I am a Senior Lecturer in Applied Linguistics within the Department of Languages, Information and Communications, at Manchester Metropolitan University. I completed my PhD at the University of Limerick, Ireland and, following that, worked at Cambridge University Press where I held the post of Senior Research Manager. In that role, I channeled research into practice by using and conducting research to inform the development of educational materials and resources for language learning. I then held the post of Assistant Professor at Coventry University before joining the department at MMU. At MMU, I lecture and conduct research on a range of topics in applied linguistics, spanning contrastive linguistics, corpus linguistics, discourse analysis, English-medium instruction, metadiscourse, parascientific, scientific, and academic communication, second language acquisition, systemic functional linguistics, TESOL, translation.

I am Fellow of the Royal Society for Arts and Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. I have been PI and Co-I on a number of research projects, funded by the UKRI and the Cambridge Funded Research Programme and I am Co-Editor of Routledge Applied Corpus Linguistics and Routledge Corpus Linguistics Guides book series, Section Editor of the Elsevier Encyclopaedia of Language and Linguistics, a Géras International Correspondent, and I am a member of the IVACS Advisory Board. I was a Visiting Professor at Università degli Studi del Piemonte Orientale “Amedeo Avogadro”, 2023.

My research interests span fields of linguistics and applied linguistics covering:

• applied linguistics;
• contrastive linguistics;
• corpus linguistics;
• discourse analysis;
• parascientific, scientific, and academic discourse (English, French, Spanish); and
• language teaching and learning, and digital pedagogies.

Currently, I am researching language relating to global crises and global issues. I am particularly interested in investigating how knowledge of these issues and crises is socially and discursively constructed across contexts, times, languages, and cultures with a view to understanding better how global issues vary across local contexts, and for international and local audiences. My areas of focus include (but are not limited to) issues such as climate, health, economics, and education. In parallel, I am conducting research on applied linguistics and TESOL related issues, spanning foci on register, genre, metadiscourse, materials development, and digital pedagogies. If you are interested in researching with me, see the contact page for details on how to connect with me. 

As a brief summary, here is a list of my research interests and specialisms:

• contrastive linguistics;
• corpus-based contrastive discourse approaches; 
• corpus pragmatics approaches;
• corpus studies for language teaching and materials development; 
• disciplinary perspectives on language;
• English-medium instruction;
• genre and register analysis;
• knowledge construction and knowledge across cultures;
• language of global crises;
• studies of academic discourse, para-scientific communication, and online communication;
• studies of evaluation, appraisal, and metadiscourse;
• studies in language pedagogy; and
• studies on technology, blended learning, and digital pedagogies.

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Qualifications

• PhD Linguistics, University of Limerick.
• MA Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages, University of Limerick.
• PG Cert. Academic Practice for Higher Education, Coventry University.
• BA Hons Applied Languages (French, Spanish, Japanese, TEFL, Linguistics), University of Limerick.