About

I am a Senior Lecturer in English Language at the University of Derby. As well as teaching undergraduate students on the BA (Hons) English course, I research topics in sociolinguistics and discourse analysis. I am also a member of the College Research Ethics Committee for Health and Humanities and serve as an external representative on the ethics committee of the Derby International Business School. With a colleague from the Institute for Education and Skills, I am co-programme lead for the BA (Hons) English Language and TESOL, taught at one of our international collaborative partners.

Research interests

My research includes studies of English looking at interactional functions of pragmatic markers such as sort of and and stuff like that. I also study everyday discussions of language variation and the ideologies behind these. I examine how these relate to social meanings of language use and interactional or local ethnographic identities.

Recently, I have been considering the relationships between language and violence, exploring different ways linguistics can contribute to understanding these.

A lot of my research focusses on describing and understanding Australian English.

Recent publications

See some of my recent publications via the University of Derby Repository. For a full listing of my research activities and co-authors, see my Academia.edu or ResearchGate profile (these are all direct links to my profiles).

Books

Kim, H., & Penry Williams, C. (2021). Discovering intercultural communication: From language users to language use. Palgrave Macmillan.

Loughnane, R., Penry Williams, C., & Verhoeven, J. (Eds.). (2007). In between wor(l)ds: Transformation and translation. School of Languages and Linguistics, The University of Melbourne.

Penry Williams, C. (2019). Folklinguistics and social meaning in Australian English. Routledge.

Membership of professional bodies

• Australian Linguistic Society (ALS)
• British Association for Applied Linguistics (BAAL)
• Discourse-Pragmatic Variation & Change Research Network (DiPVaC)
• The International Society for the Linguistics of English (ISLE)
• Linguistics Association of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (LAGB)

Associate editor, Registered Reports in Linguistics/RRLing (University of Edinburgh, open access) November 2025–

Founding and continuing committee member of the Forum on Englishes in Australia.

Qualifications

• Doctor of Philosophy (Linguistics), University of Melbourne
• Master of Applied Linguistics, University of Melbourne
• Graduate Diploma of Education, Monash University
• Bachelor of Arts, La Trobe University

Recent conferences

Penry Williams, C. (2025). Uniting then separating folklinguistic voicings: In theory and practice. Paper presented at Talk about Talk: Enregisterment and Metalinguistic Discourses. Kiel. January 10–11. [invited]

Penry Williams C., Hoffman M. F. &. Walker, J. A. (2025). If I were sorry: Describing sorry in repair in Australian and Canadian English. Paper presented at the 8^th Conference of The International Society for the Linguistics of English. Santiago de Compostela, September 1–4.

Walker, J. A., Hoffman M. F. & Penry Williams C. (2025). Sorry seems to be the hardest word: From apology to self-repair. Paper presented at the 19th International Pragmatics Conference, Brisbane, June 22–27.

Walker, J. A, Penry Williams C. & Hoffman M. F. (2025a). Sorry states: Self-repair in Australian and Canadian English. Paper presented at the Forum on Englishes in Australia, Melbourne, November 7.

Walker, J. A, Penry Williams C. & Hoffman M. F. (2025b). Functions of and constraints on sorry in conversational repair. Paper presented at the Conference of the Australian Linguistic Society, Gold Coast, December 2–5.

International experience

I was an Honorary Research Fellow at La Trobe University (2018 to 2024 - I resigned over the firing of senior staff to recoup funds).

I previously taught linguistics at La Trobe University, and linguistics, academic skills and applied linguistics at the University of Melbourne (both in Melbourne, Australia).

While working at the University of Derby, I have reviewed articles for the following international journals:

• Australian Journal of Linguistics (Routledge/Taylor and Francis)
• English World-Wide (John Benjamins)
• Journal of Linguistic Anthropology (Wiley)
• Language and Speech (Sage)
• Language Variation and Change (Cambridge University Press)
• Violence Against Women (Sage)

Teaching responsibilities

I teach and am the module leader for:

• Key Concepts in Linguistics
• Ideology, Discourse and Power
• Society in Language
• Language and Mind: Psycholinguistics
• The Globalisation(s) of English

I am available for PhD supervision on topics related to my expertise (see my research interests and publications).

I am currently the Director of Studies or a supervisor on two PhD projects and two EdDs. I have supervised three PhDs to completion. The most recent of these completions was as Director of Studies for Dr. Hannah Valenzuela and her project on Negotiating learner identities and success: a linguistic ethnography with late-arrival multilingual learners in a secondary school.