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