I am a public-facing academic linguist and author based in Manchester UK, involved primarily in the relationship between spoken language and identity. I am Professor of Sociolinguistics at Manchester Metropolitan University, and a member of the Oracy Education Commission. I do a lot of language-related work with the media and with schools. My latest book, You’re All Talk: Why we are what we speak, was published by Scribe in 2023.

Since May 2019 I have been working on the Manchester Voices project – a series of studies exploring the accents, dialects and identities of people in Greater Manchester. The research was funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council from May 2019 until Jan 2023. I also run the Accentism Project, with Dr Amanda Cole from the University of Essex. The project explores and shares stories of language-based discrimination, prejudice, and stereotyping.

Prior to Manchester Voices and Accentism, my main research revolved around youth language, working with young people in Pupil Referral Units. This became the UrBEn-ID project, funded by The Leverhulme Trust (2014-2016). I worked on this research with Dr Susan Dray.