Dr Alex Broadhead

Personal Statement

My research focuses on the language of eighteenth and nineteenth-century literature, especially dialect and particularly the Romantic period. My first monograph, The Language of Robert Burns: Style, Ideology and Identity, employed ideas from twenty-first century sociolinguistics to explore the creative and self-reflexive ways in which Burns reinvented the linguistic resources at his disposal. Dialect matters are also the focus of my work on William Wordsworth, John Clare, the eighteenth-century Cumbrian writer Josiah Relph and the novels of the early nineteenth century. I'm currently preparing a monograph titled The Language of Early English Dialect Literature for Palgrave Macmillan.

I also have a secondary research interest in the legacies of Romantic literature in fiction and film, and have published on the subject of the Romantics in alternate history narratives.

My teaching interests span language and literature. On the language side, I convene a first-year stylistics module; on the literature side, I specialise in eighteenth-century and Romantic writing. Proposals for dissertations on anything relating to dialect writing, Romanticism (especially where language or regionalism is concerned) or Romantic legacies are very welcome.

My academic support and feedback hours this term are Fridays 3-5. Please email me during this slot if you would like to speak online.