Hannah Davidson
BA (Southampton), MA (Freiberg), MPhil (Oxon), DPhil (Oxon)
College roles
Joyce Lambert Research Fellow (B)
Postgraduate Mentor
Biography
Dr Hannah Davidson is a linguist specializing in Mauritian Creole and multilingualism. Hannah studied French, German and Linguistics at the University of Southampton before completing an M.A in European Linguistics at the University of Freiburg, Germany. Before coming to Oxford for her M.Phil, Hannah spent 6 months as an administrative trainee at the Interpretation Department of the European Commission in Brussels. In Oxford, Hannah specialized in Mauritian Creole for her AHRC-funded M.Phil and D.Phil degrees, investigating the development of Mauritian pre-verbal tense, mood and aspect markers. Before coming to Newnham, Hannah worked as a Postdoc and Outreach Officer in Linguistics at the University of Oxford and as a Postdoc in language education at the University of Reading.
Research Interests
Dr Hannah Davidson has a particular interest in language contact, language change and language attitudes towards Creole languages as well as Telugu and Mauritian Bhojpuri; two Indian languages spoken both in India and as endangered ancestral languages in Mauritius. Hannah is currently researching discourse markers (words such as ‘let’s say’ and ‘you know’) across multilingual contexts, exploring how they emerged and which social factors can explain their usage.