Committee
LEF Committee Members
Karin Tusting, Convenor
Senior Lecturer in Linguistics and Literacy Studies, Lancaster University
I am a Senior Lecturer at the Department of Linguistics and English Language, Lancaster University, and a member 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 the range of academics’ writing in university workplaces, and I have previously researched bureaucracy in other educational workplaces, taking an ethnographic perspective on workplace paperwork.
I have been a member of LEF since its inception, when I was finishing my PhD looking at the role of literacies and texts in the construction of identity in a Catholic parish. I was the first LEF communications secretary and helped to set up the BAAL Special Interest Group system.
Charlotte Selleck, Meetings Secretary
Senior Lecturer in Linguistics, University of the West of England
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.
Robert Sharples, Treasurer
Programme Director, MSc TESOL, University of Edinburgh
Teaching Fellow, Moray House School of Education, University of Edinburgh
My interest in Linguistic Ethnography grew from my research with young migrants in South London. I am interested in the impact of migration on schooling, and in how education systems can evolve to meet the needs of an increasingly multilingual, globally mobile student population.
Jamie Murdoch, Membership Secretary
Research Fellow, School of Health Sciences, University of East Anglia
I am a researcher in Health Services Research at the University of East Anglia. 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 role is to evaluate 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.
Jackie Jia Lou, Network Manager
Lecturer in Sociolinguistics, Birkbeck, University of London
I am a 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.
Johanna Woydack, Ordinary Member
Assistant Professor, Vienna University of Economics and Business
I have a background in linguistics and anthropology. I completed my PhD at King’s College London, which was an ethnography of a multilingual call center, which has been published as “Linguistic ethnography of a multilingual call center”. It is an analysis of the textual trajectory of the calling script in a call center which provides new perspectives on how to study the role of texts in workplaces/institutions and call centers as workplaces. I also used LE to explore issues such as resistance and compliance, standardization, monitoring and language learning in the workplace. I am currently based in Austria, but my last post was in Hong Kong.
Zoe Nikolaidou, Ordinary Member
Associate Professor, School of Culture and Education, Södertörn University, Stockholm, Sweden
I am an associate professor at the Department of Culture and Education, Södertörn University, Sweden. My research is in the area of literacy, discourse studies, multilingualism and narratives. I have been involved in a number of research projects where linguistic ethnography has been the main method of data collection and interpretation, including studies on workplace literacy and health literacy. I am currently involved in a study exploring the construction of narratives in asylum interviews and the role of texts in the asylum process. To view my publications please visit this link.
Chloe Cheetham, Ordinary Member with Special Responsibility for Twitter
PhD student at Goldsmiths, University of London
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, looking at gender, politeness and voices.
I am looking to grow the LEF’s Twitter presence, to engage with those new to linguistic ethnography as well as keep current members updated.
Joke Dewilde, Organiser of EELC Conference 2020
Associate Professor of Multilingualism in Education, University of Oslo
I am an Associate Professor of Multilingualism in Education at the Department of Teacher Education and School Research at the University of Oslo. My research areas include bilingual migrant teachers, multilingualism, literacy and identity. Educated as a philologist in English language and literature, I became familiar with linguistic ethnography while completing my PhD, where I combined fieldwork with the study of naturally occurring interaction in educational settings. In my later work, I have gradually adopted linguistic ethnography as an interpretative framework.