Samantha Ford
MA by Research, BA (Hons)
Summary of Samantha's activities:
Samantha is a Cognitive Linguist and is studying as PhD in English Language and Linguistics at the University of Birmingham. She was awarded the Collaborative Doctoral Award by Midlands4Cities Arts and Humanities Research Council (M4C AHRC) to research figurative creativity in advertising with Big Cat Agency. Samantha's research interests focus on figurative language (specifically metaphor and metonymy) in advertising, technology, and healthcare, and consumer behaviour. 

Samantha has worked as a Research Associate for the EMMA project, which collaborates with national and international advertising agencies to investigate the effectiveness of metaphor and metonymy in advertising and to measure campaign success. For more information, visit EMMA's website.
Samantha graduated from the University of Birmingham with a Master's by Research​ degree in English Language and Applied Linguistics with no corrections  in 2019 and a first class Bachelor's degree in English Language in 2017 with the Research Project Prize for her Bachelor's dissertation. During her studies, Samantha has taught the Creative Practice: Language module at the University of Birmingham.  
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For her MA thesis, Samantha investigated the visual semiotic language of colour and shape in smartphone app icons, and how they can influence consumer behaviour, supervised by Dr Bodo Winter and Professor Jeannette Littlemore. Samantha's Bachelor's degree developed her curiosity in metaphor and metonymy.  For her Bachelor's dissertation, she studied the use of multimodal metaphor, metonymy, and metaphtonymy (a metaphor-metonymy compound) in mobile phone advertising, comparing the difference between mobile phone manufacturer and network advertisements.​
​Prior to and during her PhD studies, Samantha worked as a Research Associate at the University of Birmingham for the award-winning  project EMMA (Exploring Multimodal Metaphor [and Metonymy] in Advertising) that cultivates a collaboration between academics and advertising practitioners.  The project investigates  the effectiveness of figurative messaging (e.g. metaphor and metonymy) in live advertising campaigns. The project was awarded the Birmingham Post's Partnership of the Year award in November 2018 for its collaboration with Birmingham-based marketing and communications agency, Big Cat. To read more about the project's ongoing research, visit EMMA at the University of Birmingham. 
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As part of EMMA, Samantha has studied how people view, process, and appreciate Big Cat-rebranded websites and logos using innovative eye-tracking and electro-dermal measurement technology, online surveys, and qualitative interviews.  Samantha was recently awarded the Collaborative Doctoral Award from the Midlands 4 Cities (M4C) Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) to continue her work with Big Cat Agency during her PhD, which will investigate the creativity of figurative messaging in advertising.

Samantha has presented her research at multiple national and international conferences, most notably the Researching and Applying Metaphor (RaAM) conference at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University in 2018, INN's Faculty of Education, Hamar in 2020, and Vilnius University in 2021 (shortlisted finalist for PhD Presentation Award). Find out more about Samantha's research presentations and posters on her conferences page.

​During her Bachelor's degree at UoB (2014-2017), Samantha has analysed discourse in spoken, written, and visual forms, conducted cognitive and ethnographic experiments, and participated in multiple research projects within the English Language and Linguistics department.  In her second year, Samantha worked on the Music, Maths, and Metaphor project directed by 
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Samantha presenting at RaAM conference, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, June 2018
Professor Jeannette Littlemore as part of the Undergraduate Research Scholarship (UGRS), which investigated the use of metaphor in teacher-student classroom interactions in speech and gesture.​
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​Samantha writes creatively in her spare time, with a selection of her work being showcased monthly on her sister website, Muse and Matters.  Alongside her creative writing, Samantha plays the Tenor Horn, a brass band instrument. Samantha currently plays in a Championship section band Filton Concert Brass. She was a member of the National Youth Brass Band of Wales (NYBBW) from 2014 to 2018, and has represented Wales internationally in the European Youth Brass Band 2017. Samantha has also passed her Level 1 British Sign Language qualification and looks forward to learning more of the language in the future (read about her experience here).

Samantha Ford's CV

As an aspiring linguist, Samantha is actively engaging in developing her skills and professional awareness to pursue a career in academia and linguistics.  If you would like to see Samantha's current experience and skills, view her CV below, updated in May 2022, or visit her LinkedIn profile.
If you cannot access her CV in pdf format, please contact Samantha for an alternative format. She will be very happy to hear from you.