George Bailey
Lecturer

Profile

Biography

George has been a lecturer in the department since 2018. His research interests lie in variationist sociolinguistics, or 'language variation and change', with specific interests in sociophonetics and phonological theory. He is also interested in articulatory phonetics, and the use of experimental and statistical techniques to answer questions about sound change and the representation of phonetic and phonological knowledge.

Career

• Lecturer in Sociolinguistics
  University of York (2021–)
• Lecturer in Phonetics and Phonology
  University of York (2018-)
• PhD in Linguistics
  University of Manchester (2015-18)
• MA in Linguistics
  University of Manchester (2014-15)
• BA in Linguistics
  University of Manchester (2011-14)

Departmental roles

• Careers and employability coordinator

Teaching

Undergraduate

• LAN00009C Phonetics and Phonology
• LAN00058I Linguistics as Data Science
• LAN00002H Advanced Topics in Language Variation and Change

Postgraduate

• LAN00057M Advanced Topics in Language Variation and Change

Research

Overview

My research primarily lies at the intersection between sociophonetics, phonological theory, and language variation and change. I also have a keen interest in dialectology, particularly the dialects spoken in the North of England. In my research I study patterns of variation and change in a number of phonetic features of these dialects in order to address important questions regarding pathways of sound change and the representation of phonetic and phonological information. I also use a range of quantitative methods in my research, and more recently have been exploring articulatory and experimental methods in order to better understand the mapping between acoustic targets and individual-level articulatory variation.

Interests

• Sociophonetics
• Articulatory phonetics
• Phonological theory
• Language variation and change
• Dialectology and geospatial analysis
• Quantitative methods

Grants

• Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). 2015-2018. ‘Variation and change in Northern English velar nasals: Production and perception’. North West Doctoral Training Centre PhD studentship.

External activities

Invited talks and conferences

• 2021 - Computational approaches to British English dialectology. Invited plenary talk at the Manchester Forum in Linguistics.
• 2020 - The past, present (and future?) of English dialects. Invited talk at the Lancaster University Phonetics Lab Group.
• 2019 - Sound change on the shtreets of Manchester. Invited talk at the University of Warwick Centre for Applied Linguistics Seminar Series
• 2019 - [ʃ]tranger things have happened: Retraction in (str) and (stj) clusters in Manchester English. Invited talk at the Glasgow University Laboratory of Phonetics.
• 2018 - 'When sound change isn’t led by social change: The case of Northern English (ng)'
  The Philological Society meeting on 'Language change in its socio-historical context', University of Sheffield
• 2018 - ‘All paths lead to [ʃ]: Varying sibilant articulation and s-retraction in Manchester English’
  The University of Manchester Linguistics and English Language Research Seminar
• 2016 - ‘Regional variation in 140 characters: Mapping geospatial tweets’ 
  The Workshop on Using Twitter for Linguistic Research, University of Kent
  

Conference presentations

• For a full list of recent conference presentations, please see George's personal website