Lauren Hall-Lew

Personal Chair of Sociolinguistics

  • Linguistics and English Language
  • School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences

Contact details

Address

Street

Room 2.01, Dugald Stewart Building

City
3 Charles Street, Edinburgh
Post code
EH8 9AD

Availability

  • Please email me directly to arrange a meeting. I assume meeting requests are for face-to-face meetings, but if you're happy to meet on Teams, please let me know.

Biography

Background

​I'm Professor and Personal Chair of Sociolinguistics, in Linguistics and English Language (LEL), at the University of Edinburgh.

I am a variationist sociolinguist with an interest in phonetics, social meaning, and language change. I've described my academic journey in an interview on this episode of the Undersong podcast, produced by Race.Ed.

I'm a 5th-generation mixed-race Chinese American with ancestors who immigrated to San Francisco, California, in the late 1800s. I'm also of German descent, with family from Düsseldorf. Most of my family is Californian, but I was raised in snowy Flagstaff, Arizona.

Qualifications

Undergraduate: University of Arizona (BA in Linguistics, minor in Psychology, 2002, summa cum laude)

Postgraduate: Stanford University (MA & PhD in Linguistics, 2009)

Previous post: Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Oxford

Responsibilities & affiliations

I am one of the representatives of the UoE's Staff BAME Network and the UoE's Womxn of Colour Collective. Between 2019-2021, I founded the Mentoring Programme for the Staff BAME Nework, and my work was recognised by being short-listed for the CAHSS Staff Award for Advancing Inclusion (2021) and a Principal's Medal. I've previously been involved in EDI (Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion) work and work in Research Ethics.

Undergraduate teaching

In 2026-2027 I will be:

  • Guest lecturer on Language and Social Justice (Semester 1, Pre-honours)
  • Course Organiser and Co-instructor for Language Variation and Change (Semester 2, Honours/MSc)

 

Previous teaching awards include:

  • Winner, EUSA Award for Teaching in CHSS (2013)
  • Joint Runner-Up, CAHSS Outstanding Contribution to the Student Experience (2016)

Postgraduate teaching

In 2026-2027 I will be:

  • Course Organiser and Co-instructor for Language Variation and Change (Semester 2, Honours/MSc)
  • Course Organiser and sole instructor for Sociolinguistic Research Design (Semester 2, MSc)

 

I am also the Programme Director for the MSc Applied Linguistics.

Open to PhD supervision enquiries?

Yes

Areas of interest for supervision

I am open to supervision on topics closely related to my own areas of interest.

Current PhD students supervised

PhD

  • Alice Marikan
  • Han Shutong
  • Alice Ross
  • Pichet Prakaianurat
  • Ahmad Ayyoub

Past PhD students supervised

PhD

  • Stephen McNulty (2025)
  • Nina Markl (2023)
  • Tsung-Lun Alan Wan (2022)
  • Elizabeth Adelou (2021)
  • Miriam Eiswirth (2019)
  • Zac Boyd (2018)
  • Zuzana Elliott (2017)
  • Daniel Lawrence (2017)
  • Ruth Friskney (2015)
  • Ifigenia Papageorgiou (2011)

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