Welcome
​​Samantha is a Cognitive Linguist and Doctoral Researcher at the University of Birmingham, specialising in figurative language and multimodal communication with interests in creativity, advertising, and consumer behaviour. Samantha has a Collaborative Doctoral Award funded by the Midlands4Cities Arts and Humanities Research Council (M4C AHRC) and works with Big Cat Advertising Agency to measure the figurative creativity and its effectiveness in social advertising campaigns. Samantha also works on the EMMA project Exploring Multimodal Metaphor (and Metonymy) in Advertising.

Samantha graduated with a Master of Arts by Research in English Language and Applied Linguistics with no corrections (2019) and a Masters Scholarship, and with a first class Bachelor of Arts in English Language (2017), receiving the Research Project Prize in English Language and Linguistics.
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On this website, Samantha tracks her professional development in the academic and practitioner spheres of linguistics and marketing. Please take a look at her ​projects, publications, conference experience, teaching experience in delivering workshops, seminars, and mentoring, and the funding, awards, and training she has received.​

NEW BOOK OUT NOW!
 Unpacking Creativity:
​The Power of Figurative Communication in Advertising

Figurative communication (the use of metaphor, metonymy, hyperbole and irony) provides economy of expression, clarity, persuasiveness, politeness, evaluation, and communication of emotions. However, it also increases the potential for misunderstanding in situations when people lack shared background knowledge. This book combines theoretical frameworks with empirical studies that measure the effectiveness of different approaches to the use of figurative language in advertisements, to show how to maximise the benefits of creative metaphor and metonymy in global advertising. It highlights how subtle differences in colour, layout, and combinations of different kinds of figurative language affect the reception and appreciation of creative advertising, shedding new light on the nature of figurative communication itself. With a balance between theory, experiments and practical case studies, this book is accessible for academics in linguistics and communication studies, as well as advertising and marketing professionals.
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Available to buy in print September 2021

Metaphor in social advertising: The case of metaphor and humour in a sexual health campaign

Samantha has been working closely with Big Cat Advertising Agency as part of her collaborative PhD funded by M4C AHRC and the EMMA project on a study examining the impact of metaphor in advertising. The study manipulated the cognitive effort required to find meaning in advertisements with metaphorical puns and measured the impact this had on people's attitude, interpretation, and behaviour. The campaign was launched in Birmingham and Solihull, UK, in June 2018 to raise awareness of sexual health.
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Watch this video to find out more:

What has Samantha been doing recently?

Timeline 2019/2020

2021
8th September: Teaching Associate for Theories of Language module, English Language (BA), University of Birmingham
2nd September: Book Unpacking creativity: The power of figurative communication in advertising published by Cambridge University Press
23rd-26th June: Presented at Researching and Applying Metaphor Conference (RaAM14)
January-April: Organised and hosted Birmingham English Language Postgraduate Conference 2021: the virtual edition on Friday 23rd April 2021
21st April: Presented workshop at Birmingham-Budapest International Doctoral Seminar​
5th March: Passed mid-year review for year 2 of PhD
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2020
29th-31st October: Presented twice at 5th International Conference on Figurative Thought and Language, hosted by Sofia University
​6th October: Published white paper including significant contributions: Understanding and reacting to changing to consumer behaviour for health and fitness brands
30th September: Attended workshop by Richard Shotton, Behavioural Science in Advertising
25th-29th July: Presented at the UK Cognitive Linguistics Conference
13th-14th July: Presented at the M4C Digital Festival
2nd July: Attending video-editing workshop funded by M4C
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