About me

I am a Rutherford Foundation postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand, based within the New Zealand Institute of Language, Brain and Behaviour (NZILBB). My main research interests are historical sociolinguistics, Scots, language use among early Scottish immigrants to New Zealand, and the interactions between language and identity.

I am interested in how aspects of diachronic variation and change observed in historical varieties and settings may have been influenced by changing or emergent identities, indexicality and how this connects to major social or political changes experienced by the language community. My current research is focussed on the use of heritage features (Scots) and the adoption of new language features (New Zealand English and te reo Māori lexis) by the first waves of Scottish immigrants arriving in New Zealand during the late nineteenth century, and how the influences of changing identity, nationhood and social connectivity may have influenced authors’ use of these features. This involves collecting and digitising the correspondence of Scottish settlers and creating the first publically-available database of early written New Zealand language, before identifying relevant features and investigating the factors influencing any variation observed.