Language is often held up as evidence to support the comfortable assumption that humans are the most conscious beings on the planet. My work explores the possibility that it’s the exact opposite. What if human language limits human consciousness, making us less intelligent than the rest of the world? I love to play with the idea that language is the Earth’s experiment in separation, limitation and one-dimensionality.

I’m a linguist at Sheffield Hallam University. In my academic work, creative writing and podcast episodes, I explore the grammatical structure of everyday language as a way of understanding how selves are shaped. I see the self as a grammatical membrane that both limits human experience of the multidimensional world and creates spaces for new ideas to emerge.

Everything I do is based on the possibility that great mysteries of life are hidden in plain sight—that the language we inhabit is the medium through which the Earth shapes its new ideas.

I’ve developed innovative approaches to teaching grammar that make it intuitive, relaxed and easy-going. My aim is to take the mystery out of learning grammar so that it’s easier to recognise the mysteries of human language.