Joan O’Sullivan informs that she changes email address  – new address is: (omitted) – in connection with taking up a new position with Mary Immaculate College, University of  Limerick, Ireland as course coordinator of a new online MA in Applied Linguistics.  As the course is fully online, Joan suggests it may be of interest to students of SLICERS worldwide. For course details, see http://www.mic.ul.ie/postgradstudies/prospectivestudents/Pages/MAinAppliedLinguistics2015-16.aspx

Also, as I am sure Joan’s PhD will be of interest to SLICERS (and their students) I asked her to send some words about her thesis which she defended in April of 2014 (actually mentioned in the SLICE News of that month). This she has kindly done:

Continuity and change in variety choice in radio advertising in Ireland (1977 to 2007): A language ideological analysis
Joan O'Sullivan

This research examines language ideological change in the Irish context through a longitudinal analysis of variety choice in radio advertising in Ireland from 1977 to 2007. A corpus of radio ads from the years 1977, 1987, 1997 and 2007 is analysed,  firstly at the inter-varietal level in relation to the range of varieties in the corpus, predominantly Irish English and Standard Southern British English (SSBE). Based on the decline of SSBE in the 1997 and 2007 sub-corpora, the second part of the analysis is at the intra-varietal level and focuses on accent sub-varieties of Irish English. The study explores the manifestation of standard and nationalist ideologies, the conversationalisation of discourse and the ideological construction of authenticity.  Standard language ideologies prevail throughout the corpus, firstly in the choice of SSBE over Irish English as the authoritative voice (Piller 2001) in the earlier sub-corpora,  but taking on a new guise in the later years in the form of the choice of prestige Irish English sub-varieties rather than SSBE. These prestige Irish English forms can be seen as a merging of nationalist and standard ideologies and of traditional establishment and vernacular authenticities (Coupland 2003). The notion of authenticity is found to be moving away from traditional conceptions and is based on more creative constructions.

Summer greetings from Ireland (Joan)

and Denmark (Tore)