Professor Julia Sallabank

Fields of expertise

• Multilingualism
• Sociolinguistics
• Language policy and planning
• Endangered language revitalisation
• Language documentation

Regional Expertise

• Oceania (Language policy and revitalisation)
• Europe

Country Expertise: ADD

• British Isles
• Thailand (Minority language support and revitalisation)

Language expertise

• French, German: C2.  I am able to give lectures and examine doctoral theses in these languages.
• Guernesiais: C1+

My main research interests relate to small, minority and endangered languages: e.g. language revitalisation, language policy and planning, mainly from a sociolinguistic perspective. I have contributed to international recognition of language revitalisation as a field of study. I also undertake broader research in the fields of multilingualism, sociolinguistics, linguistic ethnography and linguistic anthropology.

In 2019 I secured funding from AHRC/CHASE for a collaborative PhD studentship 'Multilingualism in perspective: language practices, identities and ideologies in the Sylheti community in Tower Hamlets, London’ (collaborators: Osmani Trust, Tower Hamlets, and Goldsmiths, University of London).

I have become increasingly interested in interdisciplinary studies, e.g. links between languages and development, language use and wellbeing, language and gender; and their implications for language policy. I have co-supervised two PhD students with Anthropology, and am currently co-supervising one with the Music department (music and the revitalisation of Ainu in Japan).

I have also developed collaborative research links with researchers in Thailand (5 collaborative projects to date), New Zealand, Fiji, and Croatia. Since 2000 I have been working with the endangered language community in Guernsey, Channel Islands.