Staff Profile

Biography

I joined SELLL in September 2019 as a Lecturer in Language and Cognition and was promoted to Senior Lecturer in 2022. I work within mainstream generative linguistics and I am interested in the interfaces between different language modules: how does syntax interface with semantics and pragmatics? How does a child's innate language endowment interact with her input and with other cognitive processes? How does acquiring and using multiple languages differ from monolingual acquisition and language use?

In addition to conducting research and teaching in linguistics, I am SELLL's academic lead for employability and engagement. I'm always looking for ways to improve students' experiences at university, especially for students from 'non-traditional' or 'widening participation' backgrounds, as I was a first-generation university student. 

I am also interested in sharing linguistics with wider audiences outside academia. I have written for The Conversation and Babel, spoken on Voice of Islam DAB radio, and I am shortlisted for the AHRC-BBC New Generation Thinkers scheme 2023.

Past academic positions

2015-2019 Senior Lecturer in Language Acquisition, University of Huddersfield

Education

2012-2016 PhD Linguistics, University of York
Fall 2014 Visiting student, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
2011-2012 MA Psycholinguistics, University of York
2006-2010 BA French and Linguistics, University of Sheffield

A life before academia...

Prior to becoming an academic I had a range of jobs including graduate trainee librarian, English language assistant in France, lifeguard and leisure attendant, bar staff, retail, waiting staff, and French-English translator and proofreader.

Notes

I am on research leave in September 2022-January 2023. I will be undertaking a visiting scholarship at Leibniz-Zentrum für Sprachwissenschaft in Berlin in April-May 2023.

I am primarily interested in questions, both main and embedded. I am trying to understand their syntax, semantics, discourse properties and acquisition.

I also work on clausal embedding, particularly embedded Verb Second and discourse particles, and on codeswitching in multilingual communities.

Past projects have included bilingual first language acquisition, dative constructions, clitic doubling, sentential adverbs and possessives.

Please note that I do not work on language education (e.g. second language learning, children's literacy etc.) so if you are interested in pursuing further study in an area of language education, please contact other colleagues in the first instance.

Since 2019:

Semester 1
SEL1008 Nature of Language

Semester 2
SEL1028 Introduction to the Structure of Language II: Meaning strand
SEL2230/8683 Multilingualism

• Woods R. A different perspective on embedded Verb Second: Unifying embedded root phenomena. In: Rebecca Woods & Sam Wolfe, ed. Rethinking Verb Second. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020, pp.297-322.
• Woods R, Roeper T. Rethinking auxiliary doubling in adult and child language: How verb-movement turns propositions into illocutionary acts. In: Rebecca Woods & Sam Wolfe, ed. Rethinking Verb Second. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020, pp.835-861.
• Wolfe S, Woods R. Introduction. In: Rebecca Woods & Sam Wolfe, ed. Rethinking Verb Second. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020, pp.1-11.
• Woods R, Wolfe S, ed. Rethinking Verb Second. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020.
• Woods R. Towards a model of the syntax-discourse interface: a syntactic analysis of please. English Language and Linguistics 2020, n/a, n/a.
• Tsoulas G, Woods R. Predicative Possessives, Relational Nouns, and Floating Quantifiers. Linguistic Inquiry 2019, 50(4), 825-846.
• Woods R. 'Like' isn't a lazy linguistic filler - the English language snobs need to, like, pipe down. The Conversation, 2019. Available at: https://theconversation.com/like-isnt-a-lazy-linguistic-filler-the-english-language-snobs-need-to-like-pipe-down-122056.
• Woods R. Embedded inverted interrogatives: investigating the acquisition of non-canonical embedded questions. In: Bart Hollebrandse, Jaieun Kim, Ana T. Perez-Leroux and Petra Schulz, ed. UMOP 41: T.O.M. and Grammar: Thoughts on Mind and Grammar: A Festschrift in Honor of Tom Roeper. Amherst, MA: GLSA, 2018, pp.179-194.
• Woods R. Embedded Inverted Questions as Embedded Illocutionary Acts. In: 33rd West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics. 2016, Simon Fraser University, Vancouver BC: Cascadilla Proceedings Project, Somerville, MA, USA.
• Woods R. Modelling the syntax-discourse interface: a syntactic analysis of 'please'. In: 23rd Conference of the Student Organization of Linguistics in Europe. 2016, University Paris Diderot, Paris, France: Leiden University Centre for Linguistics.
• Woods R. The acquisition of dative alternation by German-English bilingual and English monolingual children. Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism 2015, 5(2), 252-284.
• Woods R, Heim J, Wallenberg J. Input beyond the Threshold: Explaining Auxiliary Initial Assertions in a British English Early Talker. In: West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics 39. 2021, University of Arizona, Tucson AZ [online]: Cascadilla Proceedings Press.
• Woods R, Vicente L. Metacommunicative-why fragments as probes into the grammar of the speech act layer. Glossa: A Journal of General Linguistics 2021, 6(1), 1-32.
• Woods R, Roeper T. The Acquisition Path of 'High' Negation in English. In: 45th annual Boston University Conference on Language Development (BUCLD 45). 2021, Boston University, Boston MA [Online]: Cascadilla Proceedings Press.