Researchers From All Over The World Will Come To Edge Hill University To Examine How People Use Language And How It Changes In Society.

The University has been chosen to host the 8^th UK Language Variation and Change event, which is the leading conference on this subject outside of the USA.

It takes place from 12^th to 14^th September and aims to further understand both theories and methods within this field and unveil new research findings at all levels of linguistic structure , from phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax and discourse. This year’s conference will focus on identifying current and emerging interdisciplinary trends within sociolinguistics.

There will be a number of presentations and papers given from a range of academics, focusing on topics such as acoustics and ethnicity, vowel variation in Manchester, phonetic variation in Scottish Gaelic, children and change, shifting identities: children of immigrants in modern urban settings, and the fall and rise of local linguistic identities in England

Dr. Lourdes Burbano Elizondo, Senior Lecturer in English Language at Edge Hill University, said: “It’s fantastic that we have been chosen to host such a prestigious conference that will give scholars in this field the chance to come together to present and discuss recent research. The conference will play a key role in the development of language variation and change study in the 21^st century as we look at current and emerging trends.

· Professor Jenny Cheshire, Professor of Linguistics in the Department of Linguistics at Queen Mary, University of London. She will be presenting a paper entitled Language Variation and Change in the Multilingual Metropolis, focusing on grammatical and discourse variation in Paris. She has made a major contribution to the field over a long prestigious career, including serving on the editorial board of over twelve scholarly journals and book series, including the Journal of Sociolinguistics and Language in Society. She herself has published numerous influential books, edited collections, book chapters and journal articles.

· Dr. Jane Stuart-Smith, Reader in English Language in the School of English and Scottish Language and Literature at the University of Glasgow. She will be presenting on the topic of her forthcoming monograph Mediating the Local: Language Change and the Media. She is the director of a programme of research on aspects of variation and change in Glaswegian accent.

· Dr. Chris Montgomery, Lecturer in English Language in the Department of Humanities from Sheffield Hallam University. He will be presenting a paper entitled What the study of perceptual dialectology can tell us about digital mapping methods. He will look at ways of integrating techniques used in the field of Geographical Science with those used in the study of language variation and perception, with a particular focus on the possibilities offered by GIS technologies.

For more information about the conference or to book your place, please visit the website www.edgehill.ac.uk/events or email UKLVC8@edgehill.ac.uk.