Background and activities

Research overview

Most of my research deals with phonological and grammatical variation in London, focussing on variation and change in vowel systems. I was a senior research associate at Lancaster University in the United Kingdom (2004-2010) working on the Economic and Social Research Council-funded projects Multicultural London English: the emergence, acquisition and diffusion of a new variety and Linguistic Innovators: The English of adolescents in London. I have also worked on variation in speech rhythm and voice quality, and I was the principal investigator on on a study on indefinite articles and pragmatic markers in London English funded by the British Academy (Analysis of London English using corpus tools, 2008).

Other research interests are in experimental phonetics and speech processing, especially models for word recognition. My PhD (Temporal and semantic factors in perception of the voicing contrast: Processing strategies in L1 and L2, University of Reading, 2004) was a psycholinguistic study on speech processing strategies in second language learners and native speakers of English. In particular it examined how language learners use phonetic and semantic information very early in time after the information was received.

Over the last few years I have been working on acquisition of English in multilingual classrooms in Norway and have held funded projects in this area.

Research grants

Acquisition of English in the multilingual classroom (with Anna Krulatz); The Research Council of Norway, 2018-2022

Increasing teacher awareness about the positive impact of multilingualism on the acquisition of English (with Anna Krulatz); Sør-Trøndelag University College, 2015

Multilingualism in Trondheim public schools: Raising teacher awareness in the English as a Foreign Language classroom (with Anna Krulatz and Anne Dahl); The Norwegian Ministry of Education and Research, 2014

Analysis of London English using corpus tools; The British Academy, 2008

Current teaching and supervision

I supervise Dianna Walla who is a PhD student working on the project Acquisition of English in the Multilingual Classroom.

I am a Visiting Professor (Professor II) at Nord University where I teach phonetics and co-supervise a PhD student, Tone Stuler Myhre.

ORCID iD iconorcid.org/0000-0001-9370-7416

Scientific, academic and artistic work

Displaying a selection of activities. See all publications in the database

2020

  • Kerswill, Paul; Torgersen, Eivind Nessa. (2020) Tracing the origins of an urban youth vernacular: founder effects, frequency and culture in the emergence of Multicultural London English. Socio-grammatical Variation and Change - In Honour of Jenny Cheshire.
  • Torgersen, Eivind Nessa. (2020) Language and Street Culture in the Big City. Routledge Handbook of Street Culture.

2019

2018

2017

  • Krulatz, Anna; Torgersen, Eivind Nessa. (2017) Lingvistiske og sosiale fordeler av flerspråklighet - Fra forskning til pedagogisk praksis innenfor engelskfaget. Mangfold gjennom anerkjennelse og inkludering i skolen.

2016

  • Kerswill, Paul; Torgersen, Eivind Nessa. (2016) London’s Cockney in the twentieth century: stability or cycles of contact-driven change?. Listening to the Past - Audio records of Accents of English.
  • Krulatz, Anna Maria; Torgersen, Eivind Nessa. (2016) The Role of the EFL Classroom in Maintaining Multilingual Identities - Issues and Considerations in Sør-Trøndelag Public Schools. Critical Views on Teaching and Learning English Around the Globe Qualitative Research Approaches.

2015

2014

2013

  • Cheshire, Jenny; Fox, Sue; Kerswill, Paul; Torgersen, Eivind Nessa. (2013) Language contact and language change in the multicultural metropolis. Revue Française de Linguistique Appliquée. vol. 18 (2).
  • Kerswill, Paul; Cheshire, Jenny; Fox, Sue; Torgersen, Eivind Nessa. (2013) English as a contact language: the role of children and adolescents. English as a Contact Language.

2012

2011

2010

2008

2004