S1 E5: Accent Positivity – Dr. Ella Jeffries

Much Language Such Talk

In this episode, we are joined by Dr. Ella Jeffries, a lecturer in linguistics at the University of Essex, and her research interests lie in the field of sociolinguistics, with a particular focus on regional accent variation. Her PhD research looked into children's developing perceptual awareness of phonological regional accent differences. She is currently Principle Investigator on the BA/Leverhulme Small Grant funded project 'Accent the positive' which investigates the development of implicit attitudes towards regional accents among primary school-age children.

Ella is also collaborating on a project which investigates language variation in change in Worcestershire and Herefordshire. Her work incorporates approaches from different fields of linguistic research including language variation and change, sociophonetics, language acquisition and psycholinguistics. She is part of a team of researchers working on collaborative projects within the Centre for Research in Language Development throughout the Lifespan (LaDeLi) at the University Of Essex, which also hosts the Bilingualism Matters East of England branch.

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Recorded on 17/11/2020

Music: Arc of the Sun by The 126ersssssss