Dr Ranjan Sen
School of English
Senior Lecturer in Linguistics
+44 114 222 0233
Full contact details
School of English
Jessop West
1 Upper Hanover Street
91直播
S3 7RA
- Profile
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My main research interest is historical phonology, both to reconstruct the sounds of the past and to account for sound change over time. I focus on theories of diachronic phonology which interface with phonetics and morpho-syntax, and collaborate with several heritage and entertainment partners, including museums and actors, to bring reconstructions to life. In addition to phonological theory and historical linguistics, I have research and teaching expertise in phonetics, psycholinguistics, language acquisition, and the history of phonology, and I conduct experimental work to test the cognitive underpinnings of theories of change.
I welcome expressions of interest in PhD and postdoctoral topics in historical or theoretical phonology, comparative philology, and reconstructing past language states and varieties for scholarship, heritage, and entertainment. If you are thinking of conducting research in any of these areas, feel free to email me to discuss possible supervision, projects, or funding.
I also welcome enquiries from anyone working in the heritage or entertainment sectors who is interested in showcasing reconstructed historical voices to engage a wider and more diverse audience, or bring to life a treasured figure from the past.
I completed my doctorate (DPhil) in Comparative Philology and General Linguistics at the University of Oxford in December 2009. My thesis, 鈥楽yllable and Segment in Latin鈥, tackled long-standing problems in Latin phonology as they relate to diachronic explanation in phonological theory, and a developed version was published as a monograph by Oxford University Press in the series Oxford Studies in Diachronic and Historical Linguistics.
Prior to the doctorate, I was awarded the MPhil in General Linguistics and Comparative Philology, and the BA Hons/MA in Literae Humaniores (Classics), both at the University of Oxford.
After the DPhil, I was a Teaching Fellow at University College London in 2009-10, and a Research Associate and Visiting Lecturer at the University of Oxford in 2010, before joining the University of 91直播 School of English in September 2010.
- Research interests
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My primary research focus on phonological reconstruction has a threefold aim:
- Evaluating theories of sound change, mainly the Life Cycle Model (e.g. Berm煤dez-Otero 2015), by establishing and testing their predictions, thus allowing a better evaluation of the much-debated roles of phonetics, structural constraints, and analogical pressures in driving change (e.g. 2016 inaugural article in Papers in Historical Phonology),
- Understanding past language attitudes, which form the bases of contemporary ones (e.g. 2025 article on Keats in Selected Papers from 25th ICHL, Oxford), and
- Reconstructing past voices for practical purposes, bringing linguistics to life in an accessible way for a wider and more diverse audience (e.g. CGI Keats reading his own poetry in original pronunciation on the bicentenary of his death).
I co-created the freely accessible (ECEP) (Beal, Y谩帽ez-Bouza, Sen & Wallis 2015, updated 2023), which allows easy access to rich information from difficult eighteenth-century UK pronouncing dictionaries. I subsequently co-edited the 2020 special issue of English Language and Linguistics, on 鈥楽tudies in Late Modern English historical phonology using the Eighteenth-Century English Phonology database (贰颁贰笔)鈥.
I was the plenary speaker at the major international conference in my field in 2015, the Edinburgh Symposium in Historical Phonology, and have been an invited speaker at the Philological Society and , among others. Based on my expertise, I am contracted to write the minigraph 鈥楶honological Change鈥 in Cambridge Elements in Phonology (Cambridge University Press). My visiting professorship at the University of Toronto (2014) led to an invitation to write the chapter 鈥楾he Greco-Roman tradition鈥 in the 2022 The Oxford History of Phonology (Oxford University Press). I am on the advisory board for Papers in Historical Phonology, and the editorial board for the Edinburgh Studies in Historical Linguistics (Edinburgh University Press).
I have growing international profile in reconstructing historical speech. I have a strong, longstanding relationship with the , with a record of successful collaboration at the interface of academia and public engagement (Keats project in 2021; collaborations on Twain and Byron). I also have good relations with museums and heritage partners, such as the Mark Twain House and Museum (Hartford, Connecticut, USA), and actors, writers, and directors in the entertainment sector.
I constructed the pronunciation for a speaking CGI avatar of the Romantic poet John Keats for the bicentennial of his death in 2021, (over 100 attendees and over 4,000 views on YouTube) to which a stellar cast contributed, from BBC鈥檚 John Simpson to Poet Laureate Simon Armitage. I presented to a broad audience not only how we ascertain historical pronunciations, but also a sociolinguistic assessment of Keats鈥 derogatory labelling as a 鈥楥ockney鈥 poet, which resonates with present-day concerns around dialects in school and the workplace. The successful project garnered significant media attention, e.g. Anna Russell鈥檚 in the New Yorker, 24 March 2021; The Telegraph (6/2/21), The Daily Mail (10/2/21), The Guardian (19/2/21), Observador (Spanish; 32/2/21), La Stampa (Italian; 23/2/21), and Euronews (25/2/21). I subsequently appeared on the inviting a wide audience to consider Keats in his time through my reconstructed pronunciation (several hundred downloads; 13/6/23).
