Faculty of Modern and Medieval Languages and Linguistics Raised Faculty Building University of Cambridge Sidgwick Avenue Cambridge CB3 9DA United Kingdom
Rebecca Mitchell read Modern and Medieval Languages at Cambridge, and then worked as an assistant lecturer in phonetics at the University of Vigo, Spain. She received an MA in translation and interpreting from the University of Kent, and subsequently returned to Cambridge where she was awarded a PhD on syntactic variation in the French of Gabon. She is committed to increasing awareness of linguistics among non-specialists, and in 2024 she launched National Linguistics Day, an initiative to get people of all backgrounds thinking, talking and learning about linguistics. She is regularly invited to give talks on linguistics in schools and colleges, for organisations including the Civil Service and the Chartered Institute of Linguists, and at national events such as the Language Show. She regrets that she is currently unable to accept proposals from prospective doctoral students.
Sociolinguistics of sub-Saharan Africa (language attitudes, language endangerment, language policy and planning, healthcare communication)
Sub-Saharan African anthropology (traditional belief systems)
2025. ‘National Linguistics Day 2025!’, Babel, 52: 30-31
2025. ‘Linguistics – and why our pupils need to know about it!’. Languages Today, 49: 28-29
2023. ‘Lives in Language: Fernão de Oliveira’, Babel, 43: 19-20
2019. ‘Dari’, Babel, 26: 26-27.
2017. A descriptive grammar of Dari (with D. Naser). Munich: Lincom Europa.
2015. ‘To be a good westerner, you need to know where you come from’: challenges facing language revitalization in central Africa’, in Jones, M. (ed.) Language Endangerment: Policy and Planning, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
2015. Let’s Speak Cape Verdean (English translation), Quint, N (original author), London: Battlebridge.
2012. ‘Language, education and identity in Gabon’, in Esch, E. and Solly, M. (eds.) The Sociolinguistics of Language Education in International Contexts, New York: Peter Lang.
2009. A study in syntactic variation: mood usage in Gabonese French. Munich: Lincom Europa.
2004. ‘Les perceptions du français gabonais et la distribution des langues au Gabon’, Le Français en Afrique 19: 177-188.
Recent conference presentations
2025 Invited talk: ‘National Linguistics Day: let’s get people thinking, talking and learning about the science of language’. 58th conference, British Association of Applied Linguistics, University of Glasgow
2025 Invited talk: ‘National Linguistics Day: time to get people thinking, talking and learning about the science of language’. Annual Meeting, Linguistics Association of Great Britain, University of Suffolk
2025 ‘Linguistics: why our students need to know about it, and how we can teach them!’. Language World, Association for Language Learning
2024. Keynote speech: ‘Recession and rebirth: the ebb and flow of linguistic codes in the era of decolonization’. Code and Commodification as the New Decolonization, GLOCAL African Assembly on Linguistic Anthropology, University of South Africa
2024. ‘Speak to me in my language and I’m healed’: social hierarchies and language management in healthcare communication in Ghana’. Language and Inequality, University of Tallinn
