Dr Lisa Nahajec

Job Title: ASSISTANT SUBJECT LEAD FOR ENGLISH
Department: English
Extension: 0151 291 3503
Email: nahajel@hope.ac.uk

Dr Lisa Nahajec

Senior Lecturer in English Language
Assistant Subject Lead for English
School of Humanities
Phone: 0151 2913503
Email: nahajel@hope.ac.uk

As a teenager, I planned to study in fine art but had to rethink my plans when life got I the way. I came back to education as a mature student in my 30s and signed up for an undergraduate degree in English Language and History at the University of Huddersfield. I enjoyed this so much that I took the opportunity to study for an MA in Modern English Language and then went on to complete my PhD in 2012 on linguistic negation in fictional and ‘factual’ texts. I have been teaching in Higher Education since 2007 and have been at Liverpool Hope University since 2013. For me, university has been a transformative experience that gave me the space and the encouragement to recognise my strengths and talents. My aim is always to offer the same opportunity to my students. 
I have gone on to focus my interest in linguistic negation on a variety of different kinds of communication from political interviews to song lyrics. I have also published a monograph on the ways in which language can influence the ideas we have about the world. I’m currently working on a project around how written language is used in the landscape of filmed drama and what this contributes to the construction of fictional worlds. 
My work on negation appeared in the popular language magazine, Babel, and was also translated into Swedish for an equivalent publication in Sweden - Språktidningen.
I have a particular interest in how Higher Education prepares students for the world of work. I work with colleagues across the School of Humanities and the careers team to help students both recognise and articulate the employability skills they are acquiring as part of their studies and will help them thrive in their careers. 

Teaching Specialisms: 
Stylistics, Language and Humour, Discourse Analysis, Pragmatics
I would welcome proposals for PhD research in stylistics, negation, and pragmatics

School/Faculty Roles: 
Assistant Subject Lead for English and Employability Lead for the School of Humanities

Recent Publications:

Nahajec, L. 2019 ‘Song lyrics and the disruption of pragmatic processing: an analysis of linguistic negation in 10CC’s ‘I’m Not in Love’’ Language and Literature, volume 28, issue 1pp. 23-40
Nahajec, L 2019 ‘Projecting your ‘opponent’s’ views: linguistic negation and the potential for conflict’ in Matthew Evans, Lesley Jeffries and Jim O’Driscoll (eds.) Routledge Handbook of Language in Conflict  pp.64-82
Nahajec, L. 2021 Negation, Expectation and Ideology in Written texts. John Benjamins: Amsterdam