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Biak (West Papua, Indonesia) is an endangered language with no previously established orthography. Dalrymple and Mofu's ESRC-supported project created the first on-line database of digital audio and video Biak texts with linguistically analysed transcriptions and translations (one of the first ever for an endangered language), making these materials available for future generations and aiding the sustainability of the language. Biak school-children can now use educational materials, including dictionaries, based on project resources. The project also trained local researchers in best practice in language documentation, enabling others to replicate these methods and empowering local communities to save their own endangered languages.
Joan Beal's research on dialect and identity has had far-reaching educational impact. Her publications are widely used in other HEIs (both in the UK and abroad) and in secondary school teaching, with economic benefits for publishers. She has also influenced curriculum reform through her consultancy for AQA, the largest provider of academic qualifications for 14-19 year olds in the UK. Beyond education, her role as a media commentator and as a consultant for the British Library Sociolinguistics & Education department has led to greater public understanding of the significance, and persistence, of dialect as a means of constructing and expressing identity.
This case study describes a unique collaboration between Professor Clive Upton and researchers at the University of Leeds, the BBC and the British Library (BL), examining language variation. As a result of a programme assembling and researching the largest recorded archive of dialects and speech patterns assembled in the UK, two major interlinked forms of impact were generated:
i. Informing public understanding of dialect and English language use, thereby validating diverse regional and national identities.
ii. Contributing to the professional practice and goals of the BBC and the BL through policy enhancement, training, and developing broadcast and exhibition content.
This research by Professor Yaron Matras produced tools to promote awareness of the Romani language through popular websites, online documentation, learning resources and audio-visual educational materials. It also produced policy papers which prompted the launch of a European Language Curriculum Framework for Romani. This led to the consistent monitoring and reporting by governments on policy to promote Romani through the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Professor Matras was responsible for establishing the first-ever online multi-dialectal dictionary in any language. `Romlex currently offers an online lexical database of 25 Romani dialects with search and translation facilities in 14 different target languages.
QMUL research into Multicultural London English (MLE) substantially contributes to the delivery of the GCE A level English Language curriculum and, since 2010, the GCSE English curriculum, which both have a compulsory focus on spoken English. MLE figures in 3 school textbooks and in a new QMUL online English Language Teaching Resources Archive that now receives 18 000 - 20 000 hits per month. The QMUL Resources Archive addresses difficulties in delivering the spoken English curriculum faced by teachers who are mainly trained in literature, not linguistics. Teachers and students benefit from new teaching resources including accurate linguistic commentaries on MLE sound clips and accessible summaries of linguistic research published in recent journals. The impact extends to the delivery of English Language curricula in EFL Colleges and HEI institutions worldwide, and to a wider public understanding of language change in London English.
Talk of the Toon is an online resource that preserves the cultural heritage of North Eastern English dialects giving users unprecedented access to multimedia material spanning five decades. Researchers collaborated with regional museums in this initiative during the Diachronic Electronic Corpus of Tyneside English (DECTE) project (2010-2012), thereby providing them with new avenues for the public to benefit from their collections. The pedagogical resources generated have also significantly benefitted primary and secondary education. Building on regional engagement initiatives through targeted national/international workshops, the impact has also reached beyond the HEI and region to a wider range of educators and students worldwide.
When an effective orthography and literacy materials are lacking for a language, its speakers are disadvantaged in today's knowledge-based world, because education and information cannot be delivered effectively. In South Sudan, even the largest language communities are in this predicament. Our research results on lexical and grammatical contrasts of voice quality, vowel length and tone have enabled us to assist three language communities (Dinka, Shilluk, and Bari) to develop literacy resources. This is a contribution to increasing the pace of social, economic and political development in South Sudan.