Linguistics Department Staff
Head of Department
Undergraduate Admissions Tutor
Undergraduate Programme Convenor
Dr Christopher Lucas (BA Linguistics)
Postgraduate Programme Convenors
Dr Barbara Pizziconi ( MA Arabic Language Teaching, MA Applied Linguistics and Language Pedagogy)
Professor Itesh Sachdev (MA Language Documentation and Description, MA Linguistics)
Dr Defeng Li ( MA Theory and Practice of Translation)
Postgraduate Research Tutor
Please note that for Masters Students the Admissions Tutor and Personal Tutor is the Postgraduate Programme Convenor.
Academic Staff
Peter Austin
Marit Rausing Chair in Field Linguistics
Director, Endangered Languages Academic Programme
Typology, morpho-syntax, language documentation and description, historical linguistics, Lexical-Functional grammar, computer-aided linguistic analysis, Austronesian languages, Australian Aboriginal languages
- Tel: 020 7898 4586
- Email: pa2@soas.ac.uk
- Room: 363
- Office Hours: Tuesdays 14:00-15:00/Wednesdays 14:00-15:00
Wynn Chao
Lecturer in Linguistics
Formal and comparative syntax; semantics; the syntax-semantics interface; language universals and typology; psycholinguistics; Chinese; Romance languages - Tel: 020 7898 4648
- Email: wc@soas.ac.uk
- Room: 374
- Office Hours: Tuesdays 13:00 - 15:00
Monik Charette
Senior Lecturer in Linguistics
Phonology, morpho-phonology, stress systems, vowel harmony, syllabic structure, word-structure, Altaic languages, Turkish, French - Tel: 020 7898 4647
- Email: mc@soas.ac.uk
- Room: 369
- Office Hours: Please email for an appointment
Maria Flouraki
Senior Teaching Fellow
Syntax, syntax-semantics interface, formal semantics, lexical semantics, constraint-based frameworks (LFG and HPSG), lexical aspect, negation, argument structure, Romance languages, Greek, South-Asian languages - Email: mf44@soas.ac.uk
- Office Hours: Mondays 11:30-12:30/Tuesdays 11:30-12:30 (rm 376)
Nathan W. Hill
British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow
Tibetan language from Old Tibetan to Modern Standard Tibetan; Tibetan historical and biographical literature; Central Asian languages, in particular Mongolian; Chinese minorities - Email: nh36@soas.ac.uk
- Room: 4407
Noriko Iwasaki
Senior Lecturer in Language Pedagogy
Second language acquisition (grammatical and pragmatic development, impact of study abroad), language pedagogy, psycholinguistics (language production, cognition and language), Japanese linguistics.
- Tel: 020 7898 4394
- Email: ni3@soas.ac.uk
- Room: 401
- Office Hours: Mondays 11:00- 13:00/Thursdays 15:00 - 17:00
- On Sabbatical:2012-13
Tania Kouteva
Visiting Alexander von Humboldt Research Professor
Grammatical typology, grammaticalization, morphosyntax, language contact, language evolution.
- Tel: 020 7898 4590
- Email: tk56@soas.ac.uk
- Room: 4403
Defeng Li
Reader in Translation Studies
Cognitive approach to translation process, corpus-based translation studies, translation curriculum and material development, specialized translation (commercial, financial and journalistic), second language acquisition and teaching, experimental translation studies, qualitative research methodology
- Tel: 020 7898 4298
- Email: dl21@soas.ac.uk
- Room: 406
- Office Hours: Mondays 11:00-13:00/ Or by appointment
Christopher Lucas
Lecturer in Arabic Linguistics
Historical linguistics, Arabic linguistics, the syntax-semantics interface, pragmatics, philosophy of language, Dynamic Syntax, Relevance Theory, Arabic language, Afro-Asiatic languages
- Tel: +44 (0)20 7898 4318
- Email: cl39@soas.ac.uk
- Room: 447
- Office Hours: Tuesdays 11:00-12:00/Wednesdays 11:30-12:30
Friederike Lüpke
Senior Lecturer in Language Documentation and Description
Language documentation and description, contact linguistics, anthropological linguistics, syntax-semantics interface, argument structure, Ajami writing in Africa, Niger-Congo languages, Mande languages, Atlantic languages, Jalonke (Fuuta Jalon, Guinea), Bainouk (Casamance, Senegal)
- Tel: +44 (0)20 7898 4581
- Email: fl2@soas.ac.uk
- Room: 367
- Office Hours: By pre-arranged appointment
- On Sabbatical:Term 1 2013/14
Lutz Marten
Professor of General and African Linguistics
Bantu languages and linguistics; syntax; semantics; pragmatics; historical linguistics; language and society in Eastern and Southern Africa
- Tel: 020 7898 4653
- Email: lm5@soas.ac.uk
- Room: 473
- On Sabbatical:Term 1 2012
Irina Nikolaeva
Professor of Linguistics
Syntax, morphology, information structure, typology, lexicalist theories of grammar, Construction Grammar, documentation of endangered languages, Palaeosiberian linguistics, Uralic languages, Altaic languages, Tundra Nenets (northwestern Siberia) - Tel: 020 7898 4250
- Email: in3@soas.ac.uk
- Room: 428a
- Office Hours: Mon 1-3(week 4,7,9), Weds 11-1 (week 5,6)
Anne Pauwels
Professor of Sociolinguistics
Professor of Sociolinguistics and Dean of the Faculty of Languages and Cultures - Tel: +44 (0)207 898 4474
- Email: ap62@soas.ac.uk
- Room: 360
Kirsty Rowan
Senior Teaching Fellow
Comparative and theoretical phonology, Ancient Egyptian and Meroitic phonology, writing systems, Afro-Caribbean ritual languages
- Tel: 020 7631 6738
- Email: kr2@soas.ac.uk
- Room: 514, Dept of Psychological Sciences, Birkbeck
- Office Hours: Mondays 1-3pm
Itesh Sachdev
Professor of Language and Communication
Social psychology of language and intergroup relations, intercultural communication, identity (minority and majority), bi-multilingualism, multiculturalism, language attitudes and motivations
- Tel: 020 7898 4516
- Email: i.sachdev@soas.ac.uk
- Room: 372
- Office Hours: Wednesdays 11:00 - 13:00
Sophie Salffner
ELDP Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Phonetics, phonology, tone, language documentation and description, Benue-Congo languages, corpus linguistics, anthropological linguistics
- Tel: 020 7898 4536
- Email: s.salffner@soas.ac.uk
- Room: 4404
Julia Sallabank
Senior Lecturer in Language Support and Revitalisation
Sociolinguistics, language support, language policy, revitalisation methods, literace practices in endangered languages, Guernesiais
- Tel: 020 7898 4326
- Email: js72@soas.ac.uk
- Room: 428b
- On Sabbatical:Term 1 - 2012
Candide Simard
Senior Teaching Fellow in Language Documentation and Description
Prosody, information structure and language contact. Jaminjung,Ngarinyman and all Australian languages. Language documentation and description.
