Dr Lynda Kennedy

Lynda initially completed her undergraduate degree at Ulster University in speech and language therapy in 2010 before completing a Masters in language and linguistics in 2012 (also at ulster) investigating syntactic impairment in Broca’s aphasia.

Lynda has worked closely with the Stroke Association for both her research and on a voluntary basis. Currently she is preparing to submit her PhD in Linguistics titled ‘Broca’s aphasia: Syntax and Beyond’ under the supervision of Raffaella Folli, Jacopo Romoli and Christina Sevdali. This work extends the scope of inquiry on Broca’s aphasia from the traditional domain of syntax and beyond that in the domain of semantics/pragmatics. This project also adopts a comparative approach to the study of language acquisition and language breakdown in aphasia.

Over the past four years, Lynda has presented her PhD research at national and international conferences and has developed several international collaborations.

Lynda is a member of the Ulster Centre on Multilingualism and acts as a consultant on the ‘Language Made Fun Project’ in collaboration with Barnardo’s NI.

She is currently a teaching fellow in Speech and Language Therapy in the School of Health Sciences.

Lynda's current research interests include the language and processing aspects of Broca’s aphasia, experimental linguistics, the comparison between language acquisition and disorder

Research grants

• Co-Investiagtor: Big Lottery Fund (£28,000). Family Learning and Integration Hub: ‘Language Made Fun’. In collaboration with Barnardos’ NI
• Collaborator: British Academy grant titled On the interaction between morphosyntax and semantics-pragmatics in language acquisition and language loss: the case of temporal inferences

Teaching Interests

• Applied linguistics
• Language Development and Disorder: Developmental foundations of Language, Communication Needs in Children
• Advanced topics in the management of Paediatric language disorders Syntax and morphology, Bilingualism and language disorder
• Advanced topics in the management of adult language disorders: Impairment-based assessment and treatment in Aphasia
• Psycholinguistics: Models of Speech Production and Comprehension
• Neurolinguistics
• Research Methods
• Clinical Placement examiner
• Undergraduate dissertation supervisor
• Postgraduate supervisor