Staff Profile

Background

I was appointed as Lecturer in Applied Linguistics at Newcastle University in June 2013, having previously obtained my PhD (2011), an MA in Cross-Cultural Communication & Applied Linguistics (2006) and an MA in Applied Linguistics Research (2007) in the same department.

Between studying and working at Newcastle University, I spent two years as a JSPS Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Kansai University (Osaka, Japan). I have also spent time in the Department of Second Language Studies at the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa (as part of my PhD, in 2009) and the Graduate School of Language and Culture at Osaka University (for a research sabbatical, in 2017).

In August 2020, I was promoted to Senior Lecturer in Applied Linguistics (equivalent to Associate Professor).

Roles and responsibilities

• Research Lead for the Applied Linguistics & Communication subject area
• Chair of the Board of Examiners for the Applied Linguistics & Communication subject area

Previous roles I have held include:

• Acting Director of Postgraduate Research for the School of ECLS (Sept 2025 - Jan 2026)
• Faculty representative on the Taught Programmes Sub-Committee (reporting to University Education Committee) (Sept 2022 - Sept 2025)
• Head of the Applied Linguistics & Communication subject area (Sept 2018 - Jan 2023)
• Member of School Executive Board (Sept 2018 - Jan 2023)
• Member of School Research Committee (Sept 2018 - Jan 2023)
• Member of School Teaching & Learning Committee (Sept 2018 - Jan 2023)
• Degree Programme Director for our suite of MA Cross-Cultural Communication programmes (2013-2021)
• Chair of Board of Studies
• Chair of Board of Examiners

Areas of research expertise

• Social interaction
• Human-AI interaction
• Technologies for communication
• Intercultural Communication
• International workplaces

Google Scholar

Scopus

ORCID

Research Interests

I am an applied linguist whose research centres on how people use AI-powered conversational technologies. Using Conversation Analysis, I investigate the interactional dynamics of ‘human-AI communication’ across a range of applied contexts, including healthcare, and explore how Applied Linguistics can collaborate with industry to inform the design of these technologies. My broader research interests encompass other forms of technologised social interaction, including communication through videoconferencing platforms and social virtual reality.

Beyond this, I am also interested in interaction in asymmetrical settings, in which members have differing sets of communicative repertoires. This includes second language interaction, multilingual workplaces and educational settings. It also includes interactions involving people living with conditions which impact upon communication, such as dementia.

Recent Research Funding

Encoding empathy: Solving the healthcare workforce crisis through the safe deployment of an AI-driven voice-based clinical conversational assistant for long term monitoring, PI, UKRI Innovate UK Biomedical Catalyst (£124,321), June 2024 - Dec 2025

JSPS Bridge Fellowship 2023-24

Exploring with Dora: identifying principles of effective conversational AI through an autonomous telemedicine service, PI, British Academy Innovation Fellowship (£49,750), Feb 2023 - Aug 2023

Interaction, Dementia, and Engagement in the Arts for Lifelong Learning (IDEAL), Co-I, UKRI Healthy Ageing Catalysts Award (£62,000), Oct 2020 - Oct 2021

Interaction, Dementia, and Engagement in the Arts (IDEA), Co-I, British Academy Small Research Grant (£7,500), Sept 2017 - Sept 2019

Postgraduate Supervision 

I would be delighted to hear from potential PhD students with an interest in using interaction analysis methods to study any of the above topics. At present, I am supervising three postgraduate research students: Kleopatra Sideridou (as first supervisor), and Ashleigh Regan and Wenwen Zhang (as second supervisor).

I have also supervised 16 successful PhD projects to date:

Dr Badryah Almesfer

Dr Ahmad Al Mulla

Dr Yiyin Wang

Dr Hanain Brohi (as first supervisor, with Peter Sercombe). "'It's scary how many people believe what Trump believes': How a Muslim women's Sisters' Circle interactionally navigate socio-political realities", January 2021.

Dr Nimet Copur (as first supervisor, with Prof Steve Walsh). "The multimodal work of creating a humorous frame in English as a foreign language classes", December 2020.

Dr Kazuki Hata (as second supervisor, with Prof Steve Walsh) “Projectability, contextuality and complexity of trailoff: A Conversation Analysis of ‘but’ at turn-final placement”, November 2018.

Dr Somporn Maneechote (as second supervisor, with Alan Firth) "Negative assessments of referents in co-participants' cultural groups and responses in intercultural interaction", July 2018.

