Jennifer Thorburn

Jennifer Thorburn is an Assistant Professor (MER 2) in the English Section of the Faculty of Arts at the University of Lausanne, where she has been employed since 2015. Her academic career spans institutions across Canada, England, and Switzerland, with a focus on sociolinguistic research involving Indigenous communities.

Her educational background includes a PhD from Memorial University in Newfoundland (2014), an MA from the same institution (2006), and a BA from Queen's University in Canada (2003). Prior to joining UNIL, she served as a Lecturer in Sociolinguistics at Newcastle University in England (2014-2015).

Dr. Thorburn specializes in sociolinguistics with particular emphasis on language variation and change, varieties of English, and language contact phenomena, especially between Indigenous languages. Her research demonstrates a strong commitment to documenting endangered language varieties and analyzing the sociocultural factors driving language shift in Indigenous communities across Canada. Her dissertation provided a quantitative analysis of English developing in an Indigenous community in northern Canada, establishing the foundation for her ongoing research trajectory.

Her publication record reveals consistent scholarly output focused on Indigenous language endangerment (particularly Innu-aimun and Inuttitut), dialect development in Canadian Aboriginal communities, language attitudes, and methodological approaches to sociolinguistic fieldwork. The temporal progression of her work shows increasing specialization in Indigenous language issues, with recent publications addressing stealth language endangerment and shifting bilingualism patterns.

Dr. Thorburn maintains active international collaborations with colleagues from institutions in Canada, Germany, and England, reflecting the transnational nature of her research interests and methodologies. Her work bridges theoretical linguistics with community-based research practices, particularly evident in publications addressing ethics and accessibility in sociolinguistic corpus building with Indigenous communities.