Paul Baker

Professor Paul Baker is a distinguished academic at Lancaster University, serving in the School Of Social Sciences within the Faculty of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences. He has established himself as a leading expert in corpus linguistics, discourse analysis, and the study of language in relation to gender and sexuality. With numerous publications including several influential books, Professor Baker has made significant contributions to his field over several decades. His work bridges theoretical linguistic inquiry with practical applications in understanding media representation, social attitudes, and identity construction through language.

Professor Baker's research interests span multiple interconnected areas including corpus linguistics, critical discourse analysis, language and gender studies, language and sexuality, and the study of Polari (a historical gay secret language). His work often examines how language reflects and constructs social identities, with particular focus on marginalized communities. He has conducted extensive research on representations of Islam in media, obesity discourse, masculinity studies, and LGBTQ+ language use. His approach combines rigorous corpus linguistic methods with critical discourse analysis to uncover patterns in language that reveal underlying social attitudes and power dynamics.

His recent publications reveal a continued focus on applying corpus linguistic methods to contemporary social issues. Professor Baker has been examining representations of anxiety in online forums, obesity in news media across different countries, and the evolving relationship between masculinity and emotional expression. His work increasingly incorporates multimodal analysis, examining both textual and visual representations in media. The trend shows his research expanding into digital health applications, AI analysis of discourse, and cross-cultural comparisons of language patterns.

Professor Baker has received recognition for his scholarly contributions through his extensive publication record and editorial roles. He serves as commissioning editor for the journal Corpora and sits on the editorial boards of several prominent linguistics journals including the Journal of English Linguistics, Journal of Language and Sexuality, and Gender and Language. His work has been influential in establishing corpus-assisted discourse analysis as a robust methodological approach in sociolinguistics.

As an educator and mentor, Professor Baker has supervised numerous PhD students whose research spans diverse topics from the construction of Islam in media to language around schizophrenia in British press. His teaching focuses on corpus linguistics at the MA level, and he regularly supervises undergraduate dissertations. He maintains an active research group and collaborates with scholars internationally, contributing significantly to the field through both his own research and by fostering the next generation of linguists.