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Michelle Aldridge-Waddon BA, PhD (Wales)

Dr Michelle Aldridge-Waddon

(she/her)

BA, PhD (Wales)

Users
Available for postgraduate supervision

Teams and roles for Michelle Aldridge-Waddon

Overview

I am currently Deputy Head of School for the Cardiff School of English, Communcation and Philosphy, and Head of English Language and Linguistics.

My teaching and research areas relate to communication disorders, language development and forensic linguistics with a particular focus on vulnerable people in the criminal justice system.

My research relates to various research forums including  the  Cardiff network in Language and Law (CaLL); Defending Vulnerability  and the Security, Crime and Intelligence Innovation Institute.

In collaboration with my colleague Dr Lisa El Refaie, I have worked with local organisations such as Mirus, People First and Innovate Trust (charities supporting independent living) to develop a new visual communication system for people with a learning disability in sheltered accommodation. Our website allows interested parties to access these tools for free. This work was funded by the ESRC impact accelerator fund ('Developing collaborative visual recording techniques for use with adults with learning disabilities').

I am an editor (with Professor Lise Fontaine & Professor Elissa Asp) for the book series: Routledge Advances in Functional Linguistics

I am on the editorial board of VIAL: International Journal of Applied Linguistics.

Publication

2025

2023

2022

2021

2020

2019

2018

2017

2015

2013

2012

2011

2010

2009

2008

2007

2006

1998

Articles

Book sections

Books

Research

As a member of the Centre for Language and Communication Research (CLCR), my main research interest lies in the communication abilities of vulnerable people which began with my important book (Aldridge & Wood 1998, translated into Japanese in 2004). Alongside my research, I run training days on the advanced police investigative training course with police forces in North and South Wales & Avon & Somerset . Similarly,  I have collaborated with Cardiff prison to produce various easy-read versions of induction, daily living and health documents which are now being trialled in HMP Swansea and Usk. 

I have also conducted research in  multimodality.  As an example, I  worked collaboratively, together with my former colleague Dr Lisa El Refaie, with local organisations such as Mirus, People First and Innovate Trust (charities supporting independent living),  developing  a non-verbal communication system through visual aids for people with a learning disability in local sheltered accommodation. Our website allows interested parties to access our communicative tools for free. This work was funded by the ESRC impact accelerator fund ('Developing collaborative visual recording techniques for use with adults with learning disabilities').

My research within the Health Discourse Project (Care in Organisational Discourse) with CLCR colleagues and Aneurin Bevan University Health Board  led to nurse training days in best practice in organisational discourse. This work was carried out initially through funding by the ESRC project 'Managing roles and goals in nursing handover'.

My work in keystroke logging with my colleague Dr Lise Fontaine has been employed  in  projects to help undergraduate students develop their writing skills. We recently completed an ESRC-funded impact project with colleagues from Bangor University and Umeå University on 'Addressing the literacy needs of bilinguals learning to read and write in languages with transparent orthographies' (Prof. Enlli Thomas, PI).

I have also worked as an Advisor for the JUSTICE Scotland Working Party on Legal Advice and Waiver, providing advice on matters of comprehensibility for vulnerable offenders.

As an active research mentor, I have hosted the following  post-doc researchers and visiting scholars

  • ‘Examining concepts for understanding civil servants’ perception of the police’ (Daniella Watson, British Academy)
  • 'Communicating Assisted Voluntary Return (AVR): examining tensions in discursive practice' (Katy Brickley, ESRC)
  • 'Revisiting the transitivity system: Sexual abuse in courtroom discourse from a critical perspective' Leanne Bartley, Marie Curie Global Fellow (2021).
  • Professor  Rofiza Aboo Bakar (Visiting Scholar, MARA, Malaysia)
  • Uliana Tykha ( British Academy Researcher at Risk Fellowship (co-supervision with Dr Katy Jones))

Teaching

I teach modules in Child Language Acquisition, Communication Disorders, Forensic Linguistics and Language and Mind to undergraduate students and Forensic Linguistics at MA level.

Biography

Dr Michelle Aldridge Waddon (Reader) is Deputy Head of the Cardiff School English, Communication and Philosophy and  Head of Language and Linguistics.  Michelle  lectures in psycholinguistics including language and mind (year 1 module); child language acquisition (year 2 module); communication disorders (year 3 module) and forensic linguistics at BA and MA level. She also supervises PhD theses in these areas (see supervision for examples). Her particular research interest is the communicative and linguistic experiences of vulnerable people (children, rape victims and people with a disability) and their interactions with professionals especially within the legal system. She has published widely in peer-reviewed journals such as Applied Linguistics Review, International Journal of Speech, Language and the Law; Text and Talk and Word. https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6087-2589.

From 2022-2025 Michelle was the AHSS (Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences) Associate Dean for ED&I; Chair of the University's disabilty steering group and chair of the disability staff network.

Prior to Michelle's current role, she was a  Senior Lecturer in the Linguistics Department at the University of Wales, Bangor (now Bangor University).

Supervisions

Postgraduate Students

I am interested in supervising PhD students in all areas related to child language acquisition, communication disorders, forensic linguistics and electronic language production.

If you are interested in coming to Cardiff to explore one (or more) of these topics, please contact me to discuss the opportunities offered at Cardiff University in terms of MA studies, PhD research or collaboration.

Current supervision

Anar Yeerjiang

Anar Yeerjiang

Past projects

I have supervised the following post-graduate research to successful completion in recent years:

 

Dr Manal Alharbi (2022) Lexical access by different script adult bilinguals. Evidence from masked primed picture naming and phoneme monitoring tasks.

Dr Tina Pereira (2021) Critical evaluation of the impact of low technology communication aids on the quality of evidence elicited from witnesses with a learning disability in registered intermediary-mediated Achieving Best Evidence police investigative interviews.

Dr Kate Steel (2022) Positioning and power in first response police-victim interactions during call outs to reported domestic abuse incidents

Dr Alice Langner (2025) Patterns of speech sounds after surgery: investigating infants syllables following full cleft palate repair surgery. (with Professor Gerard O'Grady)

Contact Details

Email [email protected]
Telephone +44 29208 79017
Campuses John Percival Building, Room 3.35, Colum Drive, Cardiff, CF10 3EU

Research themes

Specialisms

  • Accessibility
  • Access to justice
  • Language and law

External profiles