Dr Khadija El-Wakai (as second supervisor, with Prof Steve Walsh) "Topic Management: The 'About What-ness' of Interaction in Student University Meetings", June 2018.

Dr Yoonjoo Cho (as first supervisor, with Peter Sercombe) "The interviewers' self-disclosure in L2 research interviews: A Conversation Analytic study on empathic reformulation and discursive identity work embedded in the interviewer's self-revealing talk", April 2018.

Dr Ufuk Girgin (as first supervisor, with Prof Steve Walsh) "Reconsidering the uses of a minimal ‘non-lexical’ response token through ‘embodiment’: A second language teacher’s deployment of ‘mm hm’ as a third-turn receipt", December 2017.

Dr Yun Pan (as first supervisor, with Chris Leyland), "Framing University Small Group Talk: Knowledge Construction Through Lexical Concepts", November 2017.

Dr Qi Chen (as first supervisor, with Prof Steve Walsh), "Shifting Embodied Participation in Multiparty University Student Meetings" , July 2017.

Dr Tugba Aslan (as first supervisor, with Prof Steve Walsh), "A Micro-Analytic Study of Gossip in Elderly Talk", February 2017.

Dr Sumita Supakorn (as second supervisor, with Prof Paul Seedhouse), "Topic Development in Thai EFL Classes: A Conversation Analytic Perspective", December 2016.

Dr Haia Al-Zaidi (as first supervisor, with Prof Paul Seedhouse), "The Practices of Multiple Other-Initiated Repair in Online Second Language Interaction", November 2016.

Dr Aki Siegel (as second supervisor, with Prof Paul Seedhouse), "Longitudinal Development of Word Search Sequences in English as a Lingua Franca Interaction", February 2016.

Current teaching

I am Module Leader for:

• ALC8012 Language & Social Interaction (semester 1 in 2024-25)

I also contribute to teaching on:

• ALC8003 Research Portfolio
• ALC8021 Multimodal Communication
• HSS8004 Qualitative Methodology in the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences (co-deliver session on Multimodal Analysis, with Spencer Hazel)

Dissertation supervision

As of September 2022, I have supervised:

• 145 MA dissertation projects (known as 'Research Portfolio' on the MA CCC programmes)
• 1 BA dissertation

Previous teaching

Postgraduate courses I have taught or contributed to include:

• Discourse Analysis
• The Social Psychology of Communication
• Sociolinguistics
• Culture, Interculturality and Identity
• Language Learning
• Research Methods in Applied Linguistics
• English in the World

Undergraduate courses I have contributed to include

• Linguistics & Phonetics II: Linguistics Analysis & Pragmatics (sessions on Conversation Analysis)
• Internationalising Your University Experience (sessions on English as a lingua franca, and international Higher Education)

• Articles

  • Greer T, Brandt A, Nanbu Z. Giving directions in virtual reality: Resources for managing fragmented perception. Linguistics and Education 2026, 93, 101491.
  • Brandt A, Leyland C. Digital in-text comments in video-mediated second language writing tutorials: A resource for linking in situ and ex situ engagement. Learning, Culture and Social Interaction 2026, 56, 100960.
  • Brandt A, Hazel S. Towards interculturally adaptive conversational AI. Applied Linguistics Review 2025, 16(2), 775-786.
  • Copur N, Brandt A. Teacher’s squeezed-mouth smile as a practice for managing affiliation in L2 classrooms. Classroom Discourse 2024, 15(3), 256-272.
  • Brandt A, Hazel S, McKinnon R, Sideridou K, Tindale J, Ventoura N. Educating Dora: Teaching a conversational agent to talk. Discourse & Communication 2024, 18(6), 905-916.
  • Copur N, Brandt A. Flagging a turn as humorous with prospective indexicals. Linguistics and Education 2023, 73, 101141.
  • Leyland C, Hazel S, Brandt A. Enabling people living with dementia to make choices during creative workshops: a conversation analysis study of co-creativity, choice-sequences, and the supportive actions of carers. Logopedics Phoniatrics Vocology 2023, 49(3), 114-136.
  • Chen Q, Brandt A. Speakership, Recipiency and the Interactional Space: “Next-speaker Self-selects” Cases in Multiparty University Student Meetings. Journal of Pragmatics 2021, 180, 54-71.
  • Girgin U, Brandt A. Creating space for learning through ‘Mm hm’ in a L2 classroom: Implications for L2 classroom interactional competence. Classroom Discourse 2020, 11(1), 61-79.
  • Tai KWH, Brandt A. Creating an imaginary context: Teacher’s use of embodied enactments in addressing learner initiatives in a beginner-level adult ESOL classroom. Classroom Discourse 2018, 9(3), 244-266.
  • Jenks CJ, Brandt A. Managing Mutual Orientation in the Absence of Physical Copresence: Multiparty Voice-Based Chat Room Interaction. Discourse Processes 2013, 50(4), 227-248.
  • Brandt A, Jenks CJ. Computer-mediated spoken interaction: Aspects of trouble in multi-party chat rooms. Language@Internet 2013, 10, 5.
  • Brandt A, Jenks C. 'Is it okay to eat a dog in Korea...like China?' Assumptions of national food-eating practices in intercultural interaction. Language and Intercultural Communication 2011, 11(1), 41-58.

