The Team
Leigh Oakes is Principal Investigator of the Ethics of Linguistic Integration (ELI) project and Professor of French and Linguistics at Queen Mary University of London. His research focuses broadly on language policy and planning, language and national identity, and language attitudes and ideologies, especially in the contexts of Quebec, France and Sweden. In recent years, he has become particularly interested in the linguistic justice debate, helping to develop the emerging interdisciplinary field of ‘normative language policy’, which seeks to integrate research in applied linguistics, sociolinguistics and normative political theory. The themes of migration and integration feature in many of his publications, including Normative Language Policy: Ethics, Politics, Principles (with Yael Peled, 2018), Language, Citizenship and Identity in Quebec (with Jane Warren, 2007) and Language and National Identity: Comparing France and Sweden (2001). He is co-editor-in-chief of Sociolinguistica: European Journal of Sociolinguistics and the Multilingual Matters book series.
Yael Peled is a Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity (MPI MMG). Working primarily under the mantle of a language ethicist, her main research interests focus on the ethics, politics, and policy of linguistic diversity, and the phenomenon of interdisciplinarity in academic research. Yael’s highly interdisciplinary research programme draws on philosophy, political science, linguistics, and medicine. She is the author of Normative Language Policy: Ethics, Politics, Principles (with Leigh Oakes, 2018) and the co-editor of Language Ethics (with Daniel Weinstock, 2020). Her work has appeared in core (trans-)disciplinary journals, including the American Political Science Review, the Journal of Politics, the Journal of Applied Philosophy, Metaphilosophy, Global Justice, Citizenship Studies, Language Policy, the Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, Language Problems and Language Planning, Bioethics, AMA Journal of Ethics, Philosophical Psychology and Science.
As Senior Lecturer in International Politics at Aberystwyth University, Huw Lewis conducts research in contemporary political theory, language policy and debates concerning multiculturalism and nationalism. His recent publications include New Geographies of Language (with Rhys Jones, 2019) and Language Revitalisation and Social Transformation (with Wilson McLeod, 2021). His work has also been published in prominent peer-reviewed journals, including Political Studies, Policy & Politics and the Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development. Previously he was the PI for the AHRC-funded ‘Revitalise’ research network, which brought together an international group of researchers, policy practitioners and civil society organisations working on regional or minority languages.
Gwennan Higham is Senior Lecturer at Swansea University, specialising in Welsh sociolinguistics, particularly the linguistic integration of international migrants in Wales. Her research is international in scope, including comparative work with French in Quebec. Amongst her most recent publications is ‘Developing personal integration projects through a Welsh language provision for adult migrants in Wales’ (2024). Her work has also been published in prominent peer-reviewed journals including Language Policy and the Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development. She has contributed to Europe-wide and international research projects including as Co-I for the Erasmus+-funded project ‘Communication competences for migrants and disadvantaged background learners in bilingual work environments’ (2016-2019) and as a Working Group Lead for COST Action IS1306 ‘New Speakers in a Multilingual Europe’ (2013-2017). She is in a unique position within the ELI project to consider the lived experiences of linguistic integration thanks to her educational background in teaching Welsh to adult migrants, and her three-year (2022-2025) impact research project on developing the Welsh language within the English for speakers of other languages (ESOL) provision in Wales. Moreover, her theoretical approach to the questions of multiculturalism and interculturalism aligns with the project’s vision to create a systematic and interdisciplinary framework for investigating the ethics of linguistic integration.
Jude Caithness (he/him) is a PhD student at Queen Mary University of London, specialising in French language and applied linguistics in Canada. His research has previously investigated grammar, language policy and planning, nationalism, and linguistic and sociocultural differences between Francophone Canadians and European French speakers. Jude holds a BA in French and Linguistics from the University of Manchester (2019-2023) and an MA in Cross-Cultural Communication and Applied Linguistics from Newcastle University (2023-2024). Applying the innovative interdisciplinary methodology of the overall ELI project, his PhD thesis will examine linguistic integration in the specific context of Quebec, a theme that is of particular concern on account of the minoritised status of French within the Canadian Federation as a whole. Jude’s other contributions to the project include maintenance of the website and articles written in support of the wider project aims.
Margo completed her undergraduate degree in Spanish and International Politics at Aberystwyth University in 2021. This led to her Masters in Philosophy looking at Spanish Literature from the 19th Century, with the Department of Modern Languages, also at Aberystwyth. This research project focused on exploring the use of art in literature to convey morals, using a hermeneutic lens developed by Hans George Gadamer. Margo’s work aims to examine abstract concepts in the context of day-to-day life.