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.​

 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.

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 2020/2022

2022
3rd-5th May: Presented at Forum for Global Challenges 2022
29th April: Attended Birmingham English Language Postgraduate Conference 2022
4th April: Awarded HEFi Horizon Award from Higher Education Futures Institute
8th February: Awarded the University of Birmingham's Inclusive Educator badge
4th January: Published Q&A about studying a PhD at the University of Birmingham
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2021
17th December: Certified in PRINCE2® Project Management Foundation Level by PeopleCert, funded by M4C AHRC
15th November: Published co-authored article Negative advertising: A secret weapon?, Cambridge University Press
15th November: Started assistant teaching Psychology of Language MA module with module lead Jeannette Littlemore
3rd October: Published co-authored paper "Got a Spark with Brook?" in Metaphor and Symbol journal
30th September: Started teaching Theories of Language BA module, University of Birmingham
10th September: Hosted Talking Taboos Dialogue Day with Jeannette Littlemore and Sarah Turner, funded by M4C 

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