• Book Chapters

  • Humonen K, Hazel S, Brandt A. Managing public writing in a second language in video-mediated workplace meetings. In: Balaman U; Oittinen T, ed. Video-Mediated L2 Interaction: Conversation Analytic Research. New York: Routledge, 2026. In Press.
  • Kurhila S, Lilja N, Hazel S, Brandt A. Applied and Interventionist Approaches to CA. In: Burdelski M; Greer T, ed. The Routledge Handbook of Conversation Analysis. Routledge, 2026.
  • Brandt A, Mortensen K. Conversation analysis. In: Hua Z, ed. Research Methods in Intercultural Communication. London: Routledge, 2016, pp.297-310.
  • Ikeda K, Brandt A. 言語教室のインタラクション―コミュニケーションの「環境条件」を考える [Microecology of language classroom interaction]. In: Kataoka, K; Ikeda, K, ed. コミュニケーション能力の諸相―変移・共創・身体化― [Various Dimensions of Communicative Competence: Understanding its Fluid, Collaborative, and Embodied nature]. Tokyo: Hitsuji Shobo, 2012.

• Conference Proceedings (inc. Abstracts)

  • Hazel S, Brandt A, He YV, Lim E, Joselowitz J, Ellis Z. Empathy as interactional accomplishment in clinical interactions with a conversational agent. In: The 19th Annual Meeting of the European chapter of the Association for Computational Linguistics (EACL). 2026, Rabat, Morocco: Association for Computational Linguistics.
  • Brandt A, Hazel S, Mckinnon R, Sideridou K, Tindale J, Ventoura N. From Writing Dialogue to Designing Conversation: Considering the potential of Conversation Analysis for Voice User Interfaces. In: CUI '23: ACM conference on Conversational User Interfaces. 2023, Eindhoven, The Netherlands: Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, United States.
  • Hazel S, Brandt A. Enhancing the Natural Conversation Experience Through Conversation Analysis – A Design Method. In: 25th International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction, HCII 2023. 2023, Copenhagen: Springer.
  • Greer TA, Brandt A, Ogawa Y. Identity in intercultural interaction: how categories do things. In: JALT Pan-SIG Conference Proceedings: 12th Annual JALT PanSIG Conference. 2014, Nagoya, Japan: JALT PanSIG.
  • Brandt A. Culture in interaction: What micro-analysis of real life interactions can contribute to the study of intercultural communication. In: BAAL/CUP Applied Linguistics Seminar Programme 2009: Key Themes in Intercultural Communication Pedagogy. 2009, Sheffield: British Association for Applied Linguistics and Cambridge University Press.

• Editorial

  • Brandt A, Hazel S, Leyland C. Journal of Interactional Research in Communication Disorders special issues: Atypical Interaction Conference 2022. Journal of Interactional Research in Communication Disorders 2023, 14(2), 189-194.

• Online Publication

  • Brandt A. On 'interculturality': A review of research applying ethnomethodology to the study of intercultural interactions. Newcastle University, 2008. Available at: http://research.ncl.ac.uk/ARECLS/volume_5/brandt_vol5.pdf.

• Review

  • Zhu H, Dai DW, Brandt A, Chen G, Ferri G, Hazel S, Jenks C, Jones R, O'Regan J, Suzuki S. Exploring AI for intercultural communication: Open conversation. Applied Linguistics Review 2025, 16(2), 809–824.