Staff Profile

I am a sociolinguist specialising in discourse-pragmatic and later-life language variation and change.

Internal roles

Director of Research (linguistics) (2025)

Member of the NUCoRE Ageing & Inequalities (2021-) (education lead)

Previous internal roles: Head of English Language and Linguistics (2020-2023); PG Director, taught programmes (SELLL) (2016-19); Chair of the PGT Board of Examiners (2016-19); Chair of the PG Board of Studies & PG Committee (2016-19); PGR Director (linguistics) (2013-15); Degree Programme Director IPhD in linguistics/English language (2013-15); Ethics convenor (SELLL) (2013-16); Visiting speaker co-ordinator (linguistics) (2013-14); CRiLLS executive board member (2012-15); Schools liaison officer (2012-13).

External roles

editorial board member Journal for Language and Aging Research (2022-)

editorial board member Te Reo (2018-)

member of the ESRC Peer Review College (2015-)

Previous external roles: member of the Northern Bridge studentship committee (2018); founding Chair of the Discourse-Pragmatic Variation & Change steering committee (2012-2018); Committee member Linguistics Association of Great Britain (membership secretary) (2010-2015); member of the ESRC Doctoral Training Partnerships Peer Review College (2016); Editor of Ampersand (sociolinguistics & pragmatics) (2014-16)

My research interests include:

- language variation & change (specifically discourse-pragmatic & morpho-syntactic variation & change)

- language variation and mental health

- later-life language

- narrative analysis 

See further: https://heikepichler.weebly.com/research.html 

SEL3413: Language and ageing 

• Articles

  • Pichler H. Performing language variation to promote sociolinguistic equality. Journal of English Linguistics 2025, (ePub ahead of Print).
  • Heim J, Cuskley C, Woods R, Barber J, Donnelly H, Hu R, Sharma A, Pichler H. A flexible model for exposing and mitigating the hidden curriculum in the transition to higher education. Open Scholarship of Teaching and Learning 2024, 3(2), 30-55.
  • Pichler H. In support of researching later-life language variation and change. Journal of Language and Aging Research 2023, 1(1), 17-21.
  • Pichler H. Grammaticalization and language contact in a discourse-pragmatic change in progress: innit in London English. Language in Society 2021, 50(5), 723-761.
  • Pichler H, Wagner SE, Hesson A. Old‐age language variation and change: Confronting variationist ageism. Language and Linguistics Compass 2018, 12(6), e12281.
  • Hesson AM, Pichler H. Breaking Down Barriers in Pediatric Mental Health Consultations: Understanding Patients’ Use of I DON’T KNOW. Health Communication 2018, 33(7), 867-876.
  • Hesson A, Pichler H. Interpreting "I don't know" use by persons living with dementia in Mini-Mental State Examinations. Patient Education and Counseling 2016, 99(9), 1534-1541.
  • Pichler H, Hesson A. Discourse-pragmatic variation across situations, varieties, ages: I DON'T KNOW in sociolinguistic and medical interviews. Language & Communication 2016, 49, 1-18.
  • Pichler H, Levey S. In search of grammaticalization in synchronic dialect data: general extenders in northeast England. English Language and Linguistics 2011, 15(3), 441-471.
  • Pichler H. Methods in discourse variation analysis: Reflections on the way forward. Journal of Sociolinguistics 2010, 14(5), 581-608.
  • Pichler H. The functional and social reality of discourse variants in a northern English dialect: I DON'T KNOW and I DON'T THINK compared. Intercultural Pragmatics 2009, 6(4), 561-596.

• Authored Book

  • Pichler H. The Structure of Discourse-Pragmatic Variation. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2013.

• Book Chapters

  • Pichler H, Cheshire J. Discourse-pragmatic variation in England. In: Fox S, ed. Languages in the British Isles. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2024, pp.128-150.
  • Pichler H. Afterword: future directions in discourse-pragmatic variation and change research. In: Peterson L; Hiltunen T; Kern J, ed. Discourse-Pragmatic Variation and Change : Theory, Innovations, Contact. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022, pp.293-300.
  • Pichler H. Tagging monologic narratives of personal experience: utterance-final tags and the construction of adolescent masculinity. In: Beaman, K; Buchstaller, I; Fox, S; Walker, J, ed. Advancing Socio-Grammatical Variation and Change: Sociolinguistic Research in Honour of Jenny Cheshire. London: Routledge, 2021, pp.377-398.
  • Pichler H. Uncovering discourse-pragmatic innovations: innit in Multicultural London English. In: Pichler, H, ed. Discourse-Pragmatic Variation and Change in English: New Methods and Insights. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2016, pp.58-81.
  • Pichler H. Introduction: discourse-pragmatic variation and change. In: Pichler, H, ed. Discourse-Pragmatic Variation and Change in English: New Methods and Insights. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2016, pp.1-17.

• Conference Proceedings (inc. Abstract)

  • Levey S, Pichler H. Revisiting transatlantic relatives: evidence from British and Canadian English. In: Methods in Dialectology. 2020, Tachikawa, Japan: Peter Lang.

• Edited Book

  • Pichler H, ed. Discourse-Pragmatic Variation and Change in English: New Methods and Insights. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2016.

• Editorial

  • Pichler H, Truswell R, VandePoel K, VanOlmen D, Watson K. Editorial. Ampersand 2015, 2, 70-71.

• Review

  • Pichler H. Analysing Variation in English by Warren Maguire & April McMahon (eds.) [Book review]. Journal of English Linguistics 2013, 41(2), 204-207.

• Working Papers

  • Pichler H, Levey S. Variability in the co-occurrence of discourse features. Language Studies Working Papers 2010, 2, 17-27.
  • Pichler H. Form-function relations in discourse: the case of I DON'T KNOW. Newcastle Working Papers in Linguistics 2007, 13, 174-187.