Sonja Schaeffler

When I was a teenager there was a bus direct from my hometown in Germany to London - we had a British army base, and this direct bus connection was one of the benefits of that. One summer I went on that bus to go volunteer in an old people's home in Southend-on-Sea. I had just turned 18 and was... 🧵

29.09.2025 12:32 — 👍 846    🔁 391    💬 21    📌 116

Come to QM! <3 Lots of #appliedresearch #coproduction #userengagement - just expect having to fight twice as hard for any kind of research income and with that research time, career progression etc.

02.10.2025 14:40 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

Oh well done @adrianleemann.bsky.social and team!! Wonderful news for the entire variation community as well! Really encouraging to see that in amongst budget cuts and ever increasing competitiveness, dialect research is still seen as worth the money. Hooray!

01.10.2025 07:33 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

A few months ago, this was my hometown's reaction to a backroom chat about 'remigration' of some minor political aides: 1 milliion out on the streets in protest, of a population of 2 million. Compare and contrast.

22.09.2025 12:29 — 👍 2    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

A fluorescent sign saying "Men online pick-up"

At our local H&M. Don't you love Pragmatics?

17.09.2025 17:18 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

Yup! I agree!! That's what I said!

10.09.2025 15:44 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

Students with research poster

Preparing for poster session

Student research poster on formants

Student research poster om short-term memory

This week our 2nd year undergrads in speech and language therapy at @qmuniversity.bsky.social completed their research methods module with poster presentations, and I'm very proud of them!
Amazing work, studying accent attitude, short term memory, ultrasound tongue imaging, formants and more!

05.04.2025 10:07 — 👍 2    🔁 1    💬 0    📌 0

My book "Researching Language and Digital Communication" is hereeee.

It may just be the most camp discussion of DMC so far. Including analyses of:

- Dolly Parton memes
- TikTok videos of Jungle and Billie Eilish
- anonymous Grindr profiles

18.02.2025 10:53 — 👍 80    🔁 18    💬 11    📌 0

My lovely collaborator and PhDMama @vkempe.bsky.social is at it again. It's always worth challenging established scientific truths. This is how we make progress and future-proof our field.

09.09.2025 14:46 — 👍 2    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

A new academic year is ramping up. Have you considered adding us to your syllabus?

Podcasts episodes are a great way to add variety & boost engagement, and they offer a launchpad for exploration. A number of instructors have used our episodes to good effect!

(Let us know if you're among them!)

05.09.2025 17:39 — 👍 19    🔁 8    💬 0    📌 0

That sounds like a fab series of lectures on good #OpenScience practice, brought to you by Alma Mater #LMU

05.09.2025 16:46 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

Strengthen your skills in:
🔄 Computational reproducibility,
💻 Writing readable and reusable code,
🌍 Open access publishing,
✍️ Making your own work more likely to be replicable, and more.
Lots of valuable insights for students, researchers, and anyone interested in embracing open science practices!

05.09.2025 09:59 — 👍 3    🔁 1    💬 0    📌 0

You know how much I love a good paper/ project title! #uklvc15 #sociolinguistics

05.09.2025 16:18 — 👍 5    🔁 3    💬 0    📌 0

Not sure who wants to know this but after a year of interacting with ChatGPT 4o with memory I asked it to score my personality on all the models (Big5, HEXACO, Dark+Light Triad). All I can say - it knows me very well.

17.07.2025 09:13 — 👍 3    🔁 1    💬 1    📌 1

Staying with me after yesterday's #uklvc15 poster session is Schaeffler et al.'s point that Child-Directed Speech was different in soviet East Germany than in the West. Less influence on individualism influences CDS phonetic features!

#acquisition #linguistics #sociolinguistics #contextmatters

03.09.2025 06:34 — 👍 7    🔁 2    💬 1    📌 0

Very proud of our PhD students who did a great job presenting their work! 🎉

Janet Coulson with "Caught in the
act: Capturing interactional style-shifting in bidialectal speakers through improvisation"

And Ciera Haggar with "Characteristics Influence Listener Perceptions of Personality"

04.09.2025 09:34 — 👍 1    🔁 1    💬 0    📌 0

An A4 sheet stuck on a bollard signposting the way to the conference venue

A PhD student standing in front of her poster in conversation with a conference attendant.

Another PhD student standing in front of her poster in conversation with a conference attendant.

Our wee 'Accent Variation in Scotland/ by Scots' delegation at #UKLVC15.

03.09.2025 17:05 — 👍 3    🔁 1    💬 1    📌 0

Awww but it was brilliant! I would have never known had I not seen you again a few hours after. Hope you feel better soon!

05.09.2025 07:34 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0

Just back from #UKLVC15 in Lancaster. Huge thank you to the organising committee (special shout-out to Claire Nance!) who managed to make it relaxed, relevant and rigorous, all at once. Fab conference.

05.09.2025 07:10 — 👍 8    🔁 1    💬 0    📌 0