teaching in Higher Education. University of Birmingham, 2001.
• PhD English Language Teaching, Thames Valley University, 1998. Title: Individual differences in second language learning: towards an identification of the strategy preferences and language learning strengths of L2 students with holistic and/or imager cognitive styles. Supervisor: Professor Peter Skehan.
• MA Applied Linguistics and English Language Teaching, University of East Anglia, 1993.
• BA (Hons) European Studies (majoring in French and Economics with a mathematics subsidiary), University of Bradford, 1989.

I have been working at the University of Birmingham since 1999. Before that, I taught and lectured in Spain, Japan and Belgium.

I teach on both the campus-based and the distance MA programmes in TEFL and Applied Linguistics as well as the BA Single Honours and Joint Honours programmes in English Language. I teach on and/or convene modules in Language Teaching Methodology, Second Language Acquisition, Lexis, Research Methods in Applied Linguistics, Cognitive Linguistics, Pedagogic Grammar, Psycholinguistics and Teacher Training. 

I have a lively group of PhD students working on metaphor, metonymy and second language learning. I am interested in supervising MA and PhD research in the areas of:

Teaching and learning figurative language
Language learning and cognitive linguistics
Analyzing figurative language

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

My current research interests lie in the area of second language learning and teaching. I am particularly interested in the acquisition of figurative language by non-native speakers of English and in the applications of cognitive linguistics to second language learning and teaching.

Research groups

• I am a founder member of the International Association, Researching and Applying Metaphor
• I am also a member of the Corpus Linguistics research group, the Discourse Analysis and Stylistics research group, and the Cognitive and Psycholinguistic research group

External research grants and awards received

• Dates: Sep 2016 - Sep 2018
  Title of Project: Death before Birth: Understanding, informing and supporting the choices made by people who have experienced miscarriage, termination, and stillbirth (Project Reference: ES/N008359/1)
  Funding Body: ESRC
  Amount: £537,225
  My role: Co-Investigator
• Dates: Oct 2015 - Oct 2017
  Title of Project: Exploring Multimodal Metaphor in Advertising (Project Reference: 659078)
  Funding Body: European Union (Marie Curie Fellowship Scheme)
  Amount: €183,455
  My role: Principal-Investigator (Research Fellow: Dr Paula Sobrino-Perez)
• Dates: Jan 2012-Dec 2014
  Title of Project: Metaphor use in one-to-one academic consultations in English: Implications for Spanish student mobility in Europe (FFI2011-22809)
  Funding Body: Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness
  Amount: €50,820
  My role: Co-Investigator
• Dates: May 2014 - Apr 2016
  Title of Project: Metaphor: From Embodied Cognition to Discourse
  Funding Body: Thyssen Foundation (Germany)
  Amount: €10,000
  My role: Co-Investigator
• Dates: Oct 2014-Sep 2017
  Title of Project: Cognitive modeling and meaning construction across languages: Theory, implications, and applications (FFI2013-43593-P)
  Funding Body: Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness
  Amount: €73,000
  My role: Co-Investigator
• Dates: Aug 2010-Jul 2011
  Title of Project: Verbal and gestural metaphor in cross-cultural communication
  Funding Body: The British Council
  Amount: £2,820
  My role: Principal Investigator
• Dates: Apr 2010-Mar 2011
  Title of Project: Investigating figurative proficiency at different levels of second language writing
  Funding Body: Cambridge ESOL
  Amount: £5,000
  My role: Principal Investigator
• Dates: Jan-Dec 2006
  Title of Project: The Development of Creativity in Japanese Learners of English
  Funding Body: Japanese DAIWA Foundation
  Amount: £1,200
  My role: Principal Investigator
• Dates: Aug 2000 - Feb 2003
  Title of Project: New Technologies and Language Learning: Pedagogical Approaches and Practical Applications (Project Number: 56563-CP-1-98-1-IE-LINGUA-LA)
  Funding Body: The European Union
  Amount: €146,000
  My role: Co-Investigator
• Dates: Jan 1997 - Jul 1999
  Title of Project: European Language Council Thematic Network Project in the area of Languages: (Project 25917-CP-2-97-1-DE-ERASMUS-ETN)
  Funding Body: The European Union
  Amount: €6,030,000
  My role: Co-Investigator

I am involved in a number of national and international research projects, investigating the use of verbal and gestural metaphor in cross-cultural communication and the development of figurative proficiency at different levels of second language writing.

• ORCID