Dr Lawson’s current research activity centres on the intersection of language and masculinities in a range of online and offline contexts, including newspapers, television shows, social media sites, and fatherhood forums. He has also written extensively on language and impact and has developed ways of integrating applied language studies into undergraduate curricula, helping students foster internal and external collaborative partnerships to investigate language use in a range of institutional and organisational contexts. He is also working on an international collaboration about discourses surrounding climate activism in online spaces.
Dr Lawson’s research investigates the intersection of language and masculinities in a range of online and offline contexts, including newspapers, television shows, social media sites, and fatherhood forums. As part of this research programme, he is leading on a major edited volume which brings together chapters from 20 international academics to examine language and masculinities in video games, social media sites, esports, and other digital contexts.
He has also written extensively on applied language studies and has developed new module provision which gives students the opportunity to foster internal and external partnerships across a range of institutional and organisational contexts. His current work examines the language of fatherhood, exploring how fathers support one another and discursively construct their identities as parents. Beyond linguistics, he has published on male supremacism, radicalisation, and extremism, as well as issues to do with distressing data, sensitive topics and researcher wellbeing.
Monographs
2023. Language and Mediated Masculinities: Cultures, Contexts, Constraints. Oxford: Oxford University Press (ESSE Award Winner 2024)
Edited Volumes
In preparation. Discourses of Digital Masculinities. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
2016. Sociolinguistic Research: Application and Impact. Oxon: Routledge (with Dr Dave Sayers).
2014. Sociolinguistics in Scotland. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
JOURNAL SPECIAL ISSUES
In preparation. Editor of “Language unleashed: The anatomy of hate speech in contemporary discourse” Special Issue of Anglistica AION (with Professor Giuseppe Balirano and Dr Giuseppina Scotto di Carlo).
2023. Editor of “Intersections of Gender, Sexuality and Media Discourse” Special Issue of Discourse, Context & Media (with Dr Laura Coffey-Glover).
Journal Articles
Under review. Becoming BAME: A socio-linguistic analysis of the rise and problematisation of racialised terminology in the UK. Social Identities (with Professor Sarita Malik and Matt Gee).
2023. Introducing mediated discrimination: Intersections of gender, sexuality and media discourse. Discourse, Context & Media, 56: 100739 (with Dr Laura Coffey-Glover).
2023. “Sorry to hear you're going through a difficult time”: Investigating online discussions of consumer debt. Applied Corpus Linguistics, 3(2): 100056 (with Professor Andrew Kehoe, Dr Ursula Lutzky and Matt Gee).
2022. Discussing -splain: At the intersection of prescriptivism, language policing and moral gradience. Language under Discussion, 6(1): 54-60 (with Dr Ursula Lutzky).
2021. Comparing manual and computational approaches to theme identification in online forums: A case study of a sex work special interest community. Methods in Psychology, 5: 100065 (with Dr Pelham Carter, Matt Gee, Hollie McIlhone and Harkeeret Lally).
2020. Language and Masculinities: History, Development, Future. Annual Review of Linguistics, 6. 409-434
2019. Gender politics and discourses of #mansplaining, #manspreading, and #manterruption on Twitter. Social Media+Society (with Dr. Ursula Lutzky).
2016. Not getting a word in edgeways? Language, gender and identity in a British comedy panel show. Discourse, Context & Media, 13: 143-153 (with Dr. Ursula Lutzky).
2014 ‘Don’t even [θ/f/h]ink aboot it’: An ethnographic investigation of social meaning, social identity and (θ) variation in Glasgow. English World-Wide, 35 (1): 68-93.
2013. The construction of 'tough' masculinity: Negotiation, resistance and acceptance. Gender & Language, 7 (3): 369-395.
2011. Patterns of Linguistic Variation among Glaswegian Adolescent Males. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 15 (2): 226 - 255.
PEDAGOGY ARTICLES
Under review. Teaching for impact: Fostering career readiness to help linguistics students navigate the dance with capitalism. Language: Teaching (with Dr Anna Marie Trester).
2022. Language, masculinities and the English curriculum: Tackling online radicalisation. Teaching English, 28: 57-62.
2019. Managing the competing pressures of curriculum design in HE: The sector, the institution, the discipline, and the student experience. Educational Developments, 20 (3): 14-17 (with Dr Sarah Wood).
Reports
2022. BAME: A report on the use of the term and responses to it (Terminology Review for the BBC and Creative Industries). Sir Lenny Henry Centre for Media Diversity (with Professor Sarita Malik, Professor Marcus Rider, Dr Stevie Marsden and Matt Gee).
Book Chapters
Forthcoming. Variation in Scotland. In Emma Moore and Chris Montgomery (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of British Englishes. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
2024. Manipulation, masculinity, and discourses of online radicalisation. In Daria Dayter and Sofia Rüdiger (eds.), Manipulation, Influence, and Deception: The Changing Landscape of Persuasive Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
2018. English and social identity. In Stephen Pihlaja, Ann Hewings, and Philip Seargent (eds.), The Routledge Handbook in English Language Studies. Oxon: Routledge (with Dr. Esther Asprey).
2016. A different drum: Social media and the communication of sociolinguistic research. In Robert Lawson and Dave Sayers (eds.), Sociolinguistic Research: Application and Impact, 171-192. Oxon: Routledge.
2016. Where we’re going, we don’t need roads: The past, present, and future of impact. In Robert Lawson and Dave Sayers (eds.), Sociolinguistic Research: Application and Impact, 1-22. Oxon: Routledge (with Dr. Dave Sayers).
2015. Fight narratives, covert prestige and performances of ‘tough’ masculinity: Some insights from an urban centre. In Tommaso M. Milani (ed.), Language and Masculinities: Performances, Intersections, Dislocations. Oxon: Routledge. 53-76.
2014. Introduction: An overview of language in Scotland. In Robert Lawson (ed.), Sociolinguistics in Scotland. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. 1-14.
2014. What can ethnography tell us about sociolinguistic variation over time?: Some insights from Glasgow. In Robert Lawson (ed.), Sociolinguistics in Scotland. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. 197-219.
As an expert commentator on sociolinguistics, Dr Lawson has extensive experience of engaging with media outlets, with regular appearances on BBC Radio Scotland, BBC West Midlands, and BBC Coventry and Warwickshire, as well as contributing to articles in The Radio Times, The Herald, Metro, Vox, The Scotsman, The Guardian, The Telegraph, Teen Vogue, The Journal, and iNews.
He is also a regular contributor to The Conversation and has written articles about Andrew Tate, language and male supremacism, and the language of COVID-19, in addition to blog posts about language in Mock the Week, language learning post-Brexit, language and masculinities in media spaces, and the gendered dimension of emotional labour in academia.
He has presented at a variety of public events, including Pint of Science and has appeared on several podcasts, including Today, Explained, The Ferret Fact Service, the Insights Podcast, the Oxford Comment, the Commons Podcast, Women in Comedy, and the Arlene Bynon Show.
Dr Lawson is keen to explore collaborations with industry partners, drawing on his knowledge of range of applied language studies methodologies. As module leader for the final year Applied Sociolinguistics module, Dr Lawson has extensive experience working with students to develop projects which investigate the role of language in different organisational and institutional contexts. Partners have included the Wolverhampton Art Gallery, the Black Country Museum, and a range of university departments within BCU. Details of these partnerships can be found here.
