I am a lecturer and researcher working in the field of linguistics, and a member of the UPSET research focus area, at the Vanderbijlpark Campus of the North-West University.

I started my academic career by completing my BA in Humanities at North-West University in 2011, and received an award as the best performer in the final year for Bachelor of Arts in the Faculty of Humanities. Thereafter, I completed an Honours BA in English, during which I wrote a mini-dissertation focusing on the processing of texting features, such as sms-shortcuts. My MA dissertation, titled A Diachronic Analysis of the Progressive Aspect in Black South African English, investigated the historical development of the meanings of stative and dynamic verbs when combined with the progressive aspect.

I am currently involved in the compilation of a diachronic corpus of Black South African English (BSAE), which encompasses the collection and processing of fiction, letter, and newspaper data that ranges from the 1880s to the 2000s.

I am currently working on historical language change in Black South African English (BSAE), investigating the development of salient features of this variety, and how these developments compare to those found within White South African English (WSAE).

I am also interested in the mechanisms involved in processing and understanding language, the brain’s response to reading and writing in different genres, child and adult language acquisition, eye-tracking, and the morpho-syntactic deviations found within E.E. Cummings’ poetry