Professor Susan Hunston, OBE for services to Higher Education and Applied Linguistics

We are delighted to announce that Professor Susan Hunston has been awarded an OBE for services to Higher Education and Applied Linguistics.

Her achievements have received international acclaim. She began her career as one of the leading researchers on the pioneering COBUILD project, which involved the creation and analysis of the first electronic body of contemporary text, the Bank of English, and the production of the world’s first dictionary based on entirely authentic language (as opposed to the intuitions of linguists about how language works). This has now become the default method of writing dictionaries and the approach has been adopted by all major publishers worldwide. Professor Hunston also played a key role in what is widely recognised as one of the outstanding achievements of Twentieth Century linguistics: the development of Pattern Grammar, which changed how dictionaries, course books and grammar books are written. Finally, her reconceptualization of Appraisal Theory has shaped our understanding of the ways in which people form and express evaluation.

Professor Hunston said: ‘I’m really thrilled at this honour. It’s great that the international importance of Applied Linguistics is being recognised in this way.’