Dr Christopher J Hall
BA
(Newcastle ), MA (York), PhD (Southern
California)
Reader in Applied Linguistics
Contact details
E: c.hall@yorksj.ac.uk
T: +44 (0)1904 876876
After completing my PhD in linguistics at USC in Los Angeles in
1987, I moved south to Mexico, where I lived and worked for 20
years. I spent a few years as a researcher at El Colegio de México
in the capital city (interspersed with short research visits
to Cambridge University and the Max Planck Institute for
Psycholinguistics in the Netherlands), but spent most of my time
teaching in (and directing) the MA in Applied Linguistics at
the University of the Americas (UDLA) in Cholula, Puebla, on
the other side of the Popocatépetl and Iztaccíhuatl volcanoes. At
UDLA I also served as Head of the Department of Languages and
Coordinator of Research and Postgraduate Studies for the School of
Humanities. In 2007 I joined York St John University,
returning to the country and county of my birth. Here, as Reader in
Applied Linguistics and University Teaching Fellow, I do
scholarship in areas of applied and general linguistics which touch
on multiple Englishes in individual minds and/or in social
groups.
Most of my research, writing, and
teaching has been motivated by a desire to understand how the
mental and social realities of language fit together, and a
conviction that only by fully acknowledging both realities can we
hope to do effective general and applied linguistics. My
first book, Morphology and Mind, sought to unite formal
and functional explanations for universal patterns of word
structure by stressing the intimate connection between language
acquisition, use and historical change. In An
Introduction to Language and Linguistics. Breaking the Language
Spell, I presented a unifying account of the dual social and
mental nature of human language. In Mapping Applied
Linguistics. A Guide for Students and Practitioners, my
co-authors and I survey the field within a framework which stresses
how language problems can only be solved by taking seriously the
social and cognitive realities of individual language users and
groups of users in their local contexts.
My empirical research has always been focused on
the word level, especially in learners and/or speakers of more than
one language. In a series of studies I conducted during my
time overseas, I developed and tested a model of the initial
development of the multilingual mental lexicon (the Parasitic
Model). Since my return to the UK I’ve been exploring the
implications of my findings within a combined socio-cognitive
framework which recognises that English can not be conceived
as just the monolithic capital of native speakers using
the norms of literate social elites. In line with this
'plurilithic' view of English, I have: looked at lexical variation
in users of English as a Lingua Franca;
critiqued linguists'/applied linguists' ontologies of
English; and explored ways of raising English teachers'
awareness of the nature of the subject they teach.