Dr Emma Richardson

Emma is a Lecturer in Language and Social Interaction in the Communication and Media department in the School of Social Science and Humanities. Her research focusses on how gender-based violence is reported to the police and progresses through the criminal justice system. 

Emma completed her PhD here at Loughborough, in 2014. Supervised by Professors Elizabeth Stokoe and Charles Antaki, her thesis ‘The order of ordering: analysing customer bartender service encounters in public bars’ was an ethnomethodological, conversation analytic (CA) study examining how we accomplish service at the bar counter.

Emma joins Loughborough from the Aston Institute of Forensic Linguistics, Aston University where she remains as Visiting Research Fellow. While there, her research focussed on understanding the investigative police interview from a CA perspective. She also has an interest in the quality of ‘evidence’ in the legal system in England and Wales. You can read more about Emma’s research interests under the Research tab.

Emma’s research interests centre on improving access to criminal justice for 'vulnerable' and/or ‘intimidated’ (as defined by law) victims and witnesses of crimes such as kidnap, domestic violence and sexual offence. She uses conversation analysis (CA) to examine how these crimes are reported and progressed from the initial reporting through to the decisions made by (mock) juries. Her research is applied; working in partnership with police in England she contributes to the development of training and guidance materials and seeks to understand how these documents are enacted in practice.

Emma is the Module Leader for Self and Identity.

Emma welcomes enquiries for PhD supervision from candidates using the methodology of conversation analysis and related to her research interests listed on the ‘Research’ tab.

The university has guidance on Funding and Studentships, you can also check current PhD funding opportunities in the School of Social Sciences and Humanities.

Current Postgraduate Research Students

• Kathryn Jordin- ‘Learning To Be A Boy - How everyday conversation teaches and upholds heteronormative gender constraints to boys’ with Dr Marco Pino and Dr Laura Jenkins.

Kathryn's doctoral research uses conversation analysis to explore how interaction between pre-school age boys and adults teaches and upholds heteronormative gender constraints. 

• Jixin Chen - 'Agency, Self-Expressions and Representations of the LGBTQ+ Community in Chinese Social Media' with Dr Iris Wigger and Dr Lise Jaillant.

Jixin Chen's doctoral research explores how sexual minorities in China use social media for self-expression and public attitudes and perceptions towards them.

• Nicola Vejelis – ‘Bias in Rape and Serious Sexual Assault (RASSO) cases’ with Dr Kirsty McGregor.

Nicola’s doctoral research explores how basis impacts Rape and Serious Sexual Assault (RASSO) cases in an end to end (initial disclosure to court outcome) review.

Gender-based violence

• Richardson, E., Alexander, M., & Stokoe, E. (2024). The role of alcohol in initial help-seeking telephone calls about domestic violence to the police. Violence Against Women, ISSN: 1077-8012.
• Richardson, E., Jenkins, L. & Willmott, D. (2023, 5^th October). Rape myths, jury deliberations, and conversation analysis: a new approach to an age-old problem. [Guest Blog]. Emerald ‘Real Impact’ Opinion & Blog.
• Lindsay, J., Willmott, D., & Richardson, E. (2023). Football Culture and Domestic Violence: Dissecting the Link among a Focus Group of Non-Abusive Youth Football Fan’s. Youth, 3(3), 1078-1100.
• Stokoe, E. & Richardson, E. (2023). Asking for help without asking for help: How victims request and police offer assistance in cases of domestic violence when perpetrators are potentially co-present. Discourse Studies, 25(3), 383-408.
• Stokoe, E., Antaki, C., Richardson, E., & Willott, S. (2020). When Police Interview Victims of Sexual Assault: Comparing Written Guidance to Interactional Practice. In M. Mason, & F. Rock (Eds.), The Discourse of Police Interviews. University of Chicago Press.
• Richardson, E., Stokoe, E., & Antaki, C. (2019). Establishing intellectually impaired victims’ understanding about ‘truth’ and ‘lies’: Police interview guidance and practice in cases of sexual assault. Applied Linguistics, 40(5), 773–792.
• Antaki, C., Richardson, E., Stokoe, E., & Willott, S. (2015). Can people with intellectual disability resist implications of fault when police question their allegations of sexual assault and rape? American Journal on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities, 53(5), 346-357.
• Antaki, C., Richardson, E., Stokoe, E., & Willott, S. (2015). Dealing with the distress of people with intellectual disabilities reporting sexual assault and rape. Discourse Studies, 17(4), 415-432.
• Antaki, C., Richardson, E., Stokoe, E., & Willott, S. (2015). Police interviews with vulnerable people alleging sexual assault: Probing inconsistency and questioning conduct. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 19(3), 328-350.

Transcription practices

• Haworth, K., Tompkinson, J., Richardson, E., Deamer, F. & Hamann, M. (2023). ‘For the Record’: applying linguistics to improve evidential consistency in police investigative interview records, Frontiers in Communication, 8, 1178516.
• Richardson, E., Hamann, M., Tompkinson, J., Haworth, K. & Deamer, F. (2023). Understanding the role of transcription in evidential consistency of police interview records in England and Wales. Language in Society.
• Tompkinson, J., Haworth, K., Deamer, F. & Richardson, E. (2023). Perceptual instability in police interview records. International Journal of Speech, Language and the Law, 30(1), 22–51.
• Richardson, E., Haworth, K., & Deamer, F. (2022). For the Record: Questioning transcription processes in legal contexts. Applied Linguistics, 43(4), 677-697.
• Deamer, F., Richardson, E., Basu, N., & Haworth, K. (2022). For the Record: Exploring variability in interpretations of police investigative interviews. Language and Law / Linguagem e Direito, 9(1), 25-46. 
• Richardson, E. (2021, March, 17th). Who uses transcriptions of conversations as formal evidence? [Guest Blog]. Research on Language and Social Interaction.