Sophia Waters

Dr. Sophia Waters is a Senior Lecturer in Writing at the University of New England's School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences (HASS). With a PhD in Linguistics and a BA Hons in French, she specializes in discourse studies, semantics, and pragmatics using the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) approach, focusing on Australian English and French. Her teaching spans academic writing, intercultural communication, and linguistics units.

• PhD (Linguistics), University of New England
• BA Hons (Class I, French), University of New England
• BLANG, University of New England

Her research explores cultural keywords, ethnopragmatics, discourse analysis, and humour studies, with a particular emphasis on how language reflects cultural values. She has published extensively on topics like 'manners', 'blaguer', and 'rudeness', employing NSM methodology.

Sophia Waters has supervised PhD and MAAL students, including Malek Abu-Rabi’e (2019) and Lauren Sadow (2014). She contributes to public discourse through articles in The Conversation and has presented at international conferences such as the International Pragmatics Association (IPrA) and Australasian Humour Studies Network. Her consultancy interests center on intercultural communication.