In an international context, I recorded a group based at New York University, Abu Dhabi, a project which aims to give agency, legitimacy, and space to diverse voices in spoken and written expression.
- Publications
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Books
Journal articles
- . Diachronica, 40(5), 666-682.
- . English Language and Linguistics, 24(3), 471-474.
- . Digital Scholarship in the Humanities, 33(1), 203-227.
- . Papers in Historical Phonology, 1(-), 5-36.
- . Phonology, 29(3), 465-504.
- Vowel-weakening before muta cum liquida sequences in Latin: a problem of syllabification?. Oxford University Working Papers in Linguistics, Philology & Phonetics, 11, 143-161.
- The Life-Cycle Model of phonological change. Diachronica, 40(5).
- En[dj]uring [失]unes or ma[tj]ure [胜]ukes? Yod-coalescence and yod-dropping in the Eighteenth-Century English Phonology Database. English Language and Linguistics(3).
Chapters
- Towards a corpus of eighteenth-century English phonology In Davidse K, Vandelanotte L, Gentens C & Kimps D (Ed.), Recent Advances in Corpus Linguistics: Developing and Exploiting Corpora (pp. 31-54). Amsterdam: Brill/Rodopi.
- 'Exon鈥檚 Law and the Latin syncopes' In Probert P & Willi A (Ed.), Laws and Rules in Indo-European (pp. 205-226). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- Diachronic phonotactic development in Latin: the work of syllable structure or linear sequence? In Cairns CE & Raimy E (Ed.), Handbook of the Syllable (pp. 417-441). Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers.
- Resurrecting rhymes, reasons and (no) rhotics: Reconstructing Keats鈥檚 pronunciation In Kennard H, Lindsay-Smith E, Lahiri A & Maiden M (Ed.), Historical Linguistics 2022. Selected Papers from the 25th ICHL Amsterdam: Benjamins.
- The Greco-Roman Tradition In Dresher BE & van der Hulst H (Ed.), The Oxford Handbook on the History of Phonology Oxford University Press
Website content
Working papers
- Research group
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I am a member of the Centre for Linguistic Research and the Muses, Mind, Machine research centre. I work within the theoretical, historical, and sociolinguistic research groups within the School of English.
I welcome expressions of interest in PhD and postdoctoral topics in historical or theoretical phonology, comparative philology, and reconstructing past language states and varieties for scholarship, heritage, and entertainment. If you are thinking of conducting research in any of these areas, feel free to email me to discuss possible supervision, projects, or funding.
I also welcome enquiries from anyone working in the heritage or entertainment sectors who is interested in showcasing reconstructed historical voices to engage a wider and more diverse audience, or bring to life a treasured figure from the past.
I have been the second supervisor for PhD dissertations on testing the Prosodic Transfer Hypothesis regarding the realisation of English inflectional markers by Bengali speakers (Jacqueline Ingham), and the influence of audio-visual media on the phonetic productions of Chinese learners of English (Chen Zhang). I have acted as internal examiner on PhD theses in Historical Linguistics, Syntax, and Language Acquisition.
I have previously supervised UG and MA theses in Phonology, Historical Linguistics, and Psycholinguistics in subjects ranging from feature theory and tonal phenomena to first- and second-language speech production, as they relate to phonological theory.
- Teaching activities
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I teach the undergraduate courses at all levels on Phonology (Sounds of English, Linguistic Theory, Phonology, Research Practice) and at level 3 on Psychology of Language. I also contribute to Historical Linguistics teaching on topics related to sound change, comparative philology, and language reconstruction.
I have previously taught courses on Advanced Phonological Theory, Phonetics (articulatory and acoustic), Phonological Acquisition and First Language Acquisition, Syntax and Morphology, and Latin Historical Linguistics.
- Professional activities and memberships
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I am the Honorary Treasurer of the , the oldest learned society in Britain devoted to the scholarly study of language and languages, and a member of the .
Within the School of English, I am the Undergraduate Admissions Officer for English Language and Linguistics and the convenor and co-founder of 鈥楲ingLunch鈥, the main linguistics forum at 91直播 (research talks, feedback discussions, personal/career development). I was previously the Director of English Language and Linguistics for five years, a Staff Review and Development Scheme reviewer, and the Director of Impact.
Finally, I aim to connect with audiences outside academia by conducting outreach events with local schools and colleges (e.g. 鈥楲inguistics for STEM鈥), presenting accessible research to young audiences. In this context, I was a pronunciation expert on a BBC news report (BBC Breakfast 30/8/23), helping to shape public opinion on the importance of pronouncing place names accurately.