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Jennifer Smith (sociolinguist)

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Professor
Jennifer Smith
FRSE
EducationMA in Linguistics University of Durham PhD in 2000 from the University of York
OccupationProfessor of sociolinguistics
EmployerThe University of Glasgow School of Critical Studies
Known forsociolinguistic studies in Scottish dialects and colonial English
Notable workScottish Syntax Atlas[1]

Jennifer Smith is a sociolinguistic specialist in language variation and dialects, especially Scottish dialects across the generations and geography of Scotland, including developing the Scottish syntax atlas[1] which analyses the diversity. Her research also covers variations in colonial English, for example, in North America.[2] Professor of sociolinguistics at the University of Glasgow School of Critical Studies, she teaches and researches language and variation theory.[3]

Biography

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Originally from Buckie, and speaking in that dialect,[4] Smith taught English in Athens[5] before studying for her MA in Linguistics at Durham University.[3] Her doctorate was completed at the University of York (2000) on Synchrony and Diachrony of English: Evidence from Scotland.[6] She was a lecturer at York[7] before becoming professor of linguistics at the University of Glasgow, School of Critical Studies. In 2009 she took time off for health reasons, recovering from ovarian cancer and married her long term partner.[8]

In addition to her own teaching and research interests, Smith is the research convenor of English Language and Linguistics at Glasgow, and is an external examiner for the University of Sheffield, Queen Mary, University of London, Lancaster University and the Open University. She is a PhD examiner for Newcastle University, Trinity College Dublin (2014) and the Université Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense. She is also a member of the ESRC Virtual College and Assessor for the Natural Science Foundation and Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft.[3]

Publications and editorships

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Smith is on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Linguistics and is a reviewer for articles for that journal and for Language Variation & Change, Journal of Sociolinguistics, Journal of Child Language. She also is a monograph reviewer for academic publishers Mouton, CUP and OUP.[3] Smith was co-editor in 2017 of Studies in Middle and Modern English: Historical Variation. Series: Studies in the history of the English language,[9] and also previously (in 2014) of Studies in Middle and Modern English: Historical Change. Series: Studies in the history of the English language.[10]

Research with Sali Tagliamonte of the University of Toronto covered variations in sociolinguistic specifics as well as North American variants.[11] Her work with Sophie Holmes-Elliott of Queen Mary University of London was on certain sounds, and findings were presented at the 18th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences.[12]

Smith's (currently 38) key research articles are listed by the Glasgow University School of Critical Studies,[13] and includes work on caregiver and child communications, and other early years dialect learning, presented in articles and at international conferences .[14][2]

She recently (2019) worked with Mercedes Durham of Cardiff University on a book on sociolinguistic variation in children's language.[15] She had previously contributed a chapter to the Routledge Companion to Sociolinguistics on the analysis of morphosyntactic variation (2007),[16] and wrote the foreword to Sociolinguistics in Scotland (2014).[17]

Research communications

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Smith has communicated in press and social media about her research, such as the computer modelling showing that local dialects are thriving[18] both in terms of words and sounds, and also sentence structures,[19] such that some Scots are considered bilingual.[20] She also spoke about the variation in perceived attractiveness of a voice[21] or the adoption of 'posh' voices for circumstances, including the modern need to instruct technology (voice activation) in a tendency to use slower and more formal speaking ('tech tongue').[22]

Jennifer Smith was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 2021.[23]

