Dr Robert McKenzie

My research is focussed mainly in the areas of variationist sociolinguistics, folklinguistics and the social psychology of language. I have a particular interest in folk perceptions of and attitudes towards spoken language variation, especially the ways in which individuals’ attach social meanings to language varieties and how linguistic diversity is indexed within given speech communities. In turn, I also investigate the ways in which non-linguists’ perceptions of language variation impact upon communities of speakers more widely. My recent research has been relatively wide-ranging in scope and has focussed on implicit and explicit public attitudes towards language variation, language attitude change, speech perception, language ideology and identity, the social psychology of language spread and quantitative research methods in sociolinguistics.