Manchester Voices
Manchester Voices is a public-facing research project which explores the rich tapestry of accents, dialects, and identities that make up Greater Manchester. The research seeks to help us understand the ways in which our use of language makes us who we are. It also aims to uncover the underlying perceptions of the various accents of the ten boroughs of the county. The main project took place between May 2019 and January 2023, with follow-upwork continuing until 2025. The project team has included Dr Erin Carrie, Dr Sadie Ryan, Dr Holly Dann, Dr Sarah Tasker, annd Dr Caitlin Halfacre. Details can be found here at manchestervoices.org. The research was funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council.
The Accentism Project
The Accentism Project is a research-led initiative dedicated to challenging accent-based prejudice and discrimination. We provide training, workshops and consultancy for organisations seeking to better understand accent bias and its impact in the workplace, education and public life. Drawing on the latest sociolinguistic research, our work helps individuals and organisations recognise hidden assumptions about the way people speak and develop more inclusive practices. Alongside this, we conduct academic research, engage with the media, contribute to public debate, and provide a platform for people to share their experiences of accent-based judgement.
The project site is at accentism.org.
Hue English
In 2023 I was part of Hue English, a collaborative research project between the UK and Vietnam. Academics from Manchester Metropolitan University, University of Cambridge, and Hue University of Foreign Languages and International Studies joined together to explore Vietnamese English, and how it might shape identity and language education in Vietnam. A book about the work we did is due out in 2027, published by Routledge.
UrBEn-ID – Urban British English and Identity (focusing on youth language)
In 2014 I was awarded a Leverhulme Trust project grant which allowed me to continue the work I initially started with a MMU research accelerator grant into the speech of adolescents in Manchester, especially those who are educated in Pupil Referral Units.
The project involved the appointment of a two year full-time post doctoral research associate, Dr Susan Dray, who joined me in collecting ethnographic and speech data from Pupil Referral Units and a mainstream school in Manchester. It is hoped that the findings will raise awareness of the changing nature of young urban speech, highlighting the fact that many of its salient features are predictable results of the context in which it is used and acquired. In addition, the project will explore the ways in which particular linguistic features are used in the construction and negotiation of identities among young people, while at the same time looking at the extent to which speakers are able to style-shift between language varieties. Details here.
A book about the project was published in March 2018: Researching Urban Youth Language and Identity.
Vowel colours
In 2011 I launched a new project looking at the association between vowel and colour perception. I’m trying to find firstly if people are indeed able to identify different vowels with different colours, and then look into whether people’s accents have an effect on the nature of this association.
Some preliminary findings were presented at the BAAP Colloquium in Leeds in March 2012 (pdf copy of poster here), and when I have some time I will write up the rest of the results.
PhD research
My PhD research looked at the acquisition of local accent features by native Polish speakers living in Manchester.