Dr Kate Scott

As the head of department for Humanities, I have responsibility for overseeing the learning and teaching across a suite of undergraduate and postgraduate programmes. I have designed, taught and assessed modules across all university levels (3-7), and I have supervised a range of undergraduate and taught MA dissertations.

I have a particular interest in developing effective employability-focused modules, and am currently redeveloping materials across two core modules to incorporate live briefs and scenario-based assessments. 

As course leader for English Language and Linguistics (2017-2020), I oversaw the introduction of criteria-based marking, and I have disseminated this work at a School Learning and Teaching event. The good practice developed in this area is now being rolled out across the department.

I am currently writing a textbook on pragmatics for Cambridge University Press which is scheduled to be published as part of the Cambridge Introductions to the English Language series in 2021.

In 2014 I secured an HEA grant of £1000 to organise a cross-university workshop entitled ‘Teaching in Linguistics: Creativity and Innovation in Practice'. The workshop attracted over 40 registrations from more than 15 institutions throughout the United Kingdom. A range of invited speakers shared innovative practice on a range of topics related to the learning and teaching of English Language and Linguistics

I am an external examiner for the BA English Language and Linguistics at the University of Kent.

Qualifications and expertise

• Postgraduate Certificate in Learning and Teaching in Higher Education
• Certificate in English Language Teaching to Adults
• Fellow of the Higher Education Authority (FHEA)

Undergraduate courses taught

• Creative Writing and Film Cultures BA (Hons)
• Creative Writing BA (Hons)
• Drama and Creative Writing BA (Hons)
• Drama and English BA (Hons)
• English BA (Hons)
• Media Skills BA (Hons) top-up
• Media & Communication BA (Hons)
• Publishing with English BA (Hons)

My research focuses primarily on the pragmatics of language, and I have applied ideas from the relevance theory pragmatic framework to a range of data and texts. My PhD thesis focused on the pragmatics of reference, and this work has since been published as a monograph by Cambridge University Press. 

A second key strand of my research focuses on the pragmatics of digitally-mediated communication. I am currently preparing a monograph for Routledge on the Pragmatics of Online Language and my journal article on the pragmatics of hashtags has been cited over 100 times. I'm currently preparing papers on the pragmatics of sharing, memes and clickbait.

I am currently developing a funding bid to use insights from the psychology of music to explore the use and interpretation of intonation in language. This draws on work I have published both on intonation in English and on procedural meaning in pragmatics and relevance theory. In 2019 co-edited a volume published by Cambridge University Press which brought together the most influential and cutting edge scholars working in relevance theory. This was launched with a research workshop which I organised and at which I presented my work.

In a final strand of my research, I have applied ideas from relevance theory to the analysis of literary texts, including a paper on the typography of written texts. 

I have supervised a PhD on the pragmatics of second language acquisition (Brighton University) and an MA by Research on tagging practises on the social media site Tumblr. I welcome proposals from prospective students working in pragmatics, reference, relevance theory, intonation or digitally-mediated communication. 

I regularly review for a number of academic journals and sit on the scientific committees of two international conferences.

Qualifications and expertise

• Research Director of Writing Cultures Research Group, Kingston University

Areas of specialism

• Pragmatics
• Digitally-Mediated Communication
• Prosody and Intonation
• Reference
• Relevance Theory

Scholarly affiliations

• UCL Summer Course in English Phonetics

Publications

Since May 2019 I have been the head of department for Humanities. I oversee the day-to-day running of the Foundation, Undergraduate and Postgraduate programmes in  humanities subjects, and I also have overall responsibility for the Kingston Language Scheme (KLS) and the English for Academic and Professional Development Programme (EAPD) provision.

University responsibilities

• Head of Department of Humanities