Hilary Nesi

Personal profile

Biography

Hilary Nesi’s research primarily concerns the discourse of English for academic purposes, and the design and use of dictionaries and reference tools. She was principal investigator for the AHRB-funded project to create the BASE corpus of British Academic Spoken English (2001-2005), and for the ESRC-funded project to create the BAWE corpus of British Academic Written English (2004-2007). Hilary has also collected and analysed the business correspondence component of the JISC-funded BT e-Archive, and was principal investigator for the AHRC Research Networking project ‘Digitising experiences of migration: the development of interconnected letter collections’.

Hilary has developed materials for the study of English for Academic Purposes (EAP) as principal investigator for the project to produce academic writing materials for the British Council ‘Learn English’ website, and as Chief Academic Advisor for the EASE EAP speaking and listening series. Her research monographs and articles include The Use and Abuse of EFL Dictionaries and Genres across the Disciplines: Student writing in higher education, co-authored with Sheena Gardner.

Vision Statement:

Although communication is at the heart of academic endeavour, there are still huge gaps in our knowledge of how this communication is achieved in different academic contexts. Through my research I want to contribute to our knowledge of the nature of academic discourse, and how it varies across genres, disciplines, levels of study and geographical regions. I also want to find good ways of presenting and explaining this information to scholars and fellow-teachers, so that it can be applied most effectively, at a time when the use of English as an academic lingua franca is rapidly on the rise.

Research Interests

Language corpora; Academic writing; Academic speech events; Dictionary design and use; English for Specific Purposes; English for Academic Purposes

Vision Statement

Although communication is at the heart of academic endeavour, there are still huge gaps in our knowledge of how this communication is achieved in different academic contexts. Through my research I want to contribute to our knowledge of the nature of academic discourse, and how it varies across genres, disciplines, levels of study and geographical regions. I also want to find good ways of presenting and explaining this information to scholars and fellow-teachers, so that it can be applied most effectively, at a time when the use of English as an academic lingua franca is rapidly on the rise.

View Hilary's expert directory profile.

Education/Academic qualification

Postgraduate Certificate, University of London

Doctorate, Swansea University

MSc, Aston University

Postgraduate Certificate, University of Hull

Degree, University of Leicester

External positions

Member of the British Council Academic Writing for Publication freelance trainer team

1 Jul 2019 → …

Member of the expert panel, A.S.Hornby Dictionary Research Awards (British Council and Hornby Trust)

1 Sep 2018 → …

External examiner, the ESP component of the English language programme, University of Hong Kong

1 Sep 2013 → 1 Sep 2017

External Assessor for the Open University course ‘Exploring English grammar in the real world

1 Jan 2013 → 1 Aug 2013

External Examiner English Grammar in Context, the Open University

1 Sep 2012 → 1 Sep 2017

BAAL representative to the HEA LLAS Subject Centre Advisory Board

12 Sep 2010 → 12 Sep 2012

Senior member of the ESRC Peer Review College

1 Sep 2010 → …

BAAL Executive Committee, ordinary member

1 Sep 2009 → 1 Sep 2014

External Assessor for the Open University course in English for Academic Purposes

1 Sep 2009 → 1 Sep 2010

External examiner, MA in English Language Teaching, University of Limerick

1 Sep 2009 → 1 Sep 2013

External examiner, MA in Applied Linguistics; Critical Discourse, Culture and Communication, Applied Corpus Linguistics; Special Applications of Linguistics; Language and Lexicography, and MPhilB Corpus Linguistics. University of Birmingham

1 Sep 2008 → 1 Sep 2012

MA TESOL Institute of Education, University of London

1 Sep 2007 → 1 Sep 2011

BAAL Corpus Linguistics SIG Meetings Secretary

1 Sep 2006 → 1 Sep 2018

Member of the BALEAP Publications committee

1 Mar 2003 → 1 Mar 2007

Strand Co-ordinator, AILA Scientific Commission on Lexicology and Lexicography

1 Apr 2002 → 1 Apr 2005

Member of the advisory panel for Macmillan Dictionaries

1 Sep 2000 → 12 Sep 2010

External examiner, MA in Language Teaching and Learning, University of Liverpool

1 Sep 2000 → 1 Sep 2006

External examiner, MA in Language Teaching and Learning, University of Liverpool

1 Sep 1998 → 1 Sep 2002

BALEAP Accreditation Scheme Assessor

30 Mar 1993 → 30 Mar 2005

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Research Output

435 Citations
12 h-Index
37 Article
34 Chapter
24 Conference proceeding
10 Review article
12 More

Institutional collaboration in the creation of digital linguistic resources: the case of the British Telecom Correspondence Corpus

Morton, R. & Nesi, H., Feb 2020, Communities, Archives and New Collaborative Practices. Popple, S., Prescott, S. & Mutibwa, D. (eds.). Bristol: Policy Press, p. (in press)

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter

Complex, but in what way? A step towards greater understanding of academic writing proficiency

Nesi, H. & Gardner, S., 18 Jun 2019, Online Proceedings of the 51st Annual Meeting of the British Association for Applied Linguistics:Taking Risks in Applied Linguistics, York St John University 6-8 September, 2018. . Danjo, C., Meddegama, I., O'Brien, D., Prudhoe, J., Walz, L. & Wicaksono, R. (eds.). York St John University , York: British Association for Applied Linguistics, p. 83-85 3 p.

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference proceeding

Open Access

File

Corpus from scratch: Collecting and processing a sizeable EAP corpus in a (relatively) resource-poor context

Mathew, P., Nesi, H. & Vincent, B., 2019, Proceedings of the 2017 BALEAP Conference: Addressing the state of the union: Working together = learning together. Gillway, M. (ed.). Reading: Garnet Education, p. 93-102 10 p.

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference proceeding