I started out working life as a Chemical Engineer for British Steel, jumping in and out of blast furnaces on Teesside and in South Wales. In 1990, I took the plunge and jumped into English Language Teaching in South Korea where I spent the next ten years of my life, with five years subsequently in Japan. On return to the United Kingdom in 2004, I lectured at Oxford Brookes before moving to my current post at Coventry University as Senior Lecturer in English Language. I currently lecture in Applied Linguistics and English Language Teaching and conduct research in Discourse Analysis and Second Language Acquisition. My current work cannot beat jumping in and out of furnaces, but then someone has to do the dirty work!

Research:

My current research is in language and the mind. I have developed a theory of consciousness termed Nonrepresentational Linguistic Idealism (NLI). This states that language is the DNA of the mind and all thought is linguistic in nature. I also conduct research into political discourse analysis, in particular the language of the UK House of Commons. I presented a paper on this at the ADDA conference in Spain and maintain a blog "Neutral Footing". I have also conducted research into Oral Presentation Skills in particular intonation and discourse marking. The output of this work can be viewed at "erHelloEveryone". Previous research has included semantic and pragmatic miscues in non-native discourse.

Language & the Mind; Consciousness; Discourse Analysis; Political Discourse Analysis; Semantics and Pragmatics; English for Academic Purposes and TESOL; Phonology; Psycholinguistics