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Staff Profile

Professor Christopher J Hall

Professor of Applied Linguistics

Staff profile of Christopher J Hall

BA (Newcastle), MA (York), PhD (Southern California),  FHEA

I started my life in linguistics at Newcastle University as a student of English Language and subsequently did an MA in Language at the University of York. 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. During my time at the Universidad de las Américas Puebla (UDLAP), I developed with Peter Ecke an influential model of second and third language vocabulary learning (the Parasitic Model). I also taught in the MA in Applied Linguistics and served as Head of the Department of Languages and Director of Research and Postgraduate Studies for the School of Humanities.

In 2007 I joined the subject area of Languages and Linguistics at York St John University, where I conduct research on Global Englishes, teach at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels, and supervise postgraduate researchers. I’m especially interested in social and cognitive perspectives on English as an international language and the broader issue of how language and languages are conceptualised by general and applied linguists, teachers, and laypeople. I’ve (co-)authored and (co-)edited several books, including Ontologies of English (CUP, 2020), which was shortlisted for the 2021 BAAL Book Prize. With Rachel Wicaksono, my co-editor on that volume, I also co-created the open-access Changing Englishes online course for teachers at www.changingenglishes.online.

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9038-1238

Further information

Teaching

I teach on our undergraduate and postgraduate TESOL courses.

Research

Before joining York St John University, I conducted empirical research on the development of the L2 and L3 mental lexicon, with Peter Ecke (University of Arizona). This led to the development of the Parasitic Model of vocabulary learning, which continues to be influential in studies of cross-linguistic influence in Second Language Acquisition.

At York St John University I have shifted my attention to the broader social and cognitive status of non-native Englishes, approaching the issues from the perspectives of Usage-Based Linguistics and Global Englishes. Aside from several theoretical and conceptual papers, I’ve worked over the past few years on a couple of corpus-based analyses and a series of more qualitative studies. Most recently I have worked with colleagues in Germany and China on a project concerned with how to trigger reconceptualisations of English in trainee English teachers. This project was supported by the Applying Linguistics fund of the British Association for Applied Linguistics

Publications and conferences

Download a full list of my publications and outputs:

Professional activities

I'm a life member and former Executive Committee member of the British Association for Applied Linguistics. From 2013 to 2022 I was Reviews Editor for BAAL News. In 2018 I was co-chair of the local organising committee for the BAAL Annual Meeting at YSJ.

In 2015 I served as a member of the National QAA Linguistics Subject Benchmark Statement Review Group.

I have peer-reviewed articles for the following journals: Applied Linguistics; Arab Journal for the Humanities; Bilingualism: Language and Cognition; Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory; International Journal of Multilingualism; Journal of English as a Lingua Franca; Journal of Pragmatics; Language and Cognitive Processes; Language Awareness; Language Learning; Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism; Linguistics and Education; Studies in Language.

I have reviewed book proposals or new editions for the following publishers: Blackwell-Wiley (New York); British Academy (London); BUAP University Press (Puebla, Mexico); Cambridge University Press; Cengage-AAUSC (Boston); Palgrave- MacMillan (London); Peter Lang (New York); Psychology Press (Hove); Routledge (London); Routledge (New York).