University of Salford

Faculty Member, School of Languages

Lecturer in Linguistics

About

Alex Bellem is a linguist specialising in theoretical and comparative phonology (and the interface with phonetics) and Arabic dialectology. She is currently Lecturer in Linguistics at the University of Salford in NW England, where it rains a lot.

After graduating from the University of Manchester with a degree in Middle Eastern Studies (Arabic and Turkish), she lived in Damascus for a while, before returning to the UK to complete an MA in Linguistics at University College, London. She subsequently spent several years parenting, working as an academic editor, teaching English language and working on Iraqi folk poetry, before moving on to PhD research and teaching in the Department of Linguistics at SOAS in London. Alex's research is on Semitic phonology, with a particular focus on Iraqi and Syrian dialects; her major interest is in pharyngealisation (emphatics) and phonation; she is currently also collaborating on an investigation into the phonology and phonetics of Mehri, an endangered Modern South Arabian language spoken in Yemen and Oman.

Before taking up her post at Salford in September 2010, Alex was based in Damascus as Research Director (Syria) for the British Institute in Amman. Prior to that she spent a "sabbatical" year as a Pronunciation Linguist at the BBC in London.