Research group: Manchester Centre for Research in Linguistics
Studying the use of language and its structure to analyse and improve the communication between individuals, communities and society as a whole.
About our research
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
Teaching
Our courses and teaching
We support the MA Applied Linguistics programme, which is underpinned by our expertise in research and practice.
And we can supervise postgraduate dissertations and PhDs in a wide range of specialisms. Our teachers combine their research with their teaching in areas such as:
- the fundamentals of linguistics
- discourse analysis
- sociolinguistics
- forensic linguistics
- pragmatics
- multilingualism
- healthcare communication
- corpus linguistics
- language teaching (course design, language assessment, language acquisition)
- language in a globalised world
We also work with Manchester Met’s other research groups, including the Contemporary Intimacies, Sexualities and Genders, the Educational and Social Research Institute, the Language Centre, the Manchester Centre for Youth Studies, the Poetry Library and the Postgraduate Arts and Humanities Centre.
Selected projects
Key publications
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Key publications
- Archer, D (2020) The value of facework in crisis negotiation: with a focus on barricade situations In: Archer, D, Granger, K and Jagodzinski, P (2020) Politeness in Professional Contexts Amsterdam and Philadelphia, John Benjamins, pp 300-322
Badwan, K (2021) Language in a Globalised World: Social Justice Perspectives on Mobility and Contact, Palgrave McMillan
Bellamy, J (2021) Contemporary perspectives towards language standardisation In: Ayres-Bennett, W and Bellamy, J, The Cambridge Handbook of Language Standardisation, Cambridge University Press
Bousfield, D (2008) Impoliteness in Interaction, John Benjamins
Bullo, S (2021) The bloodiness and horror of it: Intertextuality in metaphorical accounts of endometriosis pain, In: Metaphor and the Social World 11(1), pp 1-22
Dao, P, Nguyen, M, Duong, PT and Tran-Thanh, V, (2021) Learners’ Engagement in L2 Computer-Mediated Interaction: Chat Mode, Interlocutor Familiarity, and Text Quality, Modern Language Journal
Drummond, R (2018) Researching urban youth language and identity, Palgrave MacMillan
Jagodziński, P and Archer, D (2018) Co-creating customer experience through call centre interaction: Interactional achievement and professional face In: Journal of Politeness Research, volume14(2), pp 257-277
Larner, S and McGlashan, M (in press) Children’s Experiences of Domestic Abuse: Reports of feelings in online peer-to-peer self-disclosures In: Taylor, J and Bates, E and CallaghanChildren and Adolescent’s Experiences of Violence and Abuse at Home: Current theory, research and practitioner insights, Routledge
Macis, M, Sonbul, S and Alharbi, R (2021) The Effect of Spacing on Incidental and Deliberate Learning of L2 Collocations, System
Nguyen, M, and Dao, P (2019) Identity exploration and development in TESOL teacher education: A three‐dimensional space narrative inquiry perspective, TESOL Journal, 10(4), pp 492
Ryan, S (2021) I just sound Sco[ʔ]ish now!: The acquisition of word-medial glottal replacement by Polish adolescents in Glasgow, English World-Wide 42(2), pp 1-30
Ryan, S, Dann, H and Drummond, R (Under review for Language in Society) Really this girl ought to be going to something better: Rhoticity, gender and education in oral history data from Oldham
Webster, L (2021) Erase/Rewind: How transgender Twitter discourses challenge and (re)politicize lesbian identities, Journal of Lesbian Studies
Partners
Organisations we work with
Manchester City Council
British Council
Barnardo's
Manchester City of Trees
Contact information
Contact us
For general enquiries about our linguistics research group, you can contact its lead Dr Rob Drummond.