Sam Hellmuth

Professor Sam Hellmuth is a leading academic in phonology at the University of York's Department of Language and Linguistic Science within the Faculty of Arts and Humanities. She serves as Associate Dean for Teaching, Learning and Students while maintaining an active research program focused on Arabic prosody and second language phonology.

Her educational background includes:

• BA (Hons) in Arabic and French, University of Leeds (1985-1989)
• MA in Linguistics (Arabic), SOAS University of London (2000-2001)
• PhD in Linguistics and Phonetics, SOAS University of London (2001-2006)
• Postdoctoral Researcher, University of Potsdam (2006-2007)

Professor Hellmuth's research centers on suprasegmental phenomena in Arabic dialects, particularly intonation patterns across regional varieties. Her work bridges theoretical phonology with empirical corpus-based approaches, examining prosodic variation in both native Arabic speech and L2 English acquisition. She specializes in the syntax-phonology interface and has pioneered methodologies for documenting intonational variation through large-scale comparative projects.

Her publication record reveals consistent focus on Arabic intonational typology, with recent work expanding to Northern England dialects and emergent bilinguals. The research demonstrates sophisticated integration of auditory transcription with statistical F0 modeling within the Autosegmental-Metrical framework.

Professional recognition includes:

• Editorial Board, Al-'Arabiyya (Journal of the American Association of Teachers of Arabic)
• Editorial Board, Arabic Linguistics (John Benjamins)
• Economic and Social Research Council Peer Review College membership

Professor Hellmuth actively supervises 25+ graduate students, primarily on Arabic phonology topics, and leads major funded projects including the ESRC-supported 'Generations of London English' (2023-2026). Her collaborative network spans institutions in Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Pakistan, and across the UK.

She directs the Phonetics and Phonology and Language Variation and Change research groups, with recent work focusing on corpus development for multidialectal Arabic teaching resources.