Professor Becky Muradás-Taylor

Profile

I am Professor of Languages and Linguistics and Director of Programme Design in the School of Languages, Cultures and Societies. I also manage our Languages for All provision. 

Prior to joining the University of Leeds, I worked at York St John University where I had a variety of roles including Associate Head for Curriculum Development in the School of Education, Language and Psychology.

I completed my PhD at the University of Nagoya, Japan, in second language phonology, title: 英語話者による日本語の語アクセントの習得 [The acquisition of Japanese lexical accent by English speakers].

I am a keen advocate of languages other than English (LOTE). I speak Japanese (I wrote my PhD thesis in Japanese) and Spanish.

Research interests

I research the learning and teaching of languages other than English by English speakers. 

My doctoral research was on the second language acquisition of Japanese pitch accent. The way Standard Southern British English, and other Englishes, use pitch as intonation makes it difficult to use pitch to differentiate word meanings when learning Japanese. 

My recent research is on the language education crisis. I explore factors behind falling numbers of people studying languages at school and university and have made maps showing cold spots in language degree provision in England. 

I also investigate how we can design language degree programmes sustainably. 

PhD students

I welcome applications for PhD research in topics related to second language phonology, language education or language policy in relation to English-speaking users of other languages.

Lindsey (Lixin) Chen. The Antonym Construction: A Comparison between English and Mandarin. Completed 2024. 

Mian Feng. Finding the place of West Yorkshire and Glaswegian vowels in the Chinese phonological system: Perception of English accents by Chinese EFL learners. 

Qualifications

• PhD (Nagoya University, Japan)
• MA (Nagoya University, Japan)
• MSci (University of Cambridge, UK)
• FHEA

Student education

I am Director of Programme Design in the School of Languages, Cultures and Societies. I manage our Languages for All provision. I teach second language phonology at MA level and supervise MA dissertations. 

Current postgraduate researchers

• Mian Feng