Dr Vittorio Tantucci is Senior Lecturer in Linguistics at Lancaster University and world-leading scholar in the field of Pragmatics, the study of verbal behaviour in context. His research focuses on cross-cultural and cognitive approaches to dialogue, with particular emphasis on intersubjectivity, resonance, (im)politeness, and reciprocity. He specializes in corpus-based methods and computational approaches to large datasets of real conversations to reveal how interaction changes across time, social groups, and languages.
He has published widely on pragmatics, sociolinguistics, and cognitive linguistics, and is the author of Language and Social Minds (Cambridge University Press, 2021). His forthcoming book Language and (Creative) Imitation: Dialogic resonance in Pragmatics and Grammar (Cambridge University Press) explores how people creatively re-use one another’s language in real time.
Beyond academic audiences, his research on verbal imitation, resonance, and engagement in everyday talk has attracted wide public interest. His work has been featured in The Conversation, The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Evening Standard, and other major outlets, sparking debate about how people communicate across social classes, cultures, and even within the autistic spectrum. His widely read article “Middle-class British people are talking more alike than ever” generated national discussion about the shifting dynamics of British society and conversation. Vittorio’s research is supported by the Leverhulme Trust, and he regularly collaborates with colleagues worldwide, bringing both scholarly rigor and accessible insights to his teaching and public engagement.
Upcoming Short Courses
Tuesday 30th September 2025
2:00 PM - 4:00 PM
(London Time)
How British Conversation is Changing: Resonance, Engagement, and Social Class!
Dr Vittorio Tantucci
This short course explores how British people’s everyday conversations are shifting — and why it matters. Join Dr Vittorio Tantucci as he draws on findings from the British National Corpora (1994 vs. 2014) and his recent study British Conversation is Changing (Applied Linguistics, 2024). He will look at how people re-use and acknowledge each other’s words, a process called resonance. Resonance is a powerful marker of verbal engagement: when it’s present, speakers treat one another’s talk as meaningful; when it’s absent, conversations can feel flat or disconnected.