Emma Moore

Professor Emma Moore is a leading sociolinguist at the School of English, University of Sheffield. Specializing in the social dimensions of language, her work integrates methodologies from anthropology and sociology to investigate how linguistic variation constructs identity and social affiliations.

• Research focus: Sociolinguistic style, dialect contact, youth language, identity negotiation, and community-based fieldwork
• Key projects: Adolescence and grammar (1999-), Isles of Scilly dialect (2008-), language and inequality (2014-), language perception software (2016-)

Educational background:

• PhD in Sociolinguistics, University of Manchester
• Stanford University (USA) during PhD research

Research trends across her 2021-2025 publications reveal interdisciplinary exploration of:

• Socio-syntactic variation
• Clinical linguistics (2025 MDS-UPDRS studies)
• Digital discourse post-pandemic
• Indexicality and cognitive representations
• Dialect contact in insular communities
• Educational policy implications

Scientific recognition:

• British Academy Mid-Career Fellow (2019-2020)
• Elected Fellow, Royal Anthropological Institute (2014)
• AHRC/BA funded research projects (1999-2015)

Research group leadership: Mentored 9 PhD students (2004-2024) and supervised 3 undergraduate SURE projects, including analyses of:

• Gender in rap performance
• Language style and workplace inequality
• Oral history digitization

Professional contributions:

• Editorial Board: Language in Society (2015-), Gender and Language (2011-2017)
• External Examiner: Lancaster University MA in English Language (2013-2017)
• Collaborative software development for dialect perception testing