Brought up on the fringe of the Forest of Dean, I spent most of my childhood walking around the Wye Valley. The world sparkled for me as a child, and it was something I could explore through poetry. But deciding I needed a taste of the outside world, away from the close-knit country community I had known all my life in the country, I ventured to Birmingham for my university education to study the English Language for my undergraduate degree at the University of Birmingham.
Creative Writing and Performing Music There, inbetween writing my essays and reading academic articles, I took the occasional moment to reflect and write. These moments are also shared with playing my instrument, the Eb Tenor Horn, which is something of a family tradition. I have represented Wales at a national and international level, playing in the National Youth Brass Band of Wales (NYBBW 2014-2018) and the European Youth Brass Band (2017). I have also played for Lydney Town Band, Filton Concert Brass, and the University of Birmingham Brass Band over the years. Aspiring Linguistic Researcher My aspiration is to become a linguistic researcher. I got a taste for academic life at my first two conferences. At the first I presented a project on 'How do likes and reactions as interactional features on Facebook status updates posted in 2016 extend narrative evaluation?' at the Undergraduate Linguistics Association of Britain (ULAB) conference on 8th April 2017 at the University of Cambridge. I subsequently received an invitation to present at the 10th International Symposium on Politeness (SymPol10) conference hosted by York St John University taking place on 12th-14th July 2017. I have since presented at many other conferences, including my first international conference in Hong Kong for Researching and Applying Metaphor (RaAM12) in July 2018 at the Polytechnic University, Hong Kong. If you want to know more about my academic activities, please visit my professional website: www.samantha-ford.weebly.com. My Graduation and Further Study at UoB I graduated with a first class degree in English Language at the University of Birmingham in July 2017, and was awarded the English Language and Applied Linguistics' Research Project Prize, of which I am immensely proud! I later graduated with a Master's by Research degree in English Language and Applied Linguistics (2017-2018), specialising in figurative and visual language in advertising, funded by a Master's Level Scholarship. I am currently studying a PhD in English Language and Applied Linguistics funded by Midlands4Cities Arts and Humanities Research Council with a Collaborative Doctoral Award working with advertising professionals to investigate the creativity of figurative messaging in advertising. I am very much looking forward to see what the future will hold. Many kind regards, Samantha Ford |