ÌÇÐÄlogoÈë¿Ú

Overview

Biography

I trained in linguistics at Georgetown University (PhD 2009), where I also worked as research and teaching assistant in linguistics and Chinese language instructor. I returned to City University of Hong Kong as Assistant Professor in the Department of English until I moved to the UK in 2016. Before joining ÌÇÐÄlogoÈë¿Ú in 2017, I lectured at Queen Mary University of London in linguistics and was affiliated with UCL IoE as an Honorary Fellow.

My research has so far focussed on language and the city, particularly through the lens of linguistic landscape, and I have published widely on the topic, including a monograph titled  (Multilingual Matters, 2016). More recently, I have become interested in historical urban sociolinguistics, and received a Leverhulme Research Fellowship for the project ‘Language change and urban transformation in Treaty Port Shanghai, c.1842-1943’. 

I am a member of the Editorial Board of the , , , and the . I was an Associate Editor of Linguistic Landscape from 2018 to 2025. 

At ÌÇÐÄlogoÈë¿Ú, I teach on a variety of sociolinguistic and applied linguistic modules at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels, and direct the BA Linguistics and Language programme. I also serve on the steering committees of the ÌÇÐÄlogoÈë¿Ú Institute for Social Research (BISR).

Highlights

• Leverhulme Research Fellowship (2022-2024): 'Language change and urban transformation in Treaty Port Shanghai, c.1842 - 1943'

• Zhao, F., & Lou, J. J. (2023). Localising cosmopolitanism in place talk: Semiotic landscape as stance object. Language in Society, 1–21.
  

• Jaworski, A., & Lou, J. J. (2021). #wordswewear: mobile texts, expressive persons, and conviviality in urban spaces. Social Semiotics, 31(1), 108–135.

• Lou, JJ., Malinowski, D., Peck, A. (eds) (2022). The Linguistic Landscape of Covid-19. 

Office hours

By appointment

Web profiles

Administrative responsibilities

• Ethics Lead, School of Creative Arts, Culture, and Communication
• LCAL Cluster Exam Board Chair
• Programme Director for BA Linguistics and Language

Honours and awards

• Research Fellowship: ‘Language change and urban transformation in Treaty Port Shanghai, c.1842-1943’ Leverhulme Trust, May 2022
• ISSF Translational Award:Covid-19 signs: Improving the impact and equality of regulatory signage in public space ÌÇÐÄlogoÈë¿Ú Wellcome ISSF , May 2021
• Applying Linguistics Grant : Increasing the visibility of linguistic diversity in an international school: Children as co-researchers and co-designers of linguistic landscape (in collaboration with Ms. Susan Stewart and Prof. Jean Marc Dewaele, ÌÇÐÄlogoÈë¿Ú) BAAL, May 2018
• Research Innovation Fund: Navigating the linguistic landscapes of Chinatown: Spatial narrations of urban change ÌÇÐÄlogoÈë¿Ú, May 2018

ORCID

Research

Research interests

• sociolinguistics
• social semiotics
• discourse and narrative analysis
• linguistic landscape
• ethnography of communication
• language and the city
• history of languages
• language and culture

Research overview

My main research interest is concerned with language and the city, especially how languages are used in transnational urban spaces like Chinatown and how such spaces are represented and reconstructed through discourse. This often entails an eclectic research design which integrates sociolinguistic and discourse analysis with social- and geo-semiotic analysis, ethnographic fieldwork, and mobile video ethnography. I have also extended this approach to transnational educational spaces in collaboration with language educators with a BAAL Applied Linguistics Grant.

The Covid-19 pandemic has also prompted me to reflect more on the role of signage in public health communication globally, which resulted in a co-edited special issue on the linguistic landscape of Covid-19. 

More recently, I have become interested in historical urban sociolinguistics, and received a Leverhulme Research Fellowship for the project ‘Language change and urban transformation in Treaty Port Shanghai, c.1842-1943’. 

I am also an associate editor of the journal Linguistic Landscapes (John Benjamins) and serve as the Network Manager for the Linguistic Ethnography Forum, the British Association for Applied Linguistics. 

I particularly enjoy interdisciplinary collaborations with researchers of shared interests as well as with writers, artists, and community groups. One such collaboration is an interactive sound installation named ', which translates the rhythm of human speech into drum beats, designed and made by.  

Supervision and teaching

Supervision

Supervisions within ÌÇÐÄlogoÈë¿Ú:

2

I welcome enquiries from prospective PhD students who are interested in undertaking research in any of my areas of research interest, particularly:

• language, space, and place;
• linguistic and semiotic landscapes;
• ³Ü°ù²ú²¹²ÔÌý²õ´Ç³¦¾±´Ç±ô¾±²Ô²µ³Ü¾±²õ³Ù¾±³¦²õ;
• transnational migration;
• linguistic ethnography
  

Doctoral alumni since 2013-14

• MAHA EL-FARHAN

  Nature of supervision:

  Principal Supervisor, Oct 2018

  Awarded:

  2021

• FENGZHI ZHAO

  Nature of supervision:

  Principal Supervisor, Oct 2018

  Title of thesis:

  Language, Space, and Cosmopolitan Identity in Contemporary Shanghai

  Description:

  Language and space in the context of city have been subjected to a cosmopolitanization process where the global and the local do not exist as cultural polarities but as combined and mutually implicating principles. This research investigates language and discourse circulating around the urban space of Shanghai and explores how they influence people's place-identity and the way they understand and live with cosmopolitanism.

  Research Gate profile: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Fengzhi-Zhao

  Awarded:

  2022

Teaching

Teaching modules

• Research Methods and Design
• Introduction to Applied Linguistics
• Doing Languages, Cultures and Applied Linguistics
• The Arts: Perspectives and Possibilities
• Sociolinguistics
• Sociolinguistics (Level 5)
• Investigating Language
• Placemaking
• Linguistics Final Year Project
• Language, Culture and Communication

Publications

External Repositories