Clyde is a member of the the Centre for Language, Discourse & Communication (ECS research group). Her work in the field of applied linguistics involves (digital) discourse analysis, corpus linguistics, corpus-assisted discourse studies/CADS, pragmatics and ethnography.

She has explored discourses in a range of professional/communication contexts – education, ELT, the media, tourism, intercultural and email communication. An interest in social cohesion – particularly in heterodox discourses capturing stories of integration, tolerance and shared identities – underpins all her research.

Clyde co-organises the 'Corpus research in linguistics and beyond' seminar series. She has also developed the Multilingual Education in The Gambia Hub which notably supports the organisation of a Reading Group & Forum on Language in The Gambia.

Research

Multilingual education – Clyde is interested in multilingual education approaches in contexts where English or French co-exist alongside other languages, e.g. in formerly colonised and/or low resource contexts. She is currently focussing on the practical and other challenges and opportunities facing teachers in the multilingual classrooms of The Gambia.

'Multilingual education in The Gambia’ (2018-2021; GCRF and ECS Seedcorn funding), for example, explored the introduction of literacy lessons in the national languages (Mandinka, Fula, Wolof, Jola, Serahule, Serer and Manjaku) in grades 1 to 3 (more information about her research projects). This project drew on the tools of sociolinguistics, ethnography and participatory action research.

Corpus-assisted discourse studies (CADS) - Clyde's research combines the methods of analysis available in corpus linguistics (e.g. exploration into keyness, collocation analysis) and discourse analysis (e.g. metapragmatic comment analysis). She performs these analyses using a range of digital tools such as corpus software and qualitative data analysis software. Her work therefore lies in the field of corpus-assisted discourse studies/CADS which contends that this combination of methods can enhance the quality of linguistic analyses in multiple ways. Clyde is also interested in interdisciplinary applications of corpus linguistics/CADS research.

Discourse, identity and peaceful relations – This strand of her work is interdisciplinary and started with a collaboration with anthropologists at the University of Birmingham as part of the five-year ERC project 'Knowing each other: Everyday religious encounters, social identities and tolerance in southwest Nigeria'. This work concerns inter-religious relations in settings characterised by religious diversity, proximity, and little religious conflict. Clyde uses digital corpus tools to explore anthropological textual data.

Discourse and the natural world – In her linguistic work on discourses about animals, Clyde takes interest in the lines of difference we establish between ourselves – humans – and other animals. Questions this work addresses mainly regard the place animals occupy in our society and how we perceive animals (including cross-cultural variation). Topics central in this work are human-animal relations, posthumanism and anthropomorphism. Clyde was a research fellow on the three-year Leverhulme project: 'People', 'Products', 'Pests' and 'Pets': the discursive representation of animals, which remarkably combined corpus linguistics and discourse analysis.

Teaching

Clyde currently teaches on the following programmes:

• MA ELT & Applied Linguistics
• MA TESOL
• MA Language & Cultural Diversity
• BA English Language and Linguistics

PhD supervision

Clyde welcomes applications from PhD candidates interested in using/exploring the following methodologies or topics:

• Language in education policy and practice.
• Multilingual education.
• Corpus-assisted discourse analysis.
• Discourse about the natural world, media discourse and inter-religious discourse.

Further details

For further details about Clyde's research outputs and activities visit her  Research Staff Profile.

In this short video below, Clyde talks about her toolkit of multilingual resources for primary schools