Christopher Shank

Christopher Shank is a Senior Lecturer in Linguistics (Language Variation and Change) at Bangor University's School of Arts, Culture and Language. He holds a Ph.D. in Linguistics from the University of New Mexico, with additional degrees in TESOL and Bilingual Education. His research focuses on language variation, bilingualism, corpus linguistics, and critical discourse analysis, particularly in healthcare contexts for Deaf communities. He has supervised numerous MA and PhD students, exploring topics like sociolinguistic variation, political discourse, and EFL methodology.

Education:

• Ph.D. in Linguistics, University of New Mexico
• MA in TESOL, SIT Graduate Institute
• BA in International Relations, Political Science, and History, University of Wisconsin–Madison

Research Interests: Language variation/change, bilingual/multilingual identity, corpus linguistics, critical discourse analysis, healthcare accessibility for Deaf communities. Recent work includes studies on Deaf healthcare experiences in Wales and parenting programs in British Sign Language.

Grants & Projects:

• Public Health Wales Scoping Study on Deaf health (2018)
• Wales School for Social Care Research Grant on Deaf parenting materials (2018)
• Santander Mobility Grant for research in Brazil (2020)

Publications: Recent articles address Deaf healthcare access, grammaticalization patterns, and corpus-based analyses of cognitive verbs. His work bridges linguistic theory and applied contexts like public health.

Teaching: Teaches courses on semantics, syntax, language history, and corpus linguistics at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels.