Dr Karyn Stapleton

Overview

Life before Ulster

Dr Karyn Stapleton studied at Ulster University gaining a BSc Hons Communication (1st class) degree in 1997 and a PhD in Communication and Psychology in 2002.

Teaching

Karyn is a Senior Lecturer in Interpersonal Communication.  She is the lead member of staff for Interpersonal Communication Skills teaching and practice.

Since 2015, she has been a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

Her areas of teaching are:

• Interpersonal Communication
• Social Psychology
• Communication Research
• Group Psychology
• Language and Interaction

At the core of Karyn’s teaching is the theory, practice and analysis of interpersonal (IPC) skills and social interaction.  This pedagogy requires students to record and analyse their own communication performance in a series of IPC practicals within the School of Communication’s specialist Communication Skills Centre.  The emphasis is on fine-grained behavioural analysis and critical evaluation, based on IPC theory, evidence and research.

Research

Karyn’s research interests are in the areas of interpersonal communication, discourse and pragmatics, social psychology, and identity construction and management. She has a particular research interest in the psychology and pragmatics of swearing, and she has published widely on this topic. She has co-supervised eight PhDs to completion and is, at present, co-supervising one PhD.

Karyn is currently editing the Research Handbook on Communication and Social Psychology, to be published by Edward Elgar Publishing in 2028.  She has co-edited a Special Issue of the Journal of Pragmatics on ‘Swearing and Interpersonal Pragmatics’ (2023) and has co-edited two further books: Advances in Swearing Research (Benjamins, 2017), and Devolution and Identity (Ashgate, 2006/2017).

Other key research publications include peer-reviewed articles on: swearing, taboo language, interpersonal accountability, online identities, social perception, cognitive dissonance, public apology, women’s identities in conflict contexts, Northern Irish politics and identities, and narrative theory.

Karyn has published widely in leading international journals, including: Journal of Pragmatics, Lingua, Journal of Language and Social Psychology, Discourse & Society, Journal of Sociolinguistics, Text and Talk, Ethnic and Racial Studies, Discourse and Communication, Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, Identities, Organization, Language in Society.

She was an invited (co-)contributor to the Handbook of Pragmatics (de Gruyter, 2010); the Handbook of Communication Skills (Routledge, 2018/2024); the Handbook of Pragmatics Online (Benjamins, 2022); the Handbook of Language and Popular Culture (de Gruyter, 2026); and the International Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics (Elsevier, 2026).  She has also co-authored an invited research module on ‘Taboo language’ in the Elsevier Reference Collection in Social Sciences.

Karyn’s research on swearing (in conjunction with colleagues in the UK and Sweden) attracts significant media interest.  Her 2022 lead-authored interdisciplinary review article in Lingua (‘The power of swearing: What we know and what we don’t’) was widely covered in national and international media, including The Conversation, UK; Daily Telegraph; Times; Guardian; Daily Mail; Irish Times; Mirror; Canada Today; Huffington Post; Madras Courier; RTE Brainstorm; Neuroscience News; Cordis (European Commission).

All of Karyn’s research is concerned with how interpersonal communication and social interaction relate to other psychological, cultural, and social phenomena.

Civic

Karyn is (Joint) Vice-Chair of the Interpersonal Communication and Social Interaction (ICSI) section of the European Communication Research and Education Association.

She also holds professional membership of the British Psychological Society and the International Pragmatics Association; and she was a member of a Royal Irish Academy multidisciplinary committee (2014-2017).

Karyn was a member of the Organising Committee for the 15th International Pragmatics Association Conference (Belfast, 2017); and of the Organising Committees for ICSI conferences (Belfast, Northern Ireland, 2011; Tilburg, Netherlands, 2019; Tallinn, Estonia, 2023).  She is a reviewer for a large number of journals and conferences and she regularly presents her work at international conferences.

She was the Keynote Speaker at the Swearing in Scandinavia Symposium in both 2017 and 2024 (Helsinki, Finland); and was an Invited Speaker at the Language and Place Invited Colloquium, British Association of Applied Linguistics (BAAL) Conference (Belfast, 2022). She has also been an invited panellist for a number of online/public events, such as a British Psychological Society-funded research webinar on Uses of Swearing (2023); the ICSI Pre-Conference Panel of the 9th European Communication Conference (Aarhus, Denmark/Online, 2022); and the ISLE Online Forum 2025.

Karyn has conducted several press interviews about her research on swearing and she has been quoted in national and international newspapers such as the Daily Telegraph, Guardian, and El Mundo.

Karyn has been a PhD External Examiner at several institutions, including Birkbeck College, University of London (UK); University of Huddersfield (UK); Macquarie University (Australia); and University of Helsinki (Finland).  She has also been External Examiner for undergraduate degree programmes at ITT, Dublin (2012-2017) and Manchester Metropolitan University (2012-2016).