Broadening horizons: An interview with Geoff Hall

Abstract

Geoff Hall took degrees separately in English literature and in applied linguistics at the universities of Sussex and Birmingham, respectively. A career in English teaching of all kinds has taken him around the world with posts notably in Singapore, Poland, Spain, UK and China. In every place he always made the effort to learn something of the local languages and literatures which has enriched his life immensely. His most widely cited publication is the book Literature in Language Education (2015a). He was Editor of Language and Literature from 2010-2016. Geoff is currently Visiting Professor of Stylistics, University of Nottingham Ningbo, China, and Professor II, English Language Education, Nord University, Norway. He is trying to retire but remains an incorrigible lifelong learner and travelled widely before Covid 19 hit us all. In this interview, he discusses the importance of pedagogy to the practice of stylistics and explains the important links to be made between pedagogical stylistics and second language acquisition. He argues for a greater level of integration between stylistics and non-linguistically oriented literary studies, aimed at ensuring that stylistic analyses are grounded in an informed appreciation of historical and textual context.