About
Tess Fitzpatrick was awarded the role of Professor Emerita (Applied Linguistics) in 2026. During her employment at Swansea University, she was Head of Applied Linguistics and Director of the Language Research Centre, which hosts the Lexical Studies Research Group. Between 2012 and 2017 she was Professor of Applied Linguistics at Cardiff University, where she led the Centre for Language and Communication Research.
Tess' research on vocabulary processing initially focused on second language acquisition and testing. Through the development of a new methodology for lexical investigation using associative responses, she has extended her lexical research to contexts including ageing, dementia, and word choices in medical care. Tess’s work is informed by her experience of the bilingual landscape of Wales, and her projects have generated innovative resources for Welsh Language users and learners. Her website mental-lexicon.swansea.ac.uk hosts a range of word association databases, including the first of its kind in Welsh.
