Dr. B.S. (Beverley) Collins

Position:

Lecturer

Expertise:

English Phonetics

Telephone number:	+31 (0)71 527 2125
E-Mail:	b.s.collins@hum.leidenuniv.nl
Faculty / Department:	Faculteit der Geesteswetenschappen, Leiden Univ Centre for Linguistics, LUCL Engels
Office Address:	Witte Singel-complex P.N. van Eyckhof 3 2311 BV Leiden Room number 204A

Curriculum Vitae

Education
I was born in Cardiff, Wales, and educated at Whitchurch Grammar School. I obtained my BA and teaching diploma from Cardiff University, and was editor of the university newspaper Broadsheet. From 1966-72, I was a student at University College London and the School of Oriental and African Studies where, after gaining an initial qualification in phonetics, I followed post-graduate courses in phonetics and linguistics (my tutors included A.C. Gimson, John Wells, J.D. O’Connor, Gordon Arnold and Jack Carnochan). In 1988, I recived a doctorate from the Phonetics Institute of Utrecht University (supervisor Antonie Cohen) for a thesis on the early life and work of the phonetician Daniel Jones. This was later to provide part of the groundwork for The Real Professor Higgins, a full-length biography, co-authored with Inger Mees, which was favourably received on its appearance in 1999. Audio recordings of personal interviews with the generation of prominent British linguists who had close contacts with Daniel Jones have now been placed in the British Library Sound Archives.

Early career
Early on I taught English as a foreign language, specialising in training francophonic West African teachers on British Council sponsored courses. In 1969, I was appointed Lecturer in Phonetics at the English department of University of Lancaster, where I was responsible for setting up and equipping the phonetics section of what later became the department of Linguistics. From 1966-72, I was tutor and eventually course director of the annual retraining courses for teachers of English, run by the UK Ministry of Overseas Development at Lomé in West Africa. I was also, from 1969-74, a tutor on in-service courses for teachers of English organised jointly by the Dutch Ministry of Education and the British Council.

Later career
In 1973, I moved to the Netherlands to take up a post at the Stichting Opleiding Leraren (now part of the Hogeschool Utrecht). I was appointed in 1975 to a lectureship at Leiden University, specialising in phonetics and pronunciation, a position which I held until 2003. From 1990-2003 I also held visiting lectureships for short periods at the universities of Cardiff, Ghent and Valladolid. I was a tutor-organiser (1993-99) of the annual Phonetics Summer School at the University of Murcia. From 1989-2000 I made visits under the Erasmus/Socrates and Tempus schemes to the universities of Newcastle, Ghent, Catania, Galway and Ljubljana.

Activities in retirement
After retirement from my full-time post at Leiden, I became an associate member of the Leiden University Centre for Linguistics, and continued to teach and publish. From 2005-07, I was Visiting Professor at the English department of the University of Ghent, and from 2004-08 I lectured on phonetics at the Université Catholique de Lille. From 2007 to the present, I have been engaged as a tutor on the annual Summer Course in English Phonetics at University College London. Over the years, I have acted as co-supervisor or external examiner for a number of doctorates at the universities of Ghent, Leiden, Newcastle and Utrecht. I am a member of the Henry Sweet Society for the History of Linguistic Ideas.

2009

Collins, B.S. & Mees, I.M. (2009)
Dennis B. Fry, A.C. Gimson, Ida Carolina Ward, Daniel Jones. In: Stammerjohann, H. (Ed.), Lexicon Grammaticorum: Who’s Who in the History of World Linguistics, 2nd editionAmsterdam: Walter de Gruyter – Max Niemeyer Verlag.
(Part of book or chapter of book)
Collins, B.S. & Mees, I.M. (2009)
English pronouncing dictionaries and the Scandinavian connection. In: Farø, K., Holsting, A., Larsen, N.E., Mogensen, J.E., Vinther, T. (Eds.), Sprogvidenskab I Glimt: 70 tekster om sprog i teori og praksis, pp. 403-407. Odense: Syddansk Universitetsforlag.
(Part of book or chapter of book)
Collins, B.S. & Mees, I.M. (2009)
Pronouncing dictionaries – II: mid-nineteenth century to the present day. In: Cowie, A.P. (Ed.), Oxford History of Lexicography, Vol. 2Oxford: Oxford University Press.
(Part of book or chapter of book)
Collins, B.S. & Mees, I.M. (2009)
The hundredth anniversary of the first modern English pronunciation dictionary. In Ashby, M. & Maidment, J. (Eds.) Proceedings of the Phonetics Teaching and Learning Conferenceonline publication.
(Article in monograph or in proceedings)