Sophie Holmes-Elliott, PhD (Glasgow)

Profile

I am a Sociolinguist focussing on the on the quantitative analysis of linguistic variation and change. I am especially interested in the relationship between children and language variation - both their acquisition of systemic variability, and their role in the propagation of change. My work combines real and apparent time approaches to track young speakers’ developmental shifts which I examine within the context of ongoing community trends. 

My work also investigates the relationship between language and gender. Again, from a developmental perspective looking at the emergence of gendered patterns of variation between childhood and adolescence. I am also interested in the use of gendered speech patterns in adult language and how these develop into recognisable styles of speech or personae.

Teaching

Undergraduate:

• LIN4211: English in Use
• LIN6019/7019 Sex, Gender & Language

Postgraduate:

• LIN7023 Research Methods in Sociolinguistics
• LIN7002 Sociolinguistic Theory
• LIN7027 Trends in Linguistic Research

Research

Research Interests:

• Language variation and change

• Developmental sociolinguistics

   

• Gender (particularly development of gendered language & queer linguistics)

   

• Stance & style

Publications

Google Scholar:

https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=1yzU1GkAAAAJ&hl=en

Books

• (Contracted 2025) Holmes-Elliott, S., Rosseel, L. & Zenner, E. The Sociolinguistic Toolbox in Development: Preadolescents' Acquisition of Socially Meaningful Linguistic Variation. Under contract: Routledge, due April 2025

Publications & proceedings

• (Under revision) Hunt, M., Strange, L. & Holmes-Elliott, S. Gender Penalty? Linguistic discriminations and perceptions of female football commentators, Gender and Language
• (2024) Levon, E. & Holmes-Elliott, S.  Voices, bodies, and the cultural organisation of meaning, Signs and Society
• (f.c. 2024)   Holmes-Elliott, S. & Levon, E. The jet set: articulatory setting and the embodiment of sound change in the short front vowel system of Southern British English (Accepted to Language Variation and Change pending revisions)
• (2023) Barnard, M., Hellyer, R. & Holmes-Elliott, S. The urge to unmerge: a case of structural change across the lifespan, Proceedings from the 20th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences, Prague, Czechia. (pp3627-363). Guarant International.
• (2022) Smith, J., & Holmes-Elliott, S. Tracking linguistic change in childhood: Transmission, incrementation, and vernacular reorganization. Language 98(1), 98-122.
• (2022) Smith, J., & Holmes-Elliott, S. Mapping syntax and the sociolinguistic monitor (invited submission to Explanations in sociosyntax: Dialogue across paradigms Christensen, Juel Jensen & Tagliamonte (eds)) Cambridge University Press: Cambridge https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108674942.004
• (2021) Holmes-Elliott, S. Calibrate to innovate: community age vectors and the real time incrementation of language change, Language in Society, 1-34. https://doi.org/10.1017=S0047404520000834  
• (2019) Holmes-Elliott, S. & Turner, J. The emergence of gendered production between childhood and adolescence: A real time analysis of /s/ in Southern British English. Proceedings from the XVIV International Congress of Phonetic Sciences, Melbourne, Australia
• (2018) Holmes-Elliott, S. & Smith, J. Dressing down up north: DRESS-lowering and /l/ allophony in a Scottish dialect. Language Variation and Change 30, 1 pp. 23-50
• (2017) Holmes-Elliott, S. & Levon, E. The substance of style: Gender, social class and interactional stance in southeast England. Linguistics. 55, 5, 5.
• (2017) Smith, J. and Holmes-Elliott, S. The unstoppable glottal: tracking rapid change in an iconic British variable. English Language and Linguistics, pp. 1–33.
• (2016) Holmes-Elliott, S. Ladies first? Adolescent peaks in a male-led change: TH-fronting in southeast England. Penn Working Papers in Linguistics volume 22.2., Selected Papers from NWAV 44
• (2015) Holmes-Elliot, S. London calling: Assessing the spread of metropolitan features in the southeast. Doctoral dissertation, University of Glasgow.
• (2015) Holmes-Elliott, S. & Smith, J. DRESS-down: /ε/-lowering in apparent time in a rural Scottish community Proceedings from the XVIII International Congress of Phonetic Sciences, Glasgow, UK
• (2013) Smith, R., Holmes-Elliott, S., Pettinato, P. & Knight, R. Cross accent intelligibility of speech in noise: Long-term familiarity and short-term familiarisation Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology 67:3
• (2013) Levon, E. & Holmes-Elliott, S. East end boys and west end girls: /s/-fronting in southeast England Penn Working Papers in Linguistics volume 19.2., Selected Papers from NWAV 41
• (2011) Stuart-Smith, J., Smith, R., Rathke, T., Li Santi, F., and Holmes, S. Responding to accents after experiencing interactive or mediated speech, Proceedings of the XVII International Congress of the Phonetic Sciences, Hong Kong

Book reviews

• (2019) Holmes, Elliott, S. Review: RENA TORRES CACOULLOS & CATHERINE E. TRAVIS, Bilingualism in the community: code-switching and grammars in contact Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018. Journal of Linguistics
• (2016) Holmes-Elliott, S. Review: SALI A. TAGLIAMONTE, Teen talk: The language of adolescents. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016. Pp. 298. Pb. £18.99. Language in Society, 46(5), 742.