Biography
I am Senior Lecturer in Spanish in the School of Modern Languages and Linguistics, and also Research Director for the School. My main research interests are: the sociolinguistics of minoritised languages in Spain, in particular Catalan; Irish in Ireland, with particular reference to the media; critical discourse analysis of the language of politics. I have published on these areas in a wide variety of international journals.
Research Interests
My main research interests are: the sociolinguistics of minoritised languages in Spain, in particular Catalan; Irish in Ireland, with particular reference to the media; critical discourse analysis of the language of politics. I have published on these areas in a wide variety of international journals. In the case of Catalonia I am currently researching the ways in which established tropes around civic, ethnic and ethnolinguistic are being discursively exploited by both left and right political constituencies in the context of the independence movement. My most recent work on Irish focuses on, respectively, the interplay between (potential) speakers' language-ideological positions and the ways in which the language is thematised in the media.
I welcome applications for research supervision in the areas of discourse analysis, sociolinguistics, language policy, pragmatics; language teaching methodology and the politics of language teaching.
Professional Activities
Award
- 2008 - University of Limerick Excellence in Teaching Award.
- 2005 - Nominated for University of Limerick Excellence in Teaching Award.
Association
- Membership Secretary (2010-2016), International Association for the Study of Spanish in Society (SIS)
- Secretary (1997-2004), Association for Contemporary Iberian Studies (ACIS)
Language
- Spanish
- German
- French
- Italian
- Portuguese
- Greek
Outreach
- Voluntary English Language tutor, Doras Luimni. March 2017-