Gillian Roberts

After finishing her bachelor’s degree in Law and French in her home city of Glasgow, UK, Gillian went on to qualify as a teacher of French and German at University College London and to teach in secondary schools in London before deciding to pursue further study in linguistics. She obtained her master’s degree in English and French Linguistics and Literary Studies from the VUB in 2019. After working as a teaching and research assistant at the KU Leuven’s Department of Linguistics in 2019-20, she was awarded a PhD Fellowship from Research Foundation Flanders (FWO) and started a joint PhD in 2020 at the VUB and KU Leuven, under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Laura Rosseel and Prof. Dr. Eline Zenner. 

In her PhD project, Gillian uses both experimental and ethnographic methods to investigate social evaluations, beliefs and attitudes towards adolescents' use of English elements in Belgian Dutch. 

Selected publications

• Roberts, G., Zenner, E., & Rosseel, L.(2021). Exploring English in TV product advertising for Dutch-speaking children. World Englishes, 1–18. doi/10.1111/weng.12576  
• Roberts, G. (2020). Language attitudes and L2 pronunciation: An experimental study with Flemish adolescent learners of English. English Text Construction 13 (2), 178-211. doi/10.1075/etc.00040.rob