Dr Jeanette Sakel

• Qualifications:PhD Linguistics (2003) University of Nijmegen & Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology - MA Linguistics (1999) Aarhus - BA Linguistics and Finnish (1998) Aarhus
• Position:Professor of Language and Linguistics
• Department:Faculty of Arts, Creative Industries, and Education (ACE)
• Telephone:+441173282389
• Email:Jeanette.Sakel@uwe.ac.uk
• Social media:

About me

Area of expertise

I joined UWE in 2007 and have held a range of teaching and managerial roles since then. 

I research language acquisition, language contact, typology, Amerindian languages, Sinitic languages

Language Contact: grammatical contact phenomena; fieldwork on Mosetén and Spanish in Bolivia; Pirahã and Portuguese in Brazil; Somali in the UK. I have co-edited the book 'Grammatical Borrowing in Cross-Linguistic Perspective' (2007,  Mouton de Gruyter) with Yaron Matras. I've co-edited a volume on clause combining in Amerindian languages; a volume on Amerindian languages and a special issues of International Journal of Bilingualism.

Language typology, Amerindian languages, linguistic fieldwork and grammar-writing: fieldwork in Bolivia on Mosetén (Mosetenan, unclassified); I have written a descriptive grammar of the language (2004, Mouton Grammar Library, vol. 33). Fieldwork on Pirahã (Muran),  Brazilian Amazon, investigating whether Pirahã has recursion and to which degree its grammar is influenced by Portuguese. Other fieldwork experience includes work on voice structures in Kalaallisut (Greenlandic) in West Greenland.

Sinitic languages and language acquisition: I have conducted autoethnographic research into Mandarin second language acquisition, recording the podcast series 'Will I ever learn Chinese'. I am currently working on Mandarin discourse markers, as well as starting a project on the grammatical properties of Sinitic languages.

In my teaching, I am a National Teaching Fellow and have authored two textbooks: 'Study Skills for Linguistics' (2015, Routledge, second edition forthcoming) and Linguistic Fieldwork (Cambridge University Press, 2012) co-authored with Dan Everett. I run a YouTube channel for videos explaining linguistic concepts: YouTube channel  

Between 2017-2023 I took on leadership responsibilities as Director of Student Experience in my Faculty, writing policies, chairing validation panels, setting up partnerships and overseeing the all key Learning, Teaching and Quality processes.

I am an avid language learner and polyglot.  

I welcome applications from PhD students for projects on minority languages, typology, language contact, second language acquisition, language teaching, Chinese and Sinitic languages, Amazonian languages.

Publications

Publications loading...