Dr. Jack Wilson
School of Arts and Media
BIOGRAPHY
- BA in English Language and Linguistics from York St John
- MA in Pragmatics from University College London
- PhD from the University of Leeds, department of Linguistics and Phonetics
Areas of research
Pragmatics, Gesture, Dementia, Language, Experimental
I teach on modules focussing predominantly on meaning in language. I am currently teaching on the following modules:
Level 4
- Foundations of Language II: Semantics and Pragmatics
- Researching English Language
Level 5
- Corpus Approaches to Language
- Truth and Meaning
Level 6
- Language and Communication
- Current Issues in Pragmatics
Generally speaking, my research attempts to address the following question: What is meaning in language and how does it differ from meaning we find elsewhere?
Particularly, I research co-speech gestures, which are meaning gestures that accompany language use. In addressing this question, I adopt a variety of experimental and observational methods.
I am currently working on a variety of research projects, including: Gesture in speech production and comprehension, (rural) Sign Languages, the evolution of sign systems, metaphor in contemporary song lyrics, and gesture in modern South Arabian Languages.