References

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  1. ^ a b Smith, Jennifer; Adger, David; Aitken, Brian; Heycock, Caroline; Jamieson, E.; Gary, Thoms (17 December 2019). "The Scots Syntax Atlas". scotssyntaxatlas.ac.uk. Retrieved 9 August 2021.
  2. ^ a b "Plenary speakers". 7th Biennial International Conference on the Linguistics of Contemporary English. 28 August 2015. Retrieved 9 August 2021.
  3. ^ a b c d "University of Glasgow - Schools - School of Critical Studies - Our staff - Prof Jennifer Smith". www.gla.ac.uk. Retrieved 9 August 2021.
  4. ^ Graddol, David; Leith, Dick; Swann, Joan; Rhys, Martin; Gillen, Julia (24 July 2020). Changing English. Routledge. pp. section 6.7. ISBN 978-1-000-15531-0.
  5. ^ Seargeant, Philip; Swann, Joan (1 March 2013). English in the World: History, Diversity, Change. Routledge. pp. Biographical information. ISBN 978-1-136-44567-5.
  6. ^ York Papers in Linguistics. University of York, Department of Language. 2006.
  7. ^ Clinical sociolinguistics. Martin J. Ball. Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub. 2005. pp. XIII. ISBN 1-4051-4138-7. OCLC 60570262.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
  8. ^ Spowart, Nan (29 March 2009). "Brave bride Jennifer's battle against 'silent killer' of ovarian cancer". Daily Record. Retrieved 9 August 2021.
  9. ^ Studies in Middle and Modern English : Historical Variation. Akinobu Tani, Jennifer Smith, 谷明信., ジェニファー, 英語. スミス. Tōkyō: Kaitakusha. 2017. ISBN 978-4-7589-2249-4. OCLC 992703371.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
  10. ^ Studies in middle and modern English : historical change. Yoko Iyeiri, Jennifer Smith, Eigoshi Kenkyūkai. Suita-shi, Osaka, Japan. 2014. ISBN 978-4-9904584-4-7. OCLC 1062268157.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) CS1 maint: others (link)
  11. ^ Tagliamonte, Sali A.; Smith, Jennifer (1 January 2002). ""Either it isn't or it's not": neg/aux contraction in British dialects". English World-Wide. 23 (2): 251–281. doi:10.1075/eww.23.2.05tag. ISSN 0172-8865.
  12. ^ Holmes-Elliott, Sophie; Smith, Jennifee (August 2015). "DRESS-down: /ε/-lowering in apparent time in a rural Scottish community". eprints.gla.ac.uk. Retrieved 9 August 2021.
  13. ^ "University of Glasgow - Schools - School of Critical Studies - Our staff - Prof Jennifer Smith". www.gla.ac.uk. Retrieved 9 August 2021.
  14. ^ Smith, Jennifer; Durham, Mercedes; Fortune, Liane (22 January 2007). ""Mam, my trousers is fa'in doon!": Community, caregiver, and child in the acquisition of variation in a Scottish dialect". Language Variation and Change. 19 (1). doi:10.1017/s0954394507070044. ISSN 0954-3945. S2CID 26441220.
  15. ^ Smith, Jennifer; Durham, Mercedes (2019). Sociolinguistic Variation in Children's Language: Acquiring Community Norms. Studies in Language Variation and Change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-107-17261-6.
  16. ^ Llamas, Carmen; Mullany, Louise; Stockwell, Peter (2007). The Routledge Companion to Sociolinguistics. Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-33849-3.
  17. ^ Lawson, R. (22 January 2014). Sociolinguistics in Scotland. Springer. ISBN 978-1-137-03471-7.
  18. ^ Wade, Mike. "Lose our accents? Gonnae no' dae that!". The Times. ISSN 0140-0460. Retrieved 9 August 2021.
  19. ^ Fairnie, Robert (30 December 2019). "Interactive map reveals what 'Scots' phrases Edinburgh folk do and don't say". edinburghlive. Retrieved 9 August 2021.
  20. ^ Williams, Craig (28 February 2021). "The reason why Glaswegians can actually be considered 'bilingual'". GlasgowLive. Retrieved 9 August 2021.
  21. ^ "BBC Scotland - Rebel Tongue". BBC. Retrieved 9 August 2021.
  22. ^ Beresford, Jack. "Irish accent voted 'most attractive' in new poll". The Irish Post. Retrieved 9 August 2021.
  23. ^ "Professor Jennifer Smith FRSE". The Royal Society of Edinburgh. 6 May 2021. Retrieved 9 August 2021.
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