Educational Background

AA in Music - Los Angeles Valley College

TESOL certificate - Canadian Global TESOL Training Institute

BA in English Literature - California State University, Northridge

MA in English Composition and Rhetoric - California State University, Northridge

MA in Linguistics - The University of Manchester

PhD in English Language - The University of Manchester

Teaching

Intercultural Learning

Language Acquisition at Home and School

Key Issues for English Language and Education

Research Methods I and II

PhD Supervision

I would be happy to supervise PhD students with interests in the following broad areas:

Accent/dialect/language and identity

Linguistic prejudice and linguistic rights

Intercultural communication

World Englishes

Books

• I have five books published on academic writing and study skills, a reflection of my days back home in the US teaching English 101.
• This also includes a great deal of online study skills content for SAGE Study Skills: Student Success, with Library Journal naming Student Success one of their best databases of 2023.
• My most recent book publication, How to Read and Write Critically, was published by SAGE in 2021.
• I also have five books published reflecting my interests in linguistic rights and language and identity:

  • Rϋdiger, S. and Baratta, A. (2024). Transnational Korean Englishes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, Forthcoming.

    Baratta, A., He, R. and Smith, P. (2024). Emerging Englishes: China English in Academic Writing. London: Routledge,  Forthcoming.

  • Baratta, A. (2021). The Societal Codification of Korean English. London: Bloomsbury.

  • Baratta, A. (2019). World Englishes in English Language Teaching. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

  • Baratta, A. (2018). Accent and Teacher Identity in Britain: Linguistic Favouritism and Imposed Identities. London: Bloomsbury.

My research interests are largely focused on sociolinguistics (the relationship between language and identity/linguistic rights/linguistic prejudice), pragmatics (intercultural communication) and academic writing from a variety of perspectives, such as the ways that students reveal personal identity in their essays and the linguistic features used to perform this function.I am a Fellow of the UK's Higher Education Academy, a member of the European Association for the Teaching of Academic Writing (EATAW) and the Golden Key International Honour Society, in addition to serving on the editorial board for the Journal of Language Teaching and Research, as well as having been invited to review papers for several other prestigious journals, such as World Englishes. I am also involved with the following organisations:

• Advisory Board member of CIRCE, Counteracting Accent Discrimination Practices in Education
• Member of the UNESCO Inclusive Policy Lab
• Member of Sociolinguistic Futures network between the UK and South Korea, University of Sheffield

Funding

2006-2012: £5165 in funding for three pedagogical projects focused on academic writing: the use of visual pedagogy to teach academic writing; a discussion of the development of an undergraduate student's academic writing throughout a degree programme; and ways in which the services of a writng centre can be improved.

2014: £1261 from the Research and Impact Stimulation Fund, focusing on accent and identity in teacher trainees.

2014: £5000 from the Society for Research into Higher Education (SRHE), for a project investigating religious and academic identity in university students.

2015: £10,190 from the Social Responsibility fund, to continue the study on religion and identity in Higher Education.

2016: £500 from the ESRC to hold an event as part of the Festival of Social Science.

2017: £19,750 from the University of Manchester Research Institute, Pump Priming, to investigate the role that accent plays in mate selection.

2019:  £240.80 from the 'Enhancement of Student Satisfaction and Experience' fund. The project is entitled 'Addressing Academic Culture Shock for Chinese Students'.

I also received funding for £226.02 to present at the ESRC's Festival of Social Science, a presentation entitled 'The English language does not belong to just the English: A discussion of World Englishes in society'

2021 - £3500 awarded from the New Horizons fund, for a project which investigates evidence of China English in students' academic writing

2022 - £800 awarded from the Social Responsibility Catalyst Fund for an outreach project focused on developing high school students' critical thinking skills, entitled 'let's get critical' 

2023: Along with Rui He, I received £818 from the SEED Social Responsibility fund, for a project entitled 'BeePart: International master’s students’ work placement experiences and socio-cultural engagement with Manchester local communities'

I also received £4650 from the the Manchester - Tel Aviv University joint research fund, for a project entitled 'Linguistic imperialism and the demotion of Arabic in Israel'.

2024 - £1400 received from the SEED SR Catalyst Fund.

Writing Centre

I run a SEED-level writing centre, 'Write Away', as well as offering several study skills sessions on various subjects (e.g. how to be critical). Both of these endeavours run throughout the school year. More details can be found here: SEED Study Skills Sessions and Writing Centre

Engagement with schools and widening participation 

Since 2004, I have hosted visiting schoolchildren, as well as visiting schools, in order to give talks regarding my research on accent prejudice, World Englishes and the Ebonics sociolect, as well as much more. I also discuss applying to university, conducting academic research, and Access Manchester. Much of my outreach is a continuation of my role as Associate Director for Widening Participation in SEED (2019-2022), which I continue with, in terms of a/ continuing to give outreach talks, notably with the schools I have established partnerships with; b/ hosting visiting schools here on campus, consisting of more than 300 students alone for 22/23; and c/ engaging with one on one meetings with students to discuss personal statements.

