Dr Gavin Brookes FRSA, FGCA, FHEA

Reader

Research Overview

I am a Reader in Linguistics and English Language based in the School of Social Sciences. In my research, I explore the relationship between discourse and social life. At this interface, I am particularly interested in how identities are discursively negotiated and represented with respect to issues such as health and illness, the environment and animal rights, and gender and sexuality. I use a wide range of methodological approaches in my research, but have a particular interest in corpus linguistic, critical and multimodal approaches to discourse studies.

I am a Fulbright scholar and currently hold a UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship. As part of this Fellowship, I lead a team on the '' research programme. As part of this research, funded in total approximately ?2 million by UKRI, my team and I examine linguistic and visual representations of dementia across a range of public contexts. Alongside this, we also work with stakeholder partners and advocacy groups to develop ways of communicating about dementia which promote genuine awareness of, and challenge stigma around, dementia.

Fellowships and awards

  • UKRI Future Leader Fellow (since 2022).
  • Fulbright All-Disciplines Award (2024).
  • Fellow of the (since 2022).
  • Associate Fellow of the (since 2023).
  • Fellow of the (since 2023).

Editorial roles

  • Associate Editor of the (John Benjamins).
  • Co-Editor of the book series (Bloomsbury, with Prof. Michaela Mahlberg).
  • Co-Editor of the Camebridge Elements series, (Cambridge University Press, with Prof. Veronika Koller).
  • Section Co-Editor for the Corpus Linguistics section of the Elsevier Encylopedia of Language and Linguistics (Elsevier, with Dr David Wright).
  • I currently serve on the editorial boards of the following journals: , , , , , , , , , .

Funding council roles

  • Academic Advisor on the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) Assessor College.
  • Member of the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) .
  • Member of the Expert Review College for .
  • Formerly: member of the ESRC ; member of the AHRC .

Subject association roles

  • Elected member of the Executive Committee of the .
  • Formerly: Elected member of the Executive Committee of the (BAAL); Elected both as Convenor and Communications Officer of BAAL's .

  • 01/04/2026 → 31/03/2029
    Research

  • 31/03/2024 → 31/12/2026
    Research

  • 01/01/2022 → 31/03/2026
    Research

  • 01/08/2019 → 31/07/2022
    Research

  • 01/04/2019 → 31/03/2023
    Research

  • 29/02/2016 → 29/10/2016
    Other

  • 01/09/2015 → 31/08/2016
    Other