About our research
We are linguistics researchers and educators who explore language in public and private use, in areas such as education, law, health, culture and identity, communication, linguistic landscaping and the folk understanding of language.
We believe that language fundamentally enriches all aspects of life.
Part of our mission is to improve communication and understanding between individuals, communities, and wider society through public engagement and knowledge exchange. Our research is rigorous, impactful, transformative and socially relevant to everyday experiences outside of academia.
Inclusion, participation and collaboration are really important to us, as is pushing the boundaries of our subject, both locally and internationally.
We support linguistics research by organising workshops and conferences, including the International Conference on Youth Languages. We make sure that our teaching and research build on each other.
Linguistics in action
Prof Dawn Archer’s work is a good example of how our research impacts on society. She specialises in how language is used to influence, manipulate and deceive. Her research informs and improves security, police negotiation, parliamentary language and public knowledge. Her expertise has been used:
- to train more than 150 European Air Marshals
- to train 27 police negotiators to use linguistic techniques in their daily practice
- to develop a language-focused toolkit for current and future UK police negotiators
- as a reference for the spelling of ‘anti-Semitism’ in Lords Hansard Official Debates
- as an influence on the conception and production of True Crime documentary programming.
- in media appearances and press coverage to expose new audiences to an empirically validated understanding of the linguistic markers of deception and its detection