Dr Kinga Kozminska

Overview

Biography

In my research, I study how transnational actors go about localizing and extending themselves into multiple locations and how this impacts the connection between their conceptual and material worlds. Drawing on situated audio and audio-visual recordings collected during ethnographic projects, I examine how contemporary changes in sensory modalities influence adherence to linguistic norms and sociolinguistic innovation, and how this may impact group formation processes.

I examine scale-making practices among transnational individuals and groups, their embodied enactments and entanglement in network cultures and specific rearrangements of materials. I analyze both how sensorimotor capacities are entangled in bodily experiences and how they are embedded in their sociocultural and technological contexts. So far, I have focussed on the relationship between the self, others, time and space in the context of multipresence in various sites and Polish migrations to London and South-East England.

My latest research interests centre around voice-enabled technologies and questions of AI ethics from a sociolinguistic perspective. Here I'm interested in the societal impact of AI-powered speech recognition and machine translation technologies in the context of non-standardised speech. 

I am particularly interested in contemporary soundscapes, emerging Englishes, non-standardised speech, language ideologies, bodily semiotics, scale-making practices, voice AI. I welcome opportunities for interdisciplinary collaborations.

Qualifications

• DPhil, University of Oxford, 2016

Research

Research interests

• contemporary linguistic soundscapes, speaking style, language ideologies, non-standardised speech, sensory modalities, voice AI and AI ethics, embodied cognition, language contact, emerging English, ethnography, audiovisual methodologies, qualitative and quantitative methods, storytelling

Research overview

In my research, I study how transnational actors go about localizing and extending themselves into multiple locations and how this impacts the connection between their conceptual and material worlds. Drawing on situated audio and audio-visual recordings collected during ethnographic projects, I examine how contemporary changes in sensory modalities influence adherence to linguistic norms and sociolinguistic innovation, and how this may impact group formation processes. My recent chapter Language and Transnationalism in Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Anthropology gives an overview of these ideas. 

My research examines scale-making practices among transnational individuals and groups, their embodied enactments and entanglement in network cultures and specific rearrangements of materials. I analyze both how sensorimotor capacities are entangled in bodily experiences and how they are embedded in their sociocultural and technological contexts. So far, I have focussed on the relationship between the self, others, time and space in the context of multipresence in various sites and Polish migrations to London and South-East England.

I am particularly interested in contemporary soundscapes, emerging Englishes, language ideologies, non-standardised speech, bodily semiotics and scale-making practices. Part of my work focuses on the sonic dimension of discourse, which involves working with both qualitative and quantitative methods. This part serves as a basis for my recent book, Soundings and the Politics of Sociolinguistic Listening for Transnational Space, published by Bloomsbury Academic in January 2024.

I have also worked with film as a research technique and published some findings from a large-scale two-year-long ESRC-funded Family Language Policy project, which examined how through the use of human and non-human entities transnational cultures and projects were woven in the everyday life at various intersections of society. This part of my work focuses on the dynamics of multiparty talk, scale-making and distributed agency.

My latest research interests centre around voice-enabled technologies and questions of AI ethics from a sociolinguistic perspective. Here I'm interested in the societal impact of AI-powered speech recognition and machine translation technologies in the context of non-standardised speech. 

I welcome opportunities for interdisciplinary collaborations.

Supervision and teaching

Supervision

I welcome enquiries from prospective PhD students who are interested in undertaking research in any of my areas of research interest. I am particularly interested in projects on language ideologies, soundscapes,  sociolinguistics of globalisation, intersectional sociolinguistics, linguistic norm adherence/innovation.

Teaching

At Birkbeck, I teach long-term modules in Analysing Language Structure and Use and Sociolinguistics at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. I also contribute to a range of team taught modules, e.g. Empirical Research Skills Training Workshop, Investigating Language, Reading Transnational Cultures. I am now developing new modules in contemporary and global Englishes. Finally, I am the Programme Director for the new BA English and/with Linguistics and School lead for Postgraduate Taught Degrees.

In addition to Birkbeck, I have also taught at e.g. the University of Oxford, University of Brighton. My teaching experience includes a range of modules in sociolinguistics and linguistic anthropology, researching English language use, general linguistics, phonetics and phonology, global Englishes, multilingualism as well as qualitative and quantitative research methods at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. I have also taught modules and seminars in contemporary English, transnational cultures, text design and language and media.

Additionally, in 2018, I conducted invited seminar sessions on language ideologies and family language practices to MA and PhD students of linguistics, cultural studies and history at Universität Greifswald; which focused on the connection between linguistic and cultural issues and changes in civil society. In 2019, I was invited to design&conduct workshops at Aarhus School of Architecture in Denmark, where I introduced BA and MA students of architecture to social theories of space, storytelling, qualitative research methods and data analysis.

Teaching modules

• Contemporary and Global Englishes (Level 5) (ARLL001H5)
• Analysing Language Structure and Use (level 5) (LNLN012S5)
• Research Methods and Design (LNLN019S7)
• Introduction to Applied Linguistics (LNLN076S7)
• Independent Literature Review (SSAC012S7)

Publications