Department of Theoretical and Applied Linguistics

Amanda’s research is in the sociolinguistics of varieties of English, particularly language variation and change, language attitudes, and perceptual dialectology. She is interested in how people speak and how they or others feel about it. She focuses on the dialects spoken in the UK and, in particular, being born into a family of East Londoners in Essex, she has always been fascinated by Essex and London dialects and more broadly the way people speak across Southeast England. Her work has also focused on linguistic variation by social class and gender.

Norma Schifano’s research focuses on documenting and theorizing morphosyntactic change and variation in Romance, with a particular focus on language contact, both diachronically and synchronically. Recently she has also become interested in ethical challenges and opportunities raised by collaborations between academics and third-sector organizations representing linguistic minorities.

My main area of interest is language processing. Language typically presents itself to us as a linear stream (of text, of sounds, of signs), which we are able to convert into complex mental objects. One analogy I like to use is weaving, such as in tatreez—the traditional art of Palestinian embroidery, called tatreez.

Lin is a PhD student in Theoretical and Applied Linguistics at University of Cambridge. Before beginning her doctoral studies in October 2024, she earned a master’s degree in Translation Studies from Beijing University of Foreign Studies (2021–2024) and a bachelor’s degree in Translation from Guangdong University of Foreign Studies (2017–2021).