My Job

Dr David Britain
Senior Lecturer in Linguistics
Language and Linguistics

What are your main duties?
I spend most time supervising my dozen PhD students who are working in different areas of sociolinguistics and language variation and change. Together they generate a lot for me to read, but supervising them is also one of the more enjoyable aspects of my job.

I also lecture on the department’s large first year Foundations of Sociolinguistics course, teach a second year sociolinguistic methods course, a course in sociophonology with my colleague Dr Wyn Johnson, which is open to postgraduates and final year undergraduates, and a postgraduate sociolinguistic theory module. Then there’s the usual administrative load associated with teaching and supervising.

What is your busiest time of year and why?
Well, because PhD students are around all year, and supervision eats up more of my time than any other part of my job, there are no real peaks and troughs in my workload - October and June are always pretty busy though.

How long have you worked at the University?
Since 1993.

Where (if anywhere) did you work before joining the University and why did you leave?
I had a postdoctoral fellowship at Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand from 1991-1993, but it was just a two-year post and I had to leave - I would have loved to stay - it was a great place to live.

What do you enjoy most about your job?
The variety of tasks to be done and the fact that we’re given the freedom to explore what we find interesting

What do you like about working at the University?
There is a certain amount of flexibility of working times (which is very helpful given that I have small children), the place is open and friendly and I have some very good colleagues.

What do you dislike about working at the University?
To be honest, the workloads are pretty horrendous (I had to chuckle when I read that we’re deemed to do a 36 hour week) and our lives are burdened with ever increasing amounts of paperwork and administration…

What facilities on campus do you make use of, e.g. sports facilities, social venues etc?
The Blues Café, the library (which is great, I think, given the size of Essex University), occasionally Café Vert. I’d love there to be a swimming pool on campus…..Can you arrange that, please?!

What has been your biggest work-related challenge this year and how did you solve it?
I’ve recently applied for an AHRC grant, my first using the Je-S electronic submission system - the people in the RBDO were really helpful and efficient though and held my hand as I went through the process!

What would you change about the University if you were Vice-Chancellor for a day?
I’d try to decrease workloads for overburdened academic staff. Also I’d try to encourage a greater diversity and independence of catering outlets on campus.

Whereabouts is your office and what is it like?
4.315 in the Social Sciences Building. It’s quite small, but it’s light and had a wonderful view of the parkland - and then they started building the new Social Sciences Building extension so I can see rather more concrete now than before!

If you were to enrol as a student at the University, what would you study and why?
I’m a frustrated geographer, really, and Essex doesn’t do that, so I’d probably say the MA in Local and Regional History - as an East Anglian dialectologist it would be helpful to know more about the historical development of the region.

Describe a typical day at work.
Having dropped the kids off at crèche and arrived on campus, I’d check emails and any post, and then I’d have a series of meetings with PhD students, an office hour, hopefully have time for a salad in the Blues Café, and then do some teaching, clear up any admin at the end of the day and try to get away in time to drive to the crèche before it closes. Once we’ve had dinner at home and the kids are in bed, I usually have to do an hour or two of work at home late in the evening.

Does your job take you off campus much and if so where to?
I’m lucky to be able to work from home a couple of days a week, and I’m off campus for other reasons probably once or twice a month - giving talks at other universities or at Sixth Form centres, collecting dialectological data, going to conferences and meeting up with research collaborators and so on.

What other job in the University would you like, and why?
I think I’m happy with the job I’ve got, thank you! My wife, when she started her job in the NHS, spent the first month on a ‘Cook’s Tour’ of her hospital, spending a morning or an afternoon with a wide variety of people in the Trust - everyone from the Chief Executive to the cleaners, porters and morticians, and she found that a really useful way of getting to know the institution, and it helped her understand everyone’s roles in the running of the hospital. I think that would be useful for us too, so we could appreciate better that we’re all working together for the common good of the institution.

How long does your journey to work take?
I live in Suffolk, so door-to-door it’s about 45 minutes.

Who would you most like a one to one with, and why?
I’d quite like to meet Moby, whose music I’ve admired for a while - he seems like an interesting character, and I’d have liked to meet David Lange, who was Prime Minister of New Zealand in the 1980s, for his wit and straight-talking and for his stand against nuclear proliferation. He sadly died last year.

Do you have a claim to fame? E.g did you go to school with someone famous, have you ever appeared on television etc?
Ha ha! I did once appear on Children’s BBC on a programme for 8-13 year olds called XChange. I was invited to talk about minority languages in the British Isles, and was interviewed by a puppet ferret along with Darius, the chap from Pop Idol. That was a rather different day from usual, I have to say.