We are pleased to announce that our new Northern Ireland Representative on the Executive Committee is Merryn Davies-Deacon, Lecturer in French Linguistics at Queen’s University Belfast.
Merryn is a sociolinguist, teaching in the areas of French language and linguistics but with a research and personal background in minoritised regional languages. Merryn’s research interests include language standardisation, the links between linguistic variation, identity, and ideology, and how minoritised language users form communities in online contexts. With interests both in French as a language that falls under the traditional scope of Modern Languages, and in the minoritised languages of France and the UK, and having studied as an undergraduate and postgraduate in England before moving to Northern Ireland in 2016, Merryn hopes to be able to respond to and represent the specific nuances of the language and higher education landscapes in NI.