Dr Nathaniel Dziura
School of English
Teaching Associate in English Language and Linguistics
- Profile
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I have been at Sheffield since 2014, completing three degrees here in English Language and Linguistics. In 2023, I finished my PhD, supervised by Prof Emma Moore and Dr Robyn Orfitelli, and have since been working as a Teaching Associate.
- Qualifications
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- MA: English Language and Linguistics, The University of Sheffield - 2019
- BA: English Language and Linguistics, The University of Sheffield - 2017
- Research interests
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In my PhD research, I explored the influence of cultural attitudes and membership to a minority community (the LGBTQ+ community) on Polish migrants' acceptance of non-standard English grammar. I am also interested in grammatical variation and change in Sheffield English and have recently co-authored a chapter on dialect levelling in the city over the past 40 years. I enjoy both experimental and more qualitative methodologies, and also have experience with statistical analysis and data visualisation in R.
- Grants
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- White Rose College of the Arts and Humanities PhD Studentship - 2018-2022
- John Roach Scholarship (Sheffield Postgraduate Scholarship) - 2017
- Teaching activities
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I have been a module convenor since 2023 and a Graduate Teaching Assistant since 2019. My key teaching activities have been:
- Convening the Level 3 Language and Gender module, and co-convening the Level 2 Sociolinguistics module in 2023-24 and 2024-25
- Convening the MA English Language and Linguistics seminar module in 2023-4
- I teach/have taught seminars for several other modules:
- Structures of English (Level 1)
- Varieties of English (Level 1)
- Sounds of English (Level 1)
- Linguistic Theory (Level 1)
- Syntax (Level 2)
- I enjoy getting involved in student outreach and widening participation, having worked as a student ambassador for the English department and the university's student recruitment team throughout my studies, and, more recently as a staff open day specialist.
- In 2022, I was invited to speak to pupils at John Leggott college, discussing employability and studying linguistics, and I also introduced my research to prospective students at the Realising Opportunities Virtual National Student Conference. In 2023, I taught for the Linacre Institute on their Stepping Stones Summer School programme, presenting a 'taster' of higher education study, to encourage pupils from socioeconomically deprived areas to apply to university.
- Professional activities and memberships
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I am an Associate Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and have peer reviewed papers for Language Variation and Change, and Journal of Languages, Texts and Society. During my PhD, I co-organised the ShefLing Postgraduate Conference (2019) and was head organiser of HaCKS: 'Historical and Contemporary Knowledgebase in Sociolinguistics' Student Led Forum (2018-2019). In 2017-18, I held a position as a research assistant on the ''Perspective and the Self in Natural Language (PERSNAL)" project.
- Presentations
- Dziura (2021) ‘Morphosyntactic variation and identity in LGBTQ+ Polish-born speakers of British-English’, Poster at New Ways of Analyzing Variation (NWAV) 49, University of Texas at Austin
- Dziura (2021) ‘Variation and acculturation: Language and identity in LGBTQ+ Polish migrants to England’, UCL SSEES Polish Studies Research Group annual conference: Polish Migration in the age of ‘staying at home’, University College London
- Dziura, Vriesendorp, & Liu (2021) '“How to use the experiment builder GORILLA for linguistic research": Gorilla Behavioural Science Software showcase', LingLunch, University of Sheffield
- Dziura (2019) '“Language Is Flexible but People Are Not”: Being Non-Binary in Polish vs English’, Poster at International Conference on Language Variation in Europe (ICLaVE) 10, Fryske Akademy, Leeuwarden
- Dziura (2019) ‘Variation and Acculturation: Morphosyntax and Queer Polish Speakers of British English’, Lavender Languages and Linguistics (LavLang) 26, University of Gothenburg
- Dziura (2019) ‘Morphosyntactic Variation in the L2 English of LGBTQ+ Polish Migrants in the UK’, Copenhagen Winterschool in Sociolinguistics 3, University of Copenhagen
- Dziura (2017) ‘‘Genderlect’ in a Spectrum: Language Used by Non-Binary People, Women, and Men’, Poster at Postgraduate Academic Researchers in Linguistics at York (PARLAY), University of York