Written by Joshua Coombs (University of York), recipient of the philological society’s Masters Bursary.

I am extremely grateful to the philological society for awarding me the Master’s Bursary for the 2024/25 academic year. Sociolinguistics has been my academic passion since I was first introduced to it at Sixth Form. After completing my undergraduate at the University of Gloucestershire in 2021, I dedicated the start of my career to teaching A Level English Language at a large sixth form college in Hampshire, as well as working as an examiner so I could contribute to the teaching and learning of sociolinguistics as much as possible. While I enjoyed teaching, I knew that I wanted to return to university one day to continue my own study of sociolinguistics, which is ultimately what led me to apply for the Msc in Linguistics at the University of York.

This course was far more scientific than I initially anticipated, which has honestly been a very welcome surprise. In semester one, for example, I took an introductory phonetics and phonology module where I learned how to use the speech processing software ‘praat’, in order to empirically study speech and quantitatively examine variation between speakers. Through taking this module, I gained skills that I would use throughout the remainder of the year, and became especially interested in the study of sociophonetics.

My research interests lie in language variation and change, especially in the South West of England. In a module titled ‘Advanced Topics in Language Variation & Change’, I conducted a research project using data from the Our Dialects website to examine language change and dialect levelling in three neighbouring cities in the South West: Salisbury, Southampton, and Bournemouth. I found that all three regions appeared to be experiencing supra-regional change, potentially spurred on by persistent dialect contact. This project acted as a spring-board for my dissertation, a sociophonetic investigation of apparent-time sound change in Wiltshire. Using data from paired sociolinguistic interviews with 12 male speakers, I investigated variation in two linguistic variables between younger and older speakers in Salisbury: the BATH vowel (i.e. b[a:]th vs b[ɑ:]th) and rhoticity. I found that [ɑ:] variants of BATH are a new innovation amongst younger speakers in the region, and that rhoticity is now a feature exclusive to older speakers who tend to use it more within careful speech.

Alongside my studies, I have also been extremely fortunate to have taken part in many extra-curricular activities this year. To name just a few: I attended a summer school led by Dr Ian Cushing at Manchester Metropolitan University about Linguistic Social Justice, worked on the ESRC-funded Generations of London English research project as a research associate, and sat on the organising committee for the A Level English Language ToolkitCPD event hosted by the University of York, where I presented a talk to teachers of A Level English Language across the country. I’ve also had the opportunity to disseminate my research at three conferences this year: An invited talk at the University of Alberta’s LCC graduate conference, and two posters at both the LAELPG at Lancaster University and LVC15, one of the largest variationist sociolinguistic conferences in the world.

Without this bursary, this year would have been much more of a financial burden than it ended up being. I have had an amazing year, and while I begin employment again next month as a data analyst at my local council, I am genuinely considering pursuing further study through a PhD in Linguistics in the next few years, something that up until now, I never thought I would have been able to do.