Work
I have worked as a pronunciation linguist in the BBC Pronunciation Unit since January 2003, and since September 2006 I have also been the Unit's co-ordinator. Since June 2008, I have been on maternity leave. The Unit's job is to research and advise on the pronunciation of any words or names in any language for anyone in the BBC. Our online presence is mostly kept within the BBC, but there is a little information in this article, and we write an occasional pronunciation blog for public consumption (older posts).

Study
I read English at Leeds (alumna page), after which I spent a year at the University of Massachusetts, then continued my postgraduate study at Oxford (Merton College). I did an M.Phil. in linguistics followed by a D.Phil. in sociophonetics.
My doctoral thesis was about inter- and intra-speaker variation in Liverpool English (abstract; journal article).
My ongoing linguistic interests are phonetics, accents and dialects, sociolinguistic and idiolectal variation and change, anglicisation, language and gender/sexuality and accent performance. I'm also interested in languages; in particular, German, Latin, Japanese, Spanish and Scottish Gaelic.

Writing
I co-edited the Oxford BBC Guide to Pronunciation (press coverage: Scotsman, Telegraph, Metro, IHT, Daily Record.)
I have contributed to various edited volumes, including the Concise Encyclopedia of Sociolinguistics and The Language Report.
I wrote an article about RP and "BBC English" for the BBC Voices project.

Teaching
Between 1997 and 2002 I taught linguistics and phonetics to Oxford undergraduates in tutorials and small groups.
In the summer of 2007 I taught Language Change on an INSET course at Reading University.
I have done a little dialect coaching in the past (Liverpool accents for a school production of Our Day Out, Bristol accents for a BBC drama) and have recently advised two amateur theatre companies. I would be interested in further work in this area.
I have given guest lectures about the Pronunciation Unit's work to students and staff at various universities, including Sheffield, Leeds and Aberdeen.

Recent conferences
Broadcast English (Lausanne, June 2006), keynote speaker
British Association of Academic Phoneticians colloquium (Edinburgh, April 2006)
Language in the Media (Leeds, Sep 2005, abstract)

last updated December 2008