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Staff from the English Language and Linguistics courses

Meet the staff from the English Language and Linguistics courses and hear all about their work outside life at the University of Wolverhampton.

Josiane Boutonnet- Deputy Head of School

Hello, my name is Josiane Boutonnet and I am the Deputy Head of the School of Humanities. I also lecture in English Language and Linguistics. I am particularly interested in the relationship between language and humour and the way humour is used in conversations to manage relationships and avoid conflict. More recently I have researched humour in computer-mediated communication. I am a member of the board of the International Summer School on Humour and Laughter which organises a research week on humour on a yearly basis in different European countries. Last year, some of my students and I took part in a project called 'Finding our Funny Roots', researching what is unique about Black Country Dialect humour, together with Creative Black Country, a Heritage Lottery Funded Project. You can hear our presentation here: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vX4P-roRmxE 

I teach Sociolinguistics, a module on Gender and Language and one on Communication, Cohesion and Conflict. I was born in France and have lived most of my adult life in the UK, with a brief interlude of 12 months in Spain. Learning other languages has greatly enriched my life.

Dr Esther Asprey- Senior Lecturer in Linguistics

My name is Dr Esther Asprey. My interest in Linguistics began during my undergraduate degree at Edinburgh where I studied German and Dutch but also noticed the presence of Scots and Gaelic in Scotland. I have family and friends from the Black Country and began serious work on the dialect during my Masters at Leeds. I’ve been working on the dialect ever since and I look at its structure, its history, how it’s changing, how people react to it and how it gets written down. In addition to this I continue to learn Irish and have begun learning Welsh and Gaelic during lockdown.

Dr Judith Hamilton- Senior Lecturer in Linguistics and TESOL and Course Leader

'I first became interested in language when I studied sociolinguistics on my degree at the University of Sussex and acquired a French boyfriend. The boyfriend and the module have long since disappeared, but my interest in language has persisted.  

Before joining the University of Wolverhampton, I taught English in France, Poland and Hungary. Since starting at the University in 1998, I have taught students from all over the world on both pre-sessional, in-sessional and summer language courses. A move into teacher training (TESOL) followed, along with an interest in developing creative and reflective classroom practitioners. I’m immensely proud to have supported our Linguistics and TESOL graduates through their degrees, many of whom are now teaching across the West Midlands and beyond. I currently teach on undergraduate TESOL modules, as well as phonetics and phonology, research methods and a module on language variation and change.  

I am also completing a Doctorate in Education at the University of Wolverhampton, making me a student as well as a member of staff. My research is in linguistic inequality and an exploration of lecturers’ attitudes to students’ use of language, especially in oral assessments. '

Anastasia Novoselova- Senior Lecturer in Linguistics

Hello, my name is Anastasia Novoselova. I’ve been interested in languages from very early years. I was fascinated by the existence of many different languages in the world and was always keen to possess the power to speak, understand and decipher them. This interest eventually led me to undertake an undergraduate degree in English and German languages and Linguistics. After that, I would go on to complete my doctoral degree in Linguistics. 

My academic career and my broader professional career have been shaped by my under- and post-graduate education and research in Linguistics. I was lucky enough to have tried my hand at several professional roles involving linguistic expertise: I have worked as a lecturer in the English language in several different countries and an interpreter and translator with large businesses and government organisations. After several years’ break in my academic career, I am back to Higher Education, hoping to continue my research on metaphor and corpus analysis. I am interested in how abstract ideas are conceptualised in different languages and what culture-specific concepts can be uncovered through the study of metaphorical expressions. 

Dr Marion West-Senior Lecturer in Linguistics 

I joined the University as an English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teacher in 1995, from which I developed my specialist area of English for Academic Purposes (EAP) and TESOL training. I grew up in a busy household where my father was from London and my mother was from Switzerland; she came over at the age of 19, but never lost her Swiss-German accent, nor her non-standard use of certain tenses and idioms.   Being the 4th child, I had a disadvantage compared to my sister and older brother, who were brought up bilingually. I think this explains my interest in various aspects of language, identity and language learning. I have taught in France, London, Salisbury, Cambridge (where I worked for the EFL exam board) and Birmingham.

As a Senior Lecturer in Linguistics, my specialisms are Semantics, Research Methods and Conversation Analysis. My thesis investigated how tutors and students work together in the negotiation of advice. I enjoy reflecting on why speakers design their talk in a certain way, and how others engaged in the conversation display their understanding. I love working with students on the data they gather and transcribe, trying to understand what the speakers are ‘up to’.