Research staff
A listing of LALS research staff with links to their profiles and to their research interests.
Academic research staff who are generally available for supervision are listed alphabetically by first name below.
For a list of adjunct staff and emeritus professors who also do research, see our adjunct researchers page.
Click on the staff member's name below for more details, including contact information. Click on research area names for more information about researchers in the School in those areas.
Associate Professor
School of Linguistics and Applied Language Studies
Research areas—Cognitive linguistics and psycholinguistics; vocabulary and corpora; second language acquisition and bi/multilingualism
Current and potential supervision areas—Formulaic language/multi-word expressions; vocabulary learning and teaching; language processing; learner corpus research; bi/multilingualism; dyslexia; quantitative research methods (corpora, eye movements, ERPs).
Dean of Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
Wellington Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
Research areas—Vocabulary and corpora; second language acquisition; language learning, teaching, and assessment
(Averil will not take on new PhD students from 2025.)
Current and potential supervision areas—Researching vocabulary in language learning and teaching; development and use of word lists; technical vocabulary; EAP; ESP; multi-word units; quantitative and qualitative approaches.
Associate Dean, Research · Associate Professor of Applied Linguistics
Wellington Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
Research areas—Second language acquisition and bi/multilingualism; sociolinguistics & discourse analysis
Current and potential supervision areas—Language and identity; translanguaging; forensic linguistics; heritage and community languages; linguistic landscapes (including protest movements); language policy and planning.
Research areas—Vocabulary acquisition; second language acquisition; psycholinguistics
Current and potential supervision areas—Second language vocabulary acquisition; explicit and implicit vocabulary learning and processing; lexical and semantic representations and their development; experimental research (priming, eye movements).
Associate Professor
School of Linguistics and Applied Language Studies
Research areas—Discourse analysis; language learning, teaching, and assessment; academic writing
Current and potential supervision areas—Genre analysis; discourse analysis, using corpus methods; English for Specific Purposes; academic writing, in particular acquisition of written academic genres; visual meaning in academic genres; digital genres.
Associate Professor
School of Linguistics and Applied Language Studies
Research areas—Second language acquisition; language learning, teaching, and assessment
(Jonathan is not taking on new PhD students from 2024).
Current and potential supervision areas—Task-based language teaching (TBLT); language teacher professional learning and development; intercultural language teaching and learning; listening and speaking in the language classroom.
Senior Lecturer in Applied Linguistics
School of Linguistics and Applied Language Studies
Research areas—Vocabulary and corpora; corpus linguistics; second language acquisition; language learning, teaching, and assessment; academic writing; Discourse analysis
Current and potential supervision areas—Technology and corpus linguistics in relation to language learning, teaching and testing; computer-assisted language learning; language for specific purposes.
Research areas—Second language acquisition; language learning, teaching, and assessment
Current and potential supervision areas—Learner autonomy and learning strategies; language testing and assessment; vocabulary acquisition.
Senior Lecturer · Writing Programme Director
School of Linguistics and Applied Language Studies
Research areas—Academic writing; language learning, teaching, and assessment
Current and potential supervision areas—Instruction and assessment of writing; language testing and assessment; English for Academic Purposes (EAP); English medium instruction (EMI).
Research areas—New Zealand Sign Language
Current and potential supervision areas—Teaching and learning sign language; sociolinguistic variation in sign languages; Deaf Studies; language policy; interpreting; interpreter education.
Research areas—Academic writing; Discourse analysis
Current and potential supervision areas—English for Academic Purposes (especially in post-graduate contexts); professional & technical writing; scientific writing & science communication; discourse analysis (especially with rhetoric); genre analysis.
Senior Lecturer (Teaching)
School of Linguistics and Applied Language Studies
Research areas—New Zealand Sign Language
Current and potential supervision areas—Teaching and learning sign language, Deaf Studies.
Head of School
School of Linguistics and Applied Language Studies
Research areas—Phonetics and phonology; psycholinguistics; New Zealand English; Languages of the Pacific; Sociolinguistics ; Second Language Acquisition
Current and potential supervision areas—Phonetics and phonology; prosody, intonation and rhythm, including relationship to gesture; psycholinguistics, especially speech processing; information structure, especially cross-linguistic variation; sociophonetics; sound symbolism.
Research areas—Sociolinguistics and discourse analysis
Current and potential supervision areas—Sociolinguistics and discourse analysis; language and power; identity, ideologies, and representation; gender and sexuality; language and medical marginalisation; study abroad; critical approaches to language learning and teaching.
Senior Lecturer
School of Linguistics and Applied Language Studies
Research areas—Cognitive linguistics and psycholinguistics; corpus linguistics; second language acquisition and multilingualism
Current and potential supervision areas—Computational, psycholinguistic, and corpus analytic approaches to study humorous and figurative language (esp. satirical discourse); crosslinguistic influence and multilingualism.
Senior Lecturer
School of Linguistics and Applied Language Studies
Research areas—Syntax; Austronesian languages
Current and potential supervision areas—Syntax; historical linguistics; diachronic and comparative morphosyntax; typology; Austronesian languages; Tibeto-Burman languages; languages of Taiwan, the Philippines, Borneo, Indonesia, Sulawesi, and Palau.