Dr Clive Grey

I am currently celebrating thirty years of teaching linguistics and phonetics full time. I started out in Bangor, North Wales, reading for a single honours degree in Linguistics, concentrating on dialect and phonology, inspired by the late Prof. Alan R. Thomas. After graduating in 1978 I moved on to do the MPhil in Linguistics at Cambridge, writing papers in syntax, sociolinguistics, applied linguistics and phonetics and phonology, followed in 1979 by work for a PhD on Generative Phonology and Welsh under the direction of Prof. Francis Nolan (The Word Phonology of Welsh).

After completion of this in 1982, and obtaining a TESOL qualification in Sussex, I was appointed Lecturer in English Language at Basle University, teaching basic undergraduate courses in English phonetics and linguistics under the direction of Prof. David Allerton, and setting up new courses about English in Ireland, sociolinguistic topics such as social markers in speech, giving guest lectures on the poetry of the late R.S. Thomas, and even running optional lunchtime workshops on Old English at the request of students themselves!

In between work for courses in Basle I taught in Zurich at the Phonetics Institute, delivering semester-long courses on voice quality, and was external examiner for English at a local Gymnasium. For five years I was also Secretary of the Swiss-British Society in Basel which involved hosting many events indeed, including readings by regular visitors including Seamus Heaney, David Lodge, Malcolm Bradbury, C.H. Sisson, Russell Hoban and Iris Murdoch.

At Edge Hill I have taught undergraduate courses in phonetics, sociolinguistics, language and gender, language and sexuality, computational linguistics and language and ethnicity, as well as contributing to the core History of the Language module. I have been internal examiner and supervisor for doctoral dissertations on Scouse, and Lithuanian usage in Glasgow, among others.

I have been responsible for coordinating final year English undergraduate courses for twenty years, been Branch Secretary of the recognised teaching union, and served as a teaching staff representative on Academic Board and Equal Opportunities subcommittees.

I worked with David Crystal over many years to contribute over 150 items to Linguistics Abstracts, and have since worked with Blackwell, Pergamon and Taylor and Francis offering advice on new titles and reading drafts.

TV and radio appearances have include commenting on local dialect for Granada, and doing early morning spots on Radio Merseyside. Along with two colleagues I was invited to take part in the BBC Voices project in 2005. In 2008 I co-edited a book on Liverpool's English entitled The Mersey Sound: Liverpool's Language, People and Places (Open House Press), contributing two chapters to the volume, one on change in Liverpool's English, and another on the dialect of the area to the north of Liverpool between Southport and Preston. Recent work has involved setting up two new MA postgraduate taught semester-length modules about the history of Liverpool, one called Representations of Liverpool, starting April 2013, and the other The Making of Liverpool, to follow a year later.

I am currently writing a tract for Oxford UP on loanwords in Welsh as part of a larger multi-author volume, as well as involved in writing up research on dialect development in West Lancashire and completing an article on linguistic aspects of the 1930s travel writing of H.V. Morton.