Dr Amanda Patten BA MA PhD

Photograph of Dr Amanda Patten

Department of Linguistics and Communication
Associate Professor in Historical Linguistics
Head of Education for the School of EDACS

Contact details

Address
Frankland Building
University of Birmingham
Edgbaston
Birmingham
B15 2TT
UK

I am an Associate Professor in Historical Linguistics in the Department of Linguistics and Communication. I am also the Head of Education for the School of EDACS.

Qualifications

  • PhD English Language, University of Edinburgh, 2010
  • MA Historical Language Studies (research track), University of Sheffield, 2005
  • PGCE Secondary English 11–18, University of Sheffield, 2004
  • BA English Language with Linguistics, University of Sheffield, 2003

I am a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

Biography

I joined the Department of English Language and Linguistics in 2016. Prior to this, I was a Senior Lecturer in English Language and Linguistics at Northumbria University.

Teaching

At undergraduate level, I teach the modules History of the English Language and Language Change. I also teach a postgraduate level module on Exploring English Grammar

Postgraduate supervision

I am particularly interested in supervising MA and PhD research in the areas of:

Historical linguistics and language change
Construction grammar and the relationship between form and meaning
Information packaging constructions and other specialised linguistic patterns
Pattern Grammar and the relationship between words and grammar


Find out more - our PhD English Language and Applied Linguistics  page has information about doctoral research at the University of Birmingham.

Research

I am interested in the structure and function of English grammatical constructions, and how they change over time. 

Much of my work has focused on English information packaging constructions. In my 2012 monograph, I examined the development of the English it-cleft from a constructional perspective. My current research in this area is on the topic of copular constructions and inversion sentences.

Other activities

  • I am the Head of Education for the School of English, Drama and Creative Studies.

Publications

Recent publications

Article

Patten, A & McSorley, E 2019, 'Addressing the vocabulary gap using the pattern grammar approach', Impact, no. 6. <https://impact.chartered.college/article/addressing-the-vocabulary-gap-pattern-grammar-approach/>

Perek, F & Patten, A 2019, 'Towards an English constructicon using patterns and frames', International Journal of Corpus Linguistics, vol. 24, no. 3, pp. 354–384. https://doi.org/10.1075/ijcl.00016.per

Patten, A 2018, 'Well-formed lists: Specificational copular sentences as predicative inversion constructions', English Language & Linguistics, vol. 22, no. 1, pp. 77-99. https://doi.org/10.1017/S136067431600040X

Chapter (peer-reviewed)

Patten, A & Perek, F 2022, Pedagogic applications of the English Constructicon. in HC Boas (ed.), Directions for Pedagogical Construction Grammar: Learning and teaching (with) constructions. Applications of Cognitive Linguistics [ACL], vol. 49, De Gruyter, pp. 179-216. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110746723-007

View all publications in research portal