Lavanya Sankaran

Dr. Lavanya Sankaran is a Lecturer in Language Education at King's College London, affiliated with the School of Education, Communication & Society and the Centre for Language, Discourse & Communication (LDC). She specializes in sociolinguistics, language and migration studies, and qualitative research methods. Her work examines multilingualism in diasporic communities, particularly Sri Lankan Tamil and Punjabi populations in Europe and the UK. She has led projects funded by the Leverhulme Trust, ESRC, and French National Research Council.

Research interests include language maintenance, transnational identity formations, and the interplay of conflict and language use. Notable projects include investigating Tamil language practices among diasporic communities and analyzing spatial concepts in multilingual children. She has collaborated internationally with institutions like the National Centre for Scientific Research (France) and the University of Cambridge.

Her teaching focuses on language attitudes, sociolinguistic analysis, and applied linguistics for education. Current modules include Language, Identity & Culture (MA) and Analysing English 1 (BA).

Recent grants include a British Academy-funded project (2024-2026) on communicative practices in conflict-affected communities. She has supervised research on topics like Tamil diaspora repertoires and European migration impacts on language maintenance.

Lavanya's work bridges sociolinguistic theory with ethnographic fieldwork, contributing to understanding how language reflects and shapes diasporic identities in contexts of displacement and globalization.