Dr Ella Jeffries
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Email
e.jeffries@essex.ac.uk -
Telephone
+44 (0) 1206 873762
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Location
4.207, Colchester Campus
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Academic support hours
Wednesdays 10-11am and Thursdays 2-3pm
Profile
Biography
My interests lie in the field of sociolinguistics, with a particular focus on regional accent variation. My PhD research looked into children's developing perceptual awareness of phonological regional accent differences. This work incorporates approaches from different fields of linguistic research including language variation and change, sociophonetics, language acquisition and psycholinguistics. Other topics of interest within sociolinguistics include language and gender, varieties of English and language attitudes/ideologies.
Qualifications
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BA Linguistics,Lancaster University
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MA Linguistics, University College London
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PhD Linguistics, University of York
Appointments
University of Essex
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Lecturer in Linguistics, Language and Linguistics, University of Essex (1/9/2017 - present)
Other academic
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Lecturer in English Language and Linguistics, English, University of Worcester (1/8/2016 - 30/6/2017)
Research and professional activities
Research interests
Sociolinguistics
Sociophonetics
Regional accents/dialects
Variation in language acquisition
Conferences and presentations
The roles of familiarity and similarity in children’s developing accent awareness
UK Language Variation and Change 12, London, United Kingdom, 4/9/2019
The BATH TRAP split in the West Midlands a real time investigation
The International Conference on Language Variation in Europe, ICLaVE10, Leeuwarden, Netherlands, 27/6/2019
Children’s perception of monophthongal GOAT and FACE vowels from Yorkshire and Tyneside speakers
8th Northern Englishes Workshop, Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom, 28/3/2018
Not exactly West Midlands: findings from the Worcester Dialect Archive
UK Language Variation and Change 11, Cardiff, United Kingdom, 30/9/2017
Developments in accent perception between the pre-school and primary school years and the effects of exposure to variation
Workshop on Speech Perception and Production across the Lifespan, London, United Kingdom, 27/4/2017
The role of linguistic input in children’s perception of vowel changes in progress: The FACE and GOAT vowels in York
4th Workshop on Sound Change, 4th Workshop on Sound Change, Edinburgh, United Kingdom, 21/4/2017
Methodological issues: investigating children’s perception of regional variation
Variation in Language Acquisition 3 (ViLA 3), Salzburg, Austria, 8/2/2017
Pre-schoolers’ categorisation of speakers by regional accent
UK Language Variation and Change 10, York, United Kingdom, 2/9/2015
Pre-schoolers’ categorisation of speakers by phonological variables
International Child Phonology Conference, St. John's, Canada, 25/6/2015
Pre-schoolers’ categorisation of speakers by regional accent
Variation in Language Acquisition 2 (ViLA 2), Aples, France, 4/12/2014
Teaching and supervision
Current teaching responsibilities
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Writing in the L2 (LA886)
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Understanding Data in Linguistics (LG113)
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Foundations of Sociolinguistics (LG114)
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Research methods for language and linguistics (LG213)
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English Language in the media (LG222)
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Language and the Mind (LG358)
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Sociolinguistic Perception (LG374)
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Assignment Writing and Dissertation Preparation (LG592)
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Professional Development for Research Students (LG595)
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Project: Linguistics (LG831)
Publications
Journal articles (3)
Jeffries, E., (2022). 5–9-year-olds categorisation of regional accents: The role of exposure to variation. Lingua. 267, 103189-103189
Asprey, E., Jeffries, E. and Kailoglou, E., (2021). First approaches to an underexplored dialect region: Trudgill’s Upper Southwest. Dialectologia et Geolinguistica. 29 (1), 137-159
Jeffries, E., (2019). Preschool children's categorization of speakers by regional accent. Language Variation and Change. 31 (3), 329-352
Reports and Papers (1)
Jeffries, ERW., (2015). Pre-school children’s identification of familiar speakers and the role of accent features.
Other (1)
Jeffries, ERW., (2011).Book Review: Just a Phrase I’m Going Through by David Crystal, 2009.. Language and Literature. 20(2),SAGE Publications
Grants and funding
2019
Accent the positive: an investigation into children's implicit attitudes towards different regional accents
British Academy
Contact
Academic support hours:
Wednesdays 10-11am and Thursdays 2-3pm