Robyn Anne Carston, FBA is a linguist and academic, who specialises in pragmatics, semantics, and the philosophy of language. Since 2005, she has been Professor of Linguistics at University College London.[1][2][3]

Early life and education

Carston was born in New Zealand.[2] She studied English literature at the University of Canterbury, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts (BA) 1975.[3] She then studied for an honours degree in linguistics at Victoria University of Wellington, graduating with a BA (Hons) degree in 1976.[3] She moved to England to study at University College London (UCL), graduating with a Master of Arts (MA) with Distinction in Phonetics and Linguistics in 1980.[3] She remained at UCL to undertake postgraduate research under the supervision of Deirdre Wilson.[2][3] and got her first job as a lecturer there in 1983. She completed her Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degree in 1994.[3] Her doctoral thesis was titled "Pragmatics and the explicit/implicit distinction".[4]

Academic career

Carston has taught linguistics at University College London since 1983.[1][5] Since January 1999, she has been an editor of the peer-reviewed interdisciplinary journal Mind & Language.[3][6] In January 2005, she was appointed Professor of Linguistics.[3] From 2007 to 2017, she was additionally a senior researcher at the Centre for the Study of Mind in Nature, University of Oslo.[3][5] Since August 2017, she has been President of the European Society for Philosophy and Psychology.[3]

Honours

In July 2016, Carston was elected a Fellow of the British Academy (FBA), the UK's national academy for the humanities and the social sciences.[7][8]

Selected works

• Carston, Robyn; Uchida, Seiji, eds. (1998). Relevance theory: applications and implications. Amsterdam: Benjamins. ISBN 978-1556193309.
• Carston, Robyn (2002). Thoughts and utterances: the pragmatics of explicit communication. Oxford: Blackwell. ISBN 978-0631214885.

References