Dr Pauline Madella

• I specialise in Applied Pragmatics, Discourse Analysis, and Forensic Linguistics. 

My primary domain of expertise is the realm of pragmatics - i.e., the study of invisible meaning and language in context - the use of prosody and nonverbal communication in utterance interpretation, and the role of multimodality in interlanguage and instructional pragmatics. 

My second research strand focuses on analysing the pragmatics of manipulation and deception in online child sexual grooming discourse, in the context of detecting, preventing, and tackling online harms and tech-enabled violence against women and girls. My work brings together language/discourse, power, and social/criminal justice. As an Activist Applied Linguist, I apply my expertise in language and communication to digital safety, AI safety, and youth-led, community-engaged child protection research. 

I am an Associate member of the Centre for Research in English Language Learning and Assessment (CRELLA) and the Safer Young Lives Research Centre (SYLRC). 

I am also a member of 

ENACSA - the Expert Network Addressing Child Sexual Abuse

IAFLL - the International Association for Forensic and Legal Linguistics 

IPrA - the International Pragmatics Association 

Recently completed Research England funded project: Co-Creating Youth-Informed Policy Responses to Online Grooming: Bridging Research and Participation; for details of the project, see Pauline Madella's lab | University of Bedfordshire based on collaboration between CRELLA and SYLRC within Institute of Applied Social Research 

You can read the story Behind and Beyond the Polite Grooming Paper. 

You can read my thoughts on International Women Day #GiveToGain here. 

Current Pearson funded project: Is PTE Core fit-for-specific purpose? Analysing the suitability of PTE Core for testing healthcare professionals' English oral proficiency, with my colleagues N. Latimer and F. Nakatsuhara.