Gabi Widurek
Thesis working title: Empowering non-native English speakers in business communication: a corpus-informed study of C-level executives’ written and spoken discourse.
Primary Supervisor: Dr Sandrine Peraldi
Co-supervisor: Dr Stergiani Kostouplolu
Bio:
I am pursuing a doctoral degree in Linguistics at the School of Languages, Culture, and Linguistics. I focus on English for Specialised Purposes, particularly English for Business Communication Purposes. I see this as an opportunity to blend my professional experience with research-led insights, aiming to create specialised resources that can impact the contemporary workplace. My professional background spans over fifteen years in the IT corporate sector and the corporate education industry in Ireland. Throughout my career, I have witnessed numerous challenges faced by both companies and non-native English-speaking professionals, many of which I experienced firsthand.
I earned a Master's degree from UCD, where I specialised in Corpus Linguistics within the context of Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL). I am particularly interested in applying Corpus Linguistics techniques to the study of English for Specialised Purposes. I completed my MA thesis in 2021, under the supervision of Dr Stergiani Kostopoulou, in which I created a Business English corpus of Irish companies’ annual reports and developed corpus-based learning materials.
I view doctoral research as a progression and fusion of my academic and professional paths. My work experience has helped me develop a unique, multifaceted perspective that combines practical insights from the workplace with academic theories derived from my graduate study. My research aims at fostering linguistic inclusivity and contributing to greater diversity in the higher hierarchies of the modern workplace.
I firmly believe that research-informed language interventions offer the most effective way to equip learners and organisations with modern and efficient learning strategies. Approaches grounded in empirical evidence guarantee robustness and reliability in learning.
Thesis:
My research focuses on the written and spoken language of global corporate C-level executives. Its objective is to provide insights into corporate language nuances and offer practical solutions to non-native English-speaking professionals and executives. English for Business Communication Purposes remains an underrepresented field in academia, often leaving graduates and professionals to confront linguistic challenges in isolation. My aspiration is to fill this gap by equipping non-native-speaking executives and professionals with the linguistic skills they need to succeed.