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Petros Karatsareas

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Senior Lecturer in English Language and Linguistics, University of Westminster

I specialise in the sociolinguistics of multilingualism. I explore language practices and language ideologies in contexts of migration and transnational mobility with a focus on the UK and primarily London. I am especially interested in ideologies around, and attitudes towards, non-standardised varieties or otherwise minoritised and hierarchised linguistic resources and repertoires. Working on·with·for minoritised groups of migrant origin, I examine the role language plays in processes and experiences of discrimination, precarisation, deskilling, and downward occupational mobility among people on the move. I am also interested in community language education in diasporic settings and the role different educational initiatives play in shaping language practices and ideologies. To this date, I have pursued these avenues of research through ethnographically-oriented investigations of different groups of speakers of Greek in London, including people who migrated to the UK from Albania, Cyprus, and Greece at different times in recent history and under varying social conditions.

In the past, I specialised in the study of contact-induced language change. In my Ph.D. dissertation, I looked at diachronic change in the morphosyntax of the Modern Greek dialects of inner Asia Minor (Cappadocian, Pontic, Pharasiot, Silliot). I carried out extensive research on the diachronic development of gender agreement; the restructuring and simplification of noun inflection; the morphological realisation of direct objects; the cyclical development of the adpositional system; and, the synchronic status of determiner spreading in the language.

Experience

  • 2020–present
    Senior Lecturer in English Language and Linguistics, University of Westminster
  • 2015–2020
    Lecturer in English Language and Linguistics, University of Westminster
  • 2013–2015
    British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow, University of the West of England
  • 2013–2013
    Lecturer in Sociolinguistics, University of Salford
  • 2011–2012
    Lecturer in Historical Linguistics, University of Cambridge

Education

  • 2011 
    University of Cambridge, Ph.D. in Linguistics
  • 2007 
    University of Cambridge, M.Phil. in Linguistics
  • 2006 
    National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Ptychion (equivalent to BA Hons) in Greek Philology (major in Linguistics)

Publications

  • 2020
    Why and how to integrate non-standard linguistic varieties into education: Cypriot Greek in Cyprus and the UK (with Elena Ioannidou, Vally Lytra & Stavroula Tsiplakou), Languages, Society & Policy
  • 2020
    The development, preservation and loss of differential case marking in inner Asia Minor Greek, Journal of Language Contact
  • 2020
    From village talk to slang: the re-enregisterment of a non-standardised variety in an urban diaspora, Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development
  • 2018
    Attitudes towards Cypriot Greek and Standard Modern Greek in London’s Greek Cypriot community, International Journal of Bilingualism
  • 2016
    Convergence in word structure: revisiting agglutinative noun inflection in Cappadocian Greek, Diachronica 33(1), 31-66
  • 2016
    The Asia Minor Greek adpositional cycle: a tale of multiple causation, Journal of Greek Linguistics 16(1), 1-40
  • 2016
    From syntagmatic to paradigmatic spatial zeroes: the loss of the preposition se in inner Asia Minor Greek (with Thanasis Georgakopoulos), STUF – Language Typology and Universals
  • 2016
    Marking definiteness multiply: evidence from two varieties of Greek (with Marika Lekakou), Studies in Greek Linguistics 36
  • 2014
    On the diachrony of gender in Asia Minor Greek: the development of semantic agreement in Pontic, Language Sciences 43, 77-101
  • 2013
    Understanding diachronic change in Cappadocian Greek: the dialectological perspective, Journal of Historical Linguistics 3(2), 192-229
  • 2011
    Neuter heteroclisis in Asia Minor Greek: origin and development, Neoelliniki Dialektologia [Modern Greek Dialectology] 6, 111-135
  • 2009
    The loss of grammatical gender in Cappadocian Greek, Transactions of the Philological Society 107(2), 196-230

Grants and Contracts

  • 2018
    Non-standard and minority varieties as community languages in the UK: towards a new strategy for language maintenance
    Role:
    Funding Source:
    Arts and Humanities Research Council
  • 2017
    Transforming heritage language education
    Role:
    Funding Source:
    British Academy
  • 2017
    Attitudes towards Cypriot Greek and Standard Modern Greek among London’s Greek Cypriot community: the role of Greek supplementary schools
    Role:
    Funding Source:
    British Academy and Leverhulme Trust
  • 2015
    A corpus of spoken British Cypriot Greek
    Role:
    Funding Source:
    University of Westminster
  • 2013
    The development of heritage grammars in present-day London: the case of Cypriot Greek
    Role:
    Funding Source:
    British Academy