Staff Profile
Dr Kate Whisker-Taylor
Senior Lecturer, Programme Lead for Undergraduate Linguistics and TESOL
BA (Leeds), MA (York), PhD (Lancaster), Postgraduate Certificate in Academic Practice (York St John), FHEA
I am a lecturer on the BA English Language and Linguistics programme and my main research interests are focussed around sociolinguistics, specifically language variation and change.
I began to specialise in language variation and change in my BA dissertation where I investigated the geographical diffusion of accent features to Hull, East Yorkshire. My MA research focussed on the semi-rural village of Brayton, North Yorkshire where I compared language use with the reported use of particular accent and dialect features in nearby urban centres. My recent doctoral thesis explores how the language variety spoken in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire has changed over the last century and how the changes observed across traditional language features are affected by language external factors such as dialect contact and language attitudes as well as language internal factors such as phonological and grammatical frequency.
- School – School of Education, Language and Psychology
- Email – k.whisker-taylor@yorksj.ac.uk
- Phone – 01904 876 683
- Postgraduate Research Supervisor
Further Information
Teaching
I currently teach on the following programme:
- BA in English Language and Linguistics
Professional Activities
I am a member of the LIdIA research unit at York St John University.
Research and publications
Whisker, Kate (2010). 'Tracking Traditional Variables across a Century'. Oral presentation at Language Variation & Change Research Group. Lancaster University, UK.
Watson, Kevin & Whisker, Kate (2009). 'Using a phonological corpus to compare the past with the present: exploring plosive lenition in Liverpool English'. Oral presentation at PAC. Aix-en-Provence, France.
Whisker, Kate (2008). 'Secondary Contraction in Yorkshire'. Oral presentation at Language Variation & Change Research Group. Lancaster University, UK.
Whisker, Kate (2008). Book review on Deumert, Ana & Durrleman, Stephanie [eds.] (2006). Structure and Variation in Language Contact. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Published in Language in Society 37:4.
Whisker, Kate, Merrison, Andrew J. & Swift, Nikki (2007). 'TH-fronting in Hull: Investigating the Inland Revenue'. York Papers in Linguistics 2.
Steele, Hazel & Whisker, Kate (2007). 'Variation in clitic negation patterns in Yorkshire English: evidence of supra-localism and diffusion'. Oral presentation at NWAV 36. University of Pennsylvania, USA.
Whisker, Kate, Merrison, Andrew J. & Swift, Nikki (2007). 'TH-fronting in Hull: Investigating the Inland Revenue'. Oral presentation at Sociolinguistics Symposium 16. University of Limerick, Ireland.
