Department of Language and Linguistic Science

Research fellowship: ‘Interactions in Grammatical Systems: North-South Dialect Variation in England’

Posted on 17 May 2021

Dr Claire Childs awarded an AHRC Research, Development and Engagement Fellowship

Dr Claire Childs (Department of Language and Linguistic Science) has been awarded an AHRC Research, Development and Engagement Fellowship (Early Career) for the project ‘Interactions in Grammatical Systems: North-South Dialect Variation in England’.

This 2-year project, scheduled to start in September 2021, will see Dr Childs working alongside a newly appointed Research Associate. The aim of the project is to uncover structural interactions between different kinds of grammatical variation in dialects of English and examine how these cluster together geographically within England.

Core research activities include two strands of data collection (sociolinguistic interviews and a dialect questionnaire) and analysis. The AHRC scheme also aims to enhance the Principal Investigator’s research capabilities through development activities. Dr Childs will train in Geographical Information Systems (GIS) which she will use in her data analysis. She will also engage in impact activities with A-Level English Language teachers (via the York English Language Toolkit) and members of the public (via the departmental MOOC, Accents, Attitudes and Identity: An Introduction to Sociolinguistics).

“I’m really looking forward to starting this project, which brings together my interests in the geographical patterning of grammatical variation and the linguistic systems/constraints underlying it. I’m very grateful to the AHRC for this exciting opportunity.” - Dr Claire Childs, Dept. of Language and Linguistic Science