The University of Sheffield
Russian and Slavonic Studies

Dr James Wilson

BA (2001) in Russian with Czech, MA (2004) in Slavonic Studies, PhD (2008) (University of Sheffield), Honorary Research Fellow

Contact details

email : j.a.wilson@sheffield.ac.uk

Biography

I received a BA degree in Russian with Czech from the University of Sheffield in 2001, after which I spent six months in the Czech Republic. It was during this time that I became interested in language variation in Czech, in particular in the language situation in Moravia.

I returned to the University of Sheffield in September 2002 to do an MA in Slavonic Studies (Research Track) and I started my doctoral research in September 2003.

Since submitting my PhD in 2007, I have carried out a CEELBAS-funded language project, investigating the market for Russian for research programmes, and I worked as Teaching Associate in Slavonic Languages at the University of Sheffield from September 2008 until February 2009. I am currently at the Department of German, Russian and Slavonic Studies (GRASS) at the University of Leeds where I am Teaching Fellow in Russian until June 2010.

Research

I am interested in language variation in Czech and variationist sociolinguistics, in particular dialect contact and second dialect acquisition.

My PhD study addressed the linguistic accommodation of Moravian migrants living in Bohemia. It tested an unsubstantiated hypothesis that speakers of Moravian dialects who move to Bohemia quickly reduce or avoid features of their localized dialects and accommodate to Common Czech, a non-standard koine spoken throughout Bohemia and in the westernmost parts of Moravia. The results are based on the linguistic behaviour of a group of university students from three dialect regions in Moravia living at a hall of residence in Prague.

I also have a keen interest in language pedagogy and in new methods of teaching Slavonic languages at both undergraduate and postgraduate level. I have carried out research into the demand for and specific requirements of postgraduate Russian for research programmes and I am currently researching the role of training in Russian phonetics and pronunciation at undergraduate level.

Publications

Seminar and conference papers