Senior Lecturer, Department of Communication and Culture and Aston Institute for Forensic Linguistics

Email: [email protected]

Office: NW905

During 25/26, I teach on Advanced Leadership and Management Communication (UG) and Spoken Encounters with Policing (PG).

I previously taught on the modules;

- Spoken Discourse Analysis (UG)
- Introduction to Language Study (UG)
- Introduction to Intercultural Communication (UG)
- Leadership and Management Communciation (UG)
- Analysing Discourse (PG)
- Reading and Wellbeing (PG)
- Dissertation Supervisor (PG)

I have taught on organisational communication and healthcare communication at the Univerisity of Nottingham and Birkbeck, University of London. I am also an expereinced tutor in delivering CPD courses to practitioners.

Current:

• Jordan Robertson - The perception of silence in police-suspect interviews (Aston University, primary supervisor)
• Lauren Morgan - BSL-interpreted police investigative interviews (Aston University, associate supervisor)

Sarah Atkins is a linguist who conducts applied research on professional communication, with her work at Aston focussing on forensic/legal contexts. She completed her PhD at the University of Nottingham and subsequently held posts at King’s College London (Knowledge Transfer Partnership) and the University of Nottingham (PI, Economic and Social Research Council Future Research Leaders award), where she worked on projects researching the assessment of spoken communication for postgraduate doctors. She was then a member of Linguistic Profiling for Professionals, University of Nottingham, conducting linguistic consultancy projects with a range of external organisations. She has also worked for the Centre for Sustainable Working Life, Birkbeck, University of London, researching spoken interaction in Schwartz Center Rounds®, which are supportive forums for healthcare staff to discuss the emotional and ethical complexities of their jobs.

As a member of the Aston Institute for Forensic Linguistics, she has worked on a number of collaborative projects, including;

• TACT - Talk to Action, addressing the transformation of spoken interaction in police emergency calls into written logs for operational use.
• Dropped 101 calls - looking at channel change in calls to the police.
• The ID project, on anonymising linguistic research data
• Birmingham Community Healthcare NHS foundation trust - effective communication in patient outreach and referral letters 
• 'Crimes in Action' - analysing communication in emergency calls reporting kidnap and extortion
• FoLD - the Forensic Linguistic Databank
• the EXCROW corpus of commercial extortion letters

Her work has a strong emphasis on applying findings in practical ways and she has developed a number of successful training interventions, including award-winning workshops and e-learning materials for healthcare professionals. She is interested in the ways in which linguistic methods and theories can be applied to real-world problems across various settings.

TACT (Talk to ACTion): Understanding and improving police communication from 999 call to CAD logs (Co-PI)
A project funded by the Office of the Police Chief Scientific Adviser's STAR fund, with Staffordshire Police (Supt Nicki Furlong), Keele University (Dr Alexandra Kent) and Aston Institute for Forensic Linguistics (Dr Sarah Atkins). This project investigates how police call-handlers transform spoken 999 phone calls into written Computer-Aided Dispatch (CAD) logs that guide frontline response. Analysing real emergency calls will reveal how call-handlers manage complex communication demands, generating evidence to improve training, system design, and the accuracy of operational data in Force Control Rooms. 

Dropped 101 Calls (Academic lead)
This project examines what happens when non-emergency 101 calls to West Mercia Police fail to connect, drawing on a survey of people whose calls didn't get through to understand whether they abandon contact or turn to another channel such as an online reporting form. It combines statistical analysis of their reporting behaviour with procedural-justice research and free-text accounts of their experiences to assess how fair treatment and channel choice shape public trust in the police.

Past projects:
Crimes in Action: Communicating and recording 'crimes in action' in 999 calls (PI)
In this collaborative project with Felicity Deamer (Aston), Emma Richardson (Loughborough) and Joanne Traynor (Anglia Ruskin), we are working with a police control room in the UK to examine the communication and miscommunication that can occur in emergency 999 calls, focusing on calls where members of the public are potentially reporting serious incidents of kidnap and extortion. Calls to 999 are known to have increased in number and complexity - there can be difficulties in classifying ‘crimes in action' (incidents occurring in real-time which potentially present a threat to life, such as kidnap and extortion), difficulties that can have serious real-life consequences. Drawing on a dataset of anonymised emergency calls and accompanying incident logs, we seek to shed light on communicative patterns in how such incidents are reported and subsequently classified. The findings will have implications for call handler training, with the opportunity to develop collaborative, practical outputs with the project partner.

Birmingham Community Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust (PI)
A collaborative project looking at effective communication in patient outreach and referral letters - the project received £66k in funding. 

FoLD: The Forensic Linguistic Databank 
I am a member of the team developing the Forensic Linguistic Databank FoLD, a pioneering resource that provides a permanent, controlled access online repository for data of value to forensic linguistics.

EXCROW - the Extortion Corpus of Writings
A project analysing genre and pragmatic patterns in extortion letters. The EXCROW corpus (the Extortion Corpus of Writings) currently includes 40 commercial historic extortion letters and emails from law enforcement partners, with the aim to provide a resource to develop investigative techniques.

BA (Hons) English Studies (University of Nottingham)

MA Applied Linguistics (University of Nottingham)

PhD Applied Linguistics (University of Nottingham)

PGCHE (Aston University)

- FHEA, Fellow of the Higher Education Academy
- BAAL, British Association for Applied Linguistics
- IPrA, International Pragmatics Association
- IAFLL, The International Association for Forensic and Legal Linguistics