Dr Matt Davies
Senior Lecturer
Biography
Dr Matt Davies is a Senior Lecturer in English Language in the Faculty of Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences at the University of Chester, UK. He is currently the Programme Leader for the MA in English Language and Linguistics. He is an experienced researcher in theories of news discourse, representation, constructed binary oppositions and critical discourse analysis, using both qualitative and quantitative (e.g. corpus linguistics) approaches. He is keen to promote the use of alternative methods of assessment for students such as blogs and video presentations. To this end he facilitates the very successful Language Debates website and the on-line student magazine C.E.L.L.MATES. He has been a member of the Faculty Ethics Committee since 2017 and is a member of the international Poetics and Linguistics Association (PALA), having been on the Executive Committee as newsletter editor (2014-17).
Teaching and Supervision
Dr Davies is an experienced lecturer having taught English Language A-level, Open University English, and English language and linguistics at undergraduate and postgraduate level at the University of Chester, UK. Dr Davies designed the BA English Language programme in 2009 and was Programme Leader for the degree until 2022, having taught on subject matter including the history of English, news discourse, language and power, literary stylistics and language debates. He currently teaches approaches to discourse analysis and language controversies at PG level and is supervising PhD students on subject matter including representation of transgender people in the UK press and the stylistics of hymns.
Research and Knowledge Exchange
Dr Davies is interested in the relationships between discourse (language in use) and power, especially in the national news media. He largely practices a critical discourse analysis approach to texts which explores how ideologies are embedded in discourse, especially the construction of mutually exclusive artificial binaries in texts such as news reports and political speeches and the representation of powerful and marginalised groups and individuals. He has also used corpus linguistic methods to analysis the song lyrics of prolific singer-songwriters (e.g. Mark E Smith of The Fall). He is currently working on the ‘Changing Chester’ strand of the Cestrian English project which explores representations of Chester over time. He is also working in partnership with Cheshire Archives and Local Studies (CALS) and the Cheshire Life magazine to create a digital archive of Cheshire Life (one of the longest running regional magazines in the UK, established May 1934) to use as resource for heritage groups, academics and members of the public. He is currently involved in organising exhibitions of 90 years of Cheshire Life in libraries across the county.