External coverage

• I have led the charge on research into accent prejudice, being the first to call for British accents to be made a protected category.
• My research focused on the role of accents in teaching has been covered extensively:
  • TES; Sutton Trust; Faculti; Babel; Newcastle magazine; European Foundation; Teachwire; SecEd; The Conversation; Language magazine; a Viva Voce podcast; Travel + Leisure; Meet & Engage; Teach First; Personnel Today; BERA blogs; HRreview; Psychology Today; Medium; Stylist; and teacher training beyond Manchester 
• My research has also been featured in foreign media, including the USA, Canada, Finland, Italy, Korea, India, Iran, Pakistan, Spain, Bangladesh, France and UAE, among other countries.
• OFSTED declared that my research into accentism in British teaching had generated 'new evidence'.
• I have been invited to give several external talks, including Teach First; John Smiths bookshops; Zerone Education and Training Ltd; and the UK government, Department of International Trade in the Strategic Inclusion Team, part of their series of talks reflecting their internal Respect at Work campaign.
• My fourth (out of five) article in The Conversation discussing the cinematic character of 007 was the seventh most-read piece in 2022 from University of Manchester academics, read 55,000 times across the UK, US, Bangladesh, India and Pakistan, and republished by Big News Network, Newsify (App), Old Reader, Menafn and Inoreader (RSS reader).
• In 2022, Cambridge University Press & Assessment, the publishing and assessment department of the University of Cambridge, asked permission to use my article in The Conversation on Korean English, for purposes of establishing language tests.
• Consultancy for the company Timbuktu Content, for an AI voice project, October 12 – 13, 2021 
• My article on Korean English (from The Conversation) was used for the Victoria state VCE English language exam in Australia, equivalent to A-level.

Media coverage on a variety of linguistics-based topics

Since 2014, I have given over 100 TV and radio interviews, including the BBC, GB News and LBC. This also includes print media (e.g., People magazine), online dissemination of interviews (e.g., The Bunker, see below), and TV coverage (e.g., Darren McGarvey's Class Wars). The topics include prejudice toward Northern English accents; the benefits of learning foreign languages; and political correctness in language.

Below is a link to my interview with BBC Radio Five on May 7th 2019:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/3zg51jqSv7d2PFvs44qBsyJ/have-you-ever-changed-your-accent-to-fit-in

Here is a link to my interview with The Know Show: Dr. Alex Baratta - Perceptions of accents in UK education | Acaudio

Here is a link to my podcast interview with The Bunker: The Bunker: Why accents speak louder than words on Apple Podcasts

My radio hosting for Teachers' Talk Radio: How to solve the teacher recruitment crisis?: The Late Late Show with Alex Baratta | Teachers Talk Radio

My discussion of movie mistakes involving linguistics: LINGUIST List 35.1474 Disc: Movie mistakes in linguistics

You can also visit my blogs:

• International students’ social engagement in UK local communities | BERA
• http://blog.policy.manchester.ac.uk/british_politics/2017/06/putting-an-accent-on-things-the-need-to-clarify-speech-expectations-for-british-teachers/
• https://www.bera.ac.uk/blog/clarifying-accent-standards-for-british-teachers
• Chinglish versus China English: A need to determine ‘correct’ English among our Chinese students | BERA
• http://blogs.bath.ac.uk/iprblog/2019/02/12/does-social-mobility-require-accent-mobility/
• https://www.wlv.ac.uk/about-us/news-and-events/wlv-blog/2018/accentism--rife-in-modern-britain/blog-accentism--rife-in-modern-britain.php
• https://www.bera.ac.uk/blog/clarifying-accent-standards-for-british-teachers
• https://www.reclaim.org.uk/blog/putting-an-accent-on-class-the-need-for-accent-protection

Fiction

My short stories are published in my book, a collection called 'Sting in the Tale' - seven stories with twist endings. The book is available on Amazon Kindle. All my books - both academic and fiction - can be found by going to Amazon: Amazon.co.uk

Music

My interests also include movies and music, having written a 007 theme song entitled 'The Man Everybody Wants', which Desmond 'Q' Llewelyn said was 'very much in the Bond tradition' and Bond authors Philip Lisa and Lee Pfeiffer (The Incredible World of 007) said the song had 'good potential' and was 'definitely in the style of the early Bond songs'.The song's music video has been performed at several Bond conventions in the US and UK, to include locations such as New Orleans, London and Long Beach, California. The song is also included in the John Cork collection housed at the University of Southern California archives, with Cork a member of the Ian Fleming Foundation. The song is housed in Box 34, Folder 13. The website can be found here: https://oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/c8pz5bbw/entire_text/

The music videos for both songs can be found at the following link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CT2-0WGsV5U

Musicals

Details at http://www.doollee.com & www.americanmusicals.com

• Love from Above - performed in 1991 and 1998 at the Mayflower Club in North Hollywood, California (http://mayflowerclub.com/)
• Between Two Wars
• Only in LA