Current Committee Members
Julia Snell, Convenor
Associate Professor of English Language, University of Leeds
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I am Associate Professor of English Language at the University of Leeds. I first became involved with the Linguistic Ethnography community after attending a training programme on ‘Key Concepts and Methods in Ethnography, Language and Communication’ at King’s College London in 2007. Following this course, I co-founded (with co-participants Sara Shaw and Fiona Copland) the Explorations in Ethnography, Language and Communication Conference, which is now the official LEF conference. Sara, Fiona, and I also edited the first major collection of LE work, Linguistic Ethnography: Interdisciplinary Explorations. My research explores the role of language in education from a sociolinguistic perspective. I have published on children’s language variation and class identities, dialogic pedagogy, and teacher professional development. I am currently involved in two research projects. The first (funded by the Leverhulme Trust) investigates how pupils from less privileged socioeconomic backgrounds may be denied opportunities to participate in classroom dialogue by examining: (i) the impact of language policing in the classroom; and (ii) how teachers’ perceptions of pupils’ social background, language, and abilities influence classroom pedagogy. The second (with Ian Cushing) investigates the role of the school inspectorate, Ofsted, as institutional language police.
Karin Tusting, Ordinary Member
Professor in Linguistics and Literacy Studies, Lancaster University
I am a Professor at the Department of Linguistics and English Language, Lancaster University, and a co-director of the Lancaster Literacy Research Centre. I teach on courses including research methods, discourse analysis, and language and identities. My research is in the area of workplace literacies. I have recently led an ESRC research project exploring academics’ writing practices in university workplaces (published with Routledge as Tusting, McCulloch, Bhatt, Hamilton and Barton 2019 Academics Writing: The Dynamics of Knowledge Creation), and I have previously researched bureaucracy in other educational workplaces, taking an ethnographic perspective on workplace paperwork. I also edited the Routledge Handbook of Linguistic Ethnography (2020). I was a founder member of LEF and its first Communications Secretary, and served as LEF convenor from 2014-2021.
Charlotte Selleck, Meetings Secretary
Senior Lecturer in Linguistics, University of the West of England
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Charlotte's research interests are in sociolinguistic theory, the sociolinguistics of Wales and interactional sociolinguistics. Her PhD research investigated the interplay between linguistic practices, linguistic representations, language ideologies and social inclusion between students at three related research sites in West-Wales.
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Piotr Węgorowski, Treasurer
Lecturer in Applied Linguistics, University of Glasgow
Piotr.Wegorowski@glasgow.ac.uk
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My research has been situated in within linguistic ethnography since my doctoral work, which adopted an ethnographic approach to study community policing, and which was part of a wider team project looking at communication in superdiverse urban settings. I am interested in discourse in professional and institutional contexts, and more recently have worked on a small-scale project with colleagues from areas of public administration and accounting looking at coroporatisation in local authorities.
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Jamie Murdoch, Membership Secretary
Senior Lecturer in Social Science and Health, School of Population Health Sciences, King’s College London
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I am a Senior Lecturer in Social Science and Health at King’s College London. My interest in Linguistic Ethnography began during my PhD when I was studying how people with asthma talk about medicine-taking. I attended the course ‘Key Concepts and Methods in Ethnography, Language and Communication’, involving five days of training, data sessions and workshops. The course content had a huge impact on my interpretation of the research interviews I had collected and led to wider appreciation of contextual features shaping the talk of people with chronic illness. My current research involves evaluating the implementation of complex healthcare interventions (treatments or services involving multiple, related components). A key focus of this work is how to study the contexts in which healthcare interventions are delivered, and in particular, the contribution of linguistic ethnographic theories and methods to conduct such investigations.
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Jackie Jia Lou, Network Manager
Senior Lecturer in Sociolinguistics, Birkbeck, University of London
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I am a Senior Lecturer in Sociolinguistics at Birkbeck, University of London. My main research interest is about language and the city, particularly through the lens of linguistic and semiotic landscapes and other types of multimodal discourse. My 2016 research monograph is a sociolinguistic ethnography of the linguistic landscape of Washington, DC’s Chinatown. In more recent research in Hong Kong and current projects in London, I continue to adopt an eclectic research design which integrates sociolinguistic and discourse analysis with social- and geo-semiotic analysis, ethnographic fieldwork, and more recently, mobile video ethnography.
Chloe Cheetham, Ordinary Member with Special Responsibility for Twitter
PhD student at Goldsmiths, University of London
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I am currently studying for a PhD in Applied Linguistics at Goldsmiths, University of London, alongside my role as a primary school teacher. I am using linguistic ethnography to explore the discursive practices of a class of children who are between 10 and 11 years old, examining gender and leadership in friendship talk, learning talk and games.
I am working on growing the LEF’s Twitter presence to engage with those new to linguistic ethnography and to keep current members updated.
Argyro Kanaki, Ordinary Member
Education, School of Education and Social Work, University of Dundee
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Argyro Kanaki is a Lecturer in Education at the University of Dundee, Scotland. She holds a PhD in language education. Her current teaching focuses on the pedagogy of modern foreign languages, TESOL, issues around culture, and debates in international education. Argyro currently researches metalinguistic awareness and its relations with language policy and language practices, using linguistic ethnographic theories and methods to conduct such investigations.