Dr Viola Wiegand

• FHEA (University of Bath / Advance HE, 2021)
• PhD in Applied Linguistics (University of Birmingham, 2019)
• MA in Applied Linguistics (University of Nottingham, 2014)
• BA (Honours) in English Studies for the Professions with a Minor in Chinese as a Second Language (The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, 2013)

Before joining the department as a Lecturer in TESOL, I worked at the University of Bath’s Department of Education in 2020/21 as course designer for the MA English Medium Instruction and taught on their MA TESOL programme. At the University of Birmingham, I previously taught on undergraduate modules and I was a Research Associate on the CLiC Dickens project from 2017–2021. As part of my work for this project, I carried out corpus research and public engagement activities and led hands-on workshops for a wide range of audiences. I particularly enjoy working with diverse student groups and have personal experience as an international student in the USA, Hong Kong, and the UK.

I teach and supervise across the department’s programmes, with a particular focus on the MA TESOL and MA Applied Linguistics campus and distance programmes.

Much of my research applies corpus linguistic approaches; my research interests include the use of corpora in language teaching and learning, corpus linguistics and stylistics, corpus-based discourse analysis, and digital humanities. At Birmingham, I have contributed to the development of the CLiC web app, a corpus tool for literary texts. In connection with my PhD thesis, I have used corpus methods to study discourses on the concept of surveillance in a range of contemporary discourse domains, as well as historical discourses in the Times Digital Archive. I also have an interest in the topic of empowerment in discourses and educational contexts, including using corpora in the classroom / data-driven learning, as well as corpus approaches to classroom discourse.

• I have been a member of the organizing committees for two academic conferences (ICAME34 in Nottingham and CL2017 in Birmingham) and still attend both of these conference series.
• I am a member of the following professional societies: BAAL (British Association for Applied Linguistics), BACS (British Association for Chinese Studies) and PALA (Poetics And Linguistics Association).