Rachel Hatchard, BA, PGCert, MA, FHEA
Department of Human Communication Sciences
The University of Sheffield
31 Claremont Crescent
Sheffield
S10 2TA
UK
Tel: +44 (0) 114 222 2410
Fax: +44 (0) 114 273 0547
email : r.hatchard@sheffield.ac.uk
Biography
I graduated with a BA Hons degree in German from the University of Nottingham in 2003, for which I also spent a year abroad in Munich.
I then worked in the Learning and Teaching Institute of the University of Chester for five years, during which time I completed the Cambridge CELTA (2006), a Postgraduate Certificate in Learning and Teaching in Higher Education (Chester, 2007) and an MA in Languages and Linguistics, with a focus on psycholinguistics, at the University of Manchester (2008).
My MA dissertation examined the combined effects of compositionality and familiarity on native speakers´ comprehension of English idioms.
Following this, I was employed in various teaching roles, including supporting students with dyslexia with academic skills at the University of Chester and lecturing in English language/ philology at the University of Augsburg, Germany.
I started as a postgraduate research student at the University of Sheffield in September 2010, after having been awarded the Faculty Prize Scholarship to study constructions in aphasia.
Current projects
My PhD project uses a construction grammar approach to examine the production and comprehension of constructions in people with aphasia.
Experiments focus on participants´ processing of expressions that fall in different places along the so-called syntax-lexicon spectrum, that is, ranging from the more substantive (lexically-filled) constructions to those of a more schematic (lexically-open) nature.
Collaborators
Dr. Ruth Herbert (first supervisor)
Professor Rosemary Varley (second supervisor)