Theoretical Linguistics in the Pre University Classroom

Theoretical Linguistics in the Pre-University Classroom showcases the pedagogical potential of theoretical linguistics in remaking encounters with the workings of language in pre-university classrooms. Theoretical linguistics reorients the pursuit of linguistic understanding by moving beyond instrumental skills acquisition towards intellectual discovery. It offers an untapped medium for promoting STEM education (science through language) and can engage a wider student demographic in languages study (language through science).

Building on a groundswell of collaborative activity between schoolteachers and university linguists at national and international scales, this volume provides an up-to-date panorama of impact-focused research and grassroots practice emerging from the educational movement of Linguistics in Schools as it enters its 70th decade. Centred around three regional hives - North America, the UK, and Spain - the collection advances a pluralistic vision of theoretical linguistics as a means of expanding the possibilities of what it means to think about, or engage with, language and its workings in non-university settings.

Alice Corr, Associate Professor, University of Birmingham, Anna Pineda, Researcher, Universitat de Barcelona

Alice Corr is Associate Professor in the Department of Modern Languages, University of Birmingham, where she specializes in the comparative morphosyntax, dialectology, and history of the Romance languages. A Fellow of the UK Higher Education Academy and former secondary school teacher, she has a longstanding interest in broadening the horizons of what it means to study and teach languages and linguistics, and is currently Co-Lead for Spanish on the multi-institutional Linguistics in MFL project (2017-). Her collaborative work in this area has led to several invited talks; training sessions and consultancy for teachers and other languages professionals; media coverage and scholarly publications. She is author of The Grammar of the Utterance: How to do things with Ibero-Romance (OUP, 2022).

Anna Pineda has a bachelor’s degree in Catalan Philology (2009), a master’s degree in Advanced Studies in Catalan Language and Literature (2010) and PhD in Cognitive Science and Linguistics (2014). Her research focuses on the syntactic variation of Romance languages, and she has extensively published in international high-rank peer-reviewed journals and the most renowned publishing houses. Likewise, she has regularly presented her research results at the most prestigious international conferences in her field and has built international research networks and connections.