My teaching and research interests are mainly connected with phonology, both theoretical and historical, and I have a bias towards the investigation of varieties of English and closely related Germanic languages. I'm interested partly in the idiosyncrasies of the data from the languages that I study and partly in how a proper understanding of this data can help us to figure out what's possible (and what's impossible) in language, and in language change, in general.

I have a number of specific research interests, although I think they are all related (and I try to show this in my research). I work to develop and combine (i) the insights that have been gained in the field of theoretical phonology with (ii) the wealth of data that has been gathered in the description of diachronic phonological change and with (iii) often novel data from the description of English accents from the North of England (perhaps most particularly in connection with the accent of Liverpool). More generally, I am interested in (iv) how and why phonology changes and in what phonology actually is, both (v) as a cognitive entity or state which interfaces with phonetics (and with the rest of our linguistic knowledge) in complicated ways, and (vi) as an academic discipline with an intriguing intellectual and social history of its own. And, finally, I am interested in (vii) the ways in which identity and language use interplay in English accents, most specifically in those from the North of England. I admit that the connection between all these six points may not be immediately clear, but I'm also not sure that I can understand any of them without understanding them all (and I think they're all interesting, anyway...).

You can click here to see a list of my publications and presentations, many of which are downloadable.

But surely no-one would want to see more pictures of me?

Before coming to Edinburgh, I taught at what is now Edge Hill University, and before that, I studied and taught at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, where I received a BA, MA and PhD. I have also taught courses on phonology and historical linguistics at linguistics summer schools such as the New York-St Petersburg Institute, the Nordic Language Variation Network PhD Seminar and the Eastern European Generative Grammar School. I'd advise everyone to go to things like this - they're fun. The picture of me on this page was taken at the Third North West Centre for Linguistics Research Training Workshop, which I organised at Edge Hill with Jo Arthur (its theme was 'Researching talk: principles, practice and problems in the collection and analysis of spoken language data'). I'm presenting the prize for the best poster paper from a participant at the workshop.

In addition to my teaching and research, I convene the Historical Phonology Reading Group here at Edinburgh, and I'm the convenor and main organiser of the UK's annual phonology conference, the Manchester Phonology Meeting, which has been held in the central UK city of Manchester for many years now. I'm a Member of Council of the Philological Society and I was the Meetings Secretary of the Linguistics Association of Great Britain for six years, up until 2009. I was also the main organiser for the Sixth Old World Conference in Phonology, which took place in Edinburgh in January 2009, and I co-organised the Fiftieth Anniversary Golden Jubilee Meeting of the LAGB in 2009, and the Toulouse conference on the phonology of English in 2002 (see the proceedings here). The Toulouse conference led to the second conference in that series, which we held at Edinburgh in June 2005, and which we amalgamated into a wider conference on the linguistics of English, called the International Conference on the Linguistics of Contemporary English (and I was involved in the organisation of ICLCE2, held in Toulouse in 2007). I was also on the Working Party that was tasked with setting up the International Society for the Linguistics of English. And, with Joan Beal and April McMahon, I'm one of the editors of the 'Dialects of English' book series, published by Edinburgh University Press (which makes available sound files of varieties of English on its website). Also, with Joe Salmons, I'm editing a Handbook of Historical Phonology for Oxford University Press.

I am always happy to supervise postgraduate research on theoretical and/or historical phonology and on the linguistics of varieties of Northern English. I would also be happy to supervise work on the history of phonology, if anyone's interested. To date, I have supervised a range of work on issues in phonological theory, the synchronic phonology of English, the historical phonology of English and Scots, the phonetics and phonology of Liverpool English, and the sociophonology of Lancashire English. If you're thinking of doing postgraduate work in any relevant area, feel free to get in touch to discuss possible supervision, projects or funding.

I teach on the following courses at Edinburgh, although not all of these run every year:

• English Language 1 (first-year level) - Introduction to Phonetics and Phonology, Dialectology
• English Language 2 (second-year level) - Introduction to Historical Phonology, New Dialect Formation
• Linguistics 2Lh: Structure and History of the Western European Languages (second-year level) - Indo-European, Historical Phonology
• Historical Phonology (Honours/MSc course)
• Modern English Phonology 1 (Honours course)
• Modern English Phonology 2: English Phonology and Phonological Theory (Honours/MSc course)
• Northern Englishes (Honours/MSc course)
• Optimality Theory (Honours/MSc course)

I am also the programme director of the MSc by Research degree programmes in Linguistics and English Language and I'm the International Co-ordinator for the department.