- Email: cs75@soas.ac.uk
- Room: 4403
- Office Hours: Wednesdays 16:00 - 17:00/ Thursdays 10:00-11:00
Lameen Souag
Historical linguistics; the development of agreement; language contact; language documentation; grammaticalisation; language classification; Berber; Songhay; Arabic; writing systems.
- Email: ls37@soas.ac.uk
Justin Watkins
Senior Lecturer in the Languages and Linguistics of South East Asia
Burmese language and literature; Mon-Khmer and Tibeto-Burman languages; phonetics and speech acoustics; computer lexicography; sign languages in South East Asia
- Tel: 020 7898 4254
- Email: jw2@soas.ac.uk
- Room: 462
- On Sabbatical:Academic Year 2012-2013
Endangered Languages Archive Staff
Tom Castle
Endangered Languages Archive Technician
Technical support for the Endangered Languages Archive (ELAR)
- Tel: 020 7898 4523
- Email: tc23@soas.ac.uk
- Room: R201
David Nathan
Director, Endangered Languages Archive
Digital preservation and mobilisation, language documentation and pedagogy methodology, multimedia - Tel: 020 7898 4584
- Email: dn2@soas.ac.uk
- Room: R201
Endangered Languages Documentation Programme
Jenny Martin
Programme Administrator for the Endangered Languages Documentation Programme (ELDP)
- Tel: +44 (0)20 7898 4292
- Email: jm83@soas.ac.uk
- Room: 451b
Mandana Seyfeddinipur
Director, Endangered Languages Documentation Programme
Senior Research Fellow
Language documentation, cultural and linguistic diversity in language use, multimodality with a focus on gesture, visual mode of language, language use and language documentation, pragmatics, psycholinguistics, the video in language documentation.
- Tel: 020 7898 4641
- Email: ms123@soas.ac.uk
- Room: 463
- Office Hours: Thursdays 15:00-17:00
Support Staff
Bernard J Howard
Technician
Technical and audio-visual support for the Department of Linguistics
- Tel: 020 7898 4974
- Email: bh@soas.ac.uk
- Room: L52
Research Associates
Emmon Bach
Professorial Research Associate
Model theoretic semantics, syntax, morphology; grammar and semantics of polysynthetic languages, Germanic languages, Wakashan languages, especially Haisla, Nuuchahnulth, Algonquian,Western Abenaki - Email: ebach@linguist.umass.edu
Seongsook Choi
Research Associate
Syntax, syntax-lexicon/semantics interface, lexical semantics, event semantics, lexical aspect, complex predicates, multiple verb constructions, argument structure, Korean, West African languages, South Asian/Oceanic languages.
- Email: sc69@soas.ac.uk
Meili Fang
Research Associate
Japanese, Chinese, and Taiwanese: syntax, semantics and pedagogy. Language teaching methodologies and resources.
- Email: fang.meili@ocha.ac.jp
Aslı Göksel
Research Associate
Word structure, morphology-syntax interface, prosody-syntax interface, information structure, Altaic languages, Turkish, Turkish Sign Language
- Email: gokselas@boun.edu.tr
Melanie Green
Research Associate
Descriptive grammar and syntactic theory, information structure, syntactic typology, West African languages, especially Hausa and Kenyang.
- Email: m.j.green@sussex.ac.uk
Ruth Kempson
Professorial Research Associate
Syntax, semantics, Dynamic Syntax, diachronic syntax, modelling of dialogue in formal theories of language
- Email: ruth.kempson@kcl.ac.uk
Nancy Kula
Research Associate
Phonological theory, morpho-phonology, prosodic/phrasal phonology, second language phonology, phonology-syntax interface, Bantu languages
- Email: nckula@essex.ac.uk
Stuart McGill
Research Associate
Discourse pragmatics, noun class/gender systems and agreement, language documentation and description, technology and language documentation, typology, phonology, Cicipu language (Kainji, Nigeria), Kainji languages, Benue-Congo languages Nicholas Ostler
Research Associate
Language dynamics and endangerment, Chibchan languages of Colombia, language contact in Asia, language histories, especially Latin, Sanskrit, Japanese - Tel: 01225 852865
- Email: nicholas@ostler.net
