Room: NW910

Phone: 0121 204 3045

Email: [email protected]

Twitter: @tahmineh_tayebi

I am a Senior Lecturer in Forensic Linguistics in the Department of Communication and Culture and Aston Institute for Forensic Linguistics. Since January 2024, I have been the Director of Undergraduate English and English Language and Literature programmes.

I am also the research coordinator and lead for HALO (Harmful and Abusive Language Online) within Aston Institute for Forensic Linguistics where we focus on the role of language in the composition and dissemination of hateful and dangerous ideologies online.

My research interests lie at the intersection of pragmatics, im/politeness theory, language aggression, corpus linguistics and forensic linguistics. My expertise is in the area of in online offensive language, cyberbullying, online abuse and hate speech. I explore how language is used to inflict harm in digital spaces and the implications of such communication in legal and social contexts. I also have an interest in analysing the role of the ‘offendee’, or rather the ‘victim’, in online abuse and bullying and how it can potentially lead to proposing preventative measures. 

• 2024-Present: Cluster Coordinator for HALO, AIFL
• 2024-Present: Programme Director for Undergraduate English
• 2021-2023: Member of the Aston Institute for Forensic Linguistics Research Ethics Committee
• 2019-2020: Staff-Student Committee Lead

Podcast

Episode 6: Coping with Success: Online abuse in football. Aston University Euro 2020-The Business and Science of Football. (Published 07/2022)

Online abuse: Understanding what’s offensive. Aston University Society Matters Podcast. (Published 2/2021)

Blog post and Online Magazines:

Taking Offence – Linguistic Impoliteness and the Hearer. Emagazine, (Published 09/2020)

Why people take offence. The Conversation, UK. (Published 3/2020)

Undergraduate modules

I have been involved in leading and teaching the following modules: 

• Written Text Analysis
• Language of the Law
• Language as Evidence
• Language at Work
• English Language across Time and Space
• English and Society
• Practical Applications of Linguistics

Postgraduate modules

• Discourse Analysis
• Linguistics in Legal Contexts
• Language as Evidence

11/2020         £4000 seed-corn funding from Aston Institute for Forensic Linguistics on a project Abuse and Harassment on Social Media: A Case Study of anti-abortion Campaigns against Stella Creasy, with Pam Lowe

2014-2018 AUD 25,392, PhD Scholarship, Monash Graduate Scholarship

2014-2018 AUD 119, 864, PhD Scholarship, Monash International Postgraduate Scholarship

I would be happy to talk to prospective PhD applicants interested in any of the following areas: Pragmatics, Discourse Analysis, Forensic Linguistics, Im/politeness theory, Cyberbullying, Language aggression and conflict.

Current PhD Students:

Natascha Rhode (Main supervisor) Title: The Incel Rebellion has already begun! Escalation of gender-based violence in computer-mediated discourse.

Neus Alberich (Main supervisor ) Title: Discursive construction of sexual consent in the ‘manosphere’: a corpus-assisted discourse analysis of online fora posts.

Jenna Elliot (Main supervisor) Title: A corpus assisted critical discourse analysis of the manifestos of mass shooters in the United States.

Noorin Iqbal (Main supervisor) Title: A linguistic analysis of religious hate speech by Indians against Islam and Muslims of India on Instagram.

Eden Palmer (Associate supervisor) Title: A corpus-assisted discourse analysis of linguistic transphobia on a British parenting forum, 2010-2023.

Karolina Placzynta (Associate supervisor) Title: Intersections of hate speech in moderated social media content. A discourse analysis study.

PhD in Linguistics, Monash University, Australia 

MA in Applied Linguistics, University of Isfahan, Iran

BA in Translation Studies, University of Isfahan, Iran