April McMahon

Professor April McMahon is Professor of English Language and Linguistics, and Associate Vice-President for Teaching, Learning and Students, at the University of Manchester. Her AVP role focuses on student conduct and discipline (specifically non-academic misconduct), and on development and philanthropy for student support. 

April has worked in higher education leadership roles for 25 years, most recently as Vice-President for Teaching, Learning and Students at the University of Manchester; she stepped down from this role at the end of July 2025 and is now looking forward to getting back to more teaching! Previously, she held academic posts in Linguistics and leadership roles at the Universities of Cambridge, Sheffield, Edinburgh, Aberystwyth and Kent. 

April was born in Edinburgh and grew up in the Scottish Borders. She was first in her family to go to university - the University of Edinburgh, where she did her MA in English Language and Linguistics, and her PhD. Her experiences have shaped her commitment to equality of access, awarding and progression for all students; partnership working with students; enhancement of teaching quality and student experiences; and recognition and reward for excellence in teaching. 

Linguistics is April's academic field. Her research interests include how and why languages change; the use of computational methods to group languages into families; the evolution of language in humans; and the history of varieties of English and Scots. She has published 13 books and a wide range of articles and book chapters, with recent projects focusing on textbooks and resources for teaching. 
 
April is a Fellow of the British Academy, the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and the Learned Society of Wales; an Honorary Fellow of Selwyn College Cambridge; and a Principal Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. She has been Vice-President and Treasurer of the British Academy since 2024. April has been closely involved with the Teaching Excellence Framework since TEF 2 in 2017, including in both phases of the TEF Subject Pilot; and most recently she was Deputy Chair (Academic) of the panel for TEF 2023. 

In 2025-26 April will be teaching the following course units:

Semester 1

LELA20401 The Changing English Language (co-teaching with Professor Tine Breban). 

LELA60121 Describing Language (sessions on Phonetics and Phonology)

Semester 2

LELA10342 History and Varieties of English (co-teaching with Professor Tine Breban).

Qualifications

MA (Hons.) English Language and Linguistics (First Class), University of Edinburgh, 1986

PhD in English Language, University of Edinburgh, 1990

Doctor honoris causa, University of Edinburgh, 2014

Principal Fellow of Advance HE (PFHEA) 2021

Recognition

Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, 2003

Fellow of the British Academy, 2005

Honorary Fellow, Selwyn College, Cambridge, 2006

Foreign Fellow of the Finnish Academy of Science and Letters, 2008

Elected Member of the Academia Europaea, 2010

Fellow of the Learned Society of Wales, 2012

Treasurer of the British Academy, 2024

Books and peer-reviewed articles and book chapters (since 2010) are below:

Books:

McMahon, April (2020) An Introduction to English Phonology (2nd edition). Edinburgh University Press. 194pp. ISBN 978-1-4744-6368-3 / 978-1-4744-6369-0.

Aarts, Bas, April McMahon and Lars Hinrichs (eds.) (2020) The Handbook of English Linguistics (2nd edition). Wiley-Blackwell. 704pp. ISBN 978-1119540569 / 978-1119540564.

McMahon, April and Robert McMahon (2012) Evolutionary Linguistics. Cambridge University Press. 309pp. ISBN 978-0-521-81450-8 / 978-0-521-89139-4. 

Maguire, Warren and April McMahon (eds.) (2011) Analysing Variation in English. Cambridge University Press. 332pp. ISBN 978-0-521-89866-9.  

Aarts, Bas and April McMahon (eds.) (2006; paperback 2008) The Handbook of English Linguistics. Blackwell. 806pp. ISBN 1-4051-1382-0.  

Matras, Yaron, April McMahon and Nigel Vincent (eds.) (2006) Linguistic Areas, Convergence and Language Change.  Edited by Yaron Matras, April McMahon and Nigel Vincent. Palgrave. 313pp. ISBN 1-4039-9657-1.    

McMahon, April and Robert McMahon (2005) Language Classification by Numbers. With Robert McMahon. Oxford University Press. 265pp. ISBN 0-19-927902-0.  

McMahon, April (2005) Quantitative Methods in Language Comparison. Edited special issue of Transactions of the Philological Society 103.2. 

McMahon, April (2001) An Introduction to English Phonology. Edinburgh University Press. 148pp. ISBN 0-7486-1251-3. Simultaneously co-published by Oxford University Press USA. 

McMahon, April (2000) Change, Chance, and Optimality. Oxford University Press. 201pp. ISBN 0-19-824125-9.   

McMahon, April (2000) Lexical Phonology and the History of English. Cambridge University Press. 309pp. ISBN 0-521-47280-6. 

Renfrew, Colin, April McMahon and Larry Trask (eds.) (2000) Time Depth in Historical Linguistics. 2 volumes. Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research. 681pp. ISBN 1-902937-06-6. 

McMahon, April (1994; reprinted 1996, 1999; Greek translation published 2005) Understanding Language Change. Cambridge University Press. 361pp. ISBN 0-521-446651. 
 
 
Refereed journal articles and book chapters (since 2010): 

Professor Dame Nancy Rothwell, President and Vice-Chancellor and Professor April McMahon, Vice-President for Teaching, Learning and Students, University of Manchester (2023)  'What does the Journey to a Million mean for the University of Manchester?'  UCAS Journey to a Million project, www.ucas.com/J2am.

McMahon, April (2013)  'Issues in the genetic classification of contact languages' . In Peter Bakker and Yaron Matras (eds) Contact Languages:  A comprehensive guide. Amsterdam:  Mouton de Gruyter: 333-62. 

McMahon, April and Warren Maguire (2013)  'Computing linguistic distances between varieties'. In Manfred Krug and Julia Schlueter (eds) Research Methods in Language Variation and Change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 421-32. 

McMahon, April and Warren Maguire (2012)  'Quantitative historical dialectology'.  In Denison, David, Ricardo Bermudez-Otero, Chris McCully and Emma Moore (eds.) (with the assistance of Ayumi Miura). Analysing Older English. (Studies in English Language). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 140-158. 

Kaisse, Ellen and April McMahon (2011) 'Lexical Phonology and the lexical rule syndrome'.  In Marc van Oostendorp, Colin J. Ewen, Elizabeth Hume and Keren Rice (eds.) The Blackwell Companion to Phonology. 5 vols. Malden, MA & Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. Vol. IV: 2237-2257. 

McMahon, April, Thomas Trautmann, and Andrew Shryock (2011) 'Language'. In Andrew Shryock and Daniel Lord Smail (eds) Deep History: The architecture of past and present. University of California Press: 103-130. 

Maguire, Warren and April McMahon (2011)  'Quantifying relations between dialects.'  In Maguire, Warren and April McMahon (eds) Analysing Variation in English. CUP: 93-120. 

Heggarty, Paul, Warren Maguire and April McMahon (2010)  'Splits or waves? Trees or webs? How divergence measures and network analysis can unravel language histories.'  Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B 365: 3829-3843. 

Sullivan, Jennifer and April McMahon (2010)  'Phonetic Comparison, Varieties, and Networks: Swadesh's influence lives on here too.'  Diachronica XXVII(2): 325-340. 

Maguire, Warren, April McMahon, Paul Heggarty and Dan Dediu (2010) 'The past, present and future of English dialects: Quantifying convergence, divergence and dynamic equilibrium.'  Language Variation and Change 22: 69-104. 

McMahon, April (2010)  'Computational models of language contact'.  In Raymond Hickey (ed.) The Handbook of Language Contact. Blackwell: 128-150. 

McMahon, April (2010)  'Perspectives on weakness from English r'.  In Donka Minkova (ed.) Phonological Weakness in English: From Old to Present-Day English. Palgrave: 99-115.