2007
Effects of different types of face covering on speech acoustics and intelligibility: some preliminary observations. International Association for Forensic Phonetics and Acoustics (IAFPA) Conference 2007, College of St. Mark and St. John, Plymouth, July (with Damien Donnelly and Carmen Llamas).

Voice onset time and the Scottish Vowel Length Rule in Aberdeen English. 16th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences, University of the Saarland, Saarbrücken, August (with Jillian Yurkova).

2006
Relating metalinguistic commentary to production patterns in Berwick English. Sociolinguistics Symposium 16, University of Limerick, July (with Carmen Llamas and Heike Pichler).

Rhoticity and competing national identities in Berwick upon Tweed, Northumberland. Poster presented at Sociolinguistics Symposium 16, University of Limerick, July.

Rhotics in transition: variation in Berwick English /r/. BAAP 2006, Queen Margaret University College, Edinburgh, April.

Rhoticity and national identity among Berwick English speakers. Northern Englishes Workshop, Lancaster University, March.

2005
Forensic phonetics. The Practical Side of Phonetics and Phonology: a Hands-On Science Colloquium, University of Rostock, July.

2004
'We're all Scottish really': investigating the tension between claimed identity and linguistic behaviour in Berwick upon Tweed. One-day colloquium The Influence of the Languages of Scotland and Ireland on Linguistic Varieties in Northern England, University of Aberdeen, June (with Heike Pichler).

Acoustic analysis of variability in the Middlesbrough English vowel system. Sociolinguistics Symposium 15, University of Newcastle, April (with Carmen Llamas).

The phonetic properties of 'pre-aspirated' variants of (p, t, k) in the north-east of England. British Association of Academic Phoneticians Colloquium 2004, Cambridge, March (with Gerry Docherty & Paul Foulkes).

Variation in the Middlesbrough English vowel system. British Association of Academic Phoneticians Colloquium 2004, Cambridge, March (with Carmen Llamas).

The Scottish Vowel Length Rule in Berwick English revisited. UK Language Variation & Change 4, Sheffield, September (with Heike Pichler).

On the distribution of pre-aspirated stops in Middlesbrough English. 15th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences, Barcelona, August.

First accent acquisition: a study of phonetic variation in child-directed speech. 15th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences, Barcelona, August (with Gerry Docherty and Paul Foulkes).

Pre-aspirated stops in Middlesbrough English: evidence from conversational data. Second International Conference on Language Variation in Europe, Uppsala, Sweden, June.

First accent acquisition: a study of phonetic variation in child-directed speech. Second International Conference on Language Variation in Europe, Uppsala, Sweden, June (with Gerry Docherty and Paul Foulkes).

Investigating variation in children's speech. Methods XI: Eleventh International Conference on Methods in Dialectology, Joensuu, Finland, August (with Gerry Docherty, Paul Foulkes, and Jenny Tillotson).

Phonological variation in child-directed speech. Methods XI: Eleventh International Conference on Methods in Dialectology, Joensuu, Finland, August (with Gerry Docherty, Paul Foulkes, and Jenny Tillotson).

On the emergence of structured phonological variation. LabPhon 8: Eighth Conference on Laboratory Phonology 'Varieties of Phonological Competence', New Haven, Connecticut, June (with Gerry Docherty, Paul Foulkes, and Jenny Tillotson).

Phonological variation in child-directed speech. Conference on English Phonology, Toulouse, June (with Gerry Docherty, Paul Foulkes, and Jenny Tillotson).

Investigating the Scottish vowel length rule in a Scottish/English 'hybrid' variety. Workshop 'Language across the great divide: language use across geo-political boundaries', Sociolinguistics Symposium 14, Gent, April.

Phonological variation in child-directed speech. UKLVC3, University of York, July (with Gerry Docherty, Paul Foulkes and Jenny Tillotson).

Phonological variation in child-directed speech. NWAV 29, Michigan State University, October (with Gerry Docherty, Paul Foulkes, Liz Parsons, Jaclyn Thompson and Jenny Tillotson).

Tracking the emergence of sociophonetic variation in 2-4 year-olds. NWAV 29, Michigan State University, October  (with Paul Foulkes and Gerry Docherty).

An acoustic investigation of vowel fronting in urban Yorkshire English. NWAV 29, Michigan State University, October.

Phonological variation in child-directed speech. VIEW 2000, University of Essex, September (with Gerry Docherty, Paul Foulkes, Liz Parsons, Jaclyn Thompson and Jenny Tillotson).

An acoustic investigation of vowel fronting in urban Yorkshire English. ICLaVE 1, Barcelona, June-July.

Tracking the emergence of structured variation in 2-4 year olds. ICLaVE 1, Barcelona, June-July  (with Gerry Docherty & Paul Foulkes).

'I don't speak Geordie, I speak Northern': contact-induced levelling in two Tyneside vowels. Sociolinguistics Symposium 2000, University of the West of England, April.

Tracking the emergence of sociophonetic variation in 2-4 year olds. Sociolinguistics Symposium 2000, University of the West of England, April (with Gerry Docherty & Paul Foulkes).

Patterns of vowel fronting in northern British English. BAAP (British Association of Academic Phoneticians) 2000, University of Glasgow, April.

Acquisition of (t) variants in Newcastle English. BAAP 2000, University of Glasgow, April (with Gerry Docherty & Paul Foulkes).

Phonetic variation in two Tyneside vowels: levelling in lockstep. 14th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences, San Francisco, August (poster presentation).

Tracking the emergence of sociophonetic variation. 14th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences, San Francisco, August (poster presentation); (with Gerry Docherty & Paul Foulkes).

Phonological symmetry as a sociolinguistic resource: the case of close-mid monophthongs in Tyneside English. First Annual Postgraduate Conference in Theoretical and Applied Linguistics, Durham, June.

Deein' away wi' the taak o' the Toon: evidence of dialect levelling in the vowel system of Tyneside English. BAAP (British Association of Academic Phoneticians) '98, Queen's University Belfast, April.

The NURSE and NORTH sets in Tyneside English: when is a merger not a merger? Harold Orton Centenary Conference: Dialectal Variation in English, University of Leeds, March.

Some methodological problems in sociophonetic research. Postgraduate Conference in Social Sciences, Dept. of Politics, University of Newcastle, May.

invited talks

Scottish English. Institut für Anglistik/Amerikanistik, University of Rostock, July 2005.

Changes in Scottish identity since 1997. Institut für Anglistik/Amerikanistik, University of Rostock, July 2005.

England fans with 'Scottish' accents: on the role of phonological variables as identity markers in Berwick upon Tweed. School of Education, Communication & Language Sciences, University of Newcastle, March 2004.

First accent acquisition: a study of phonetic variation in child-directed speech. Department of Speech and Language Sciences, Queen Margaret University College, May 2003.

Borders, identities and phonological variation in the north-east of England. Department of Language & Linguistics, University of Essex, February 2003 (with Carmen Llamas).

Investigating the Scottish Vowel Length Rule in a Scottish/English 'hybrid' variety. Linguistic Circle, Dept. of Theoretical & Applied Linguistics, University of Edinburgh, December 2002.

One size fits all: towards a normalisation algorithm for variable vowel formant data. Dept. of Linguistics & Phonetics, University of Leeds, December 2001.

Acoustic analysis in sociolinguistics. Third North-West Centre for Linguistics Research Training Workshop: 'Researching Talk: Principles, Practice and Problems in the Collection and Analysis of Spoken Language Data'. Edge Hill College of Higher Education, Ormskirk, November 2001 (with Paul Foulkes).

Phonological variation and social identity in Berwick upon Tweed. Dept. of English, University of Aberdeen, November 2001.

When the GOAT comes in: aspects of variation and change in the vowel system of Tyneside English. Dept. of Linguistics & Phonetics, University of Leeds, February 1999.

Urban dialectology on the level: towards balancing internal and external factors as explanations of dialect levelling in Tyneside English. Dept. of Linguistics & English Language, University of Durham, March 1998.

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