Emma Humphries
Member since 2026
I applied to the UKYA to be part of a collaborative body that prioritises projects which build towards creating an equitable and inclusive society.
Bio
Emma Humphries is a Leverhulme Early Career Researcher at Queen’s University Belfast. Since obtaining her PhD in French Linguistics at the University of Nottingham, she has held a number of research and teaching posts across the UK, including at the University of Cambridge, Cardiff University and the University of Birmingham. She is interested in language attitudes and ideologies (in particular prescriptivism, standard language ideology and purism) and language policy.
Her current project, ‘Prescriptivism and Popular Culture in Contemporary France’, explores how and how far prescriptivism (the promotion and enforcement of “correct” and “incorrect” language use) permeates the film, television, music and even graffiti that we consume every day. Her research is motivated by a desire to deconstruct and raise awareness of language attitudes which discriminate and prejudice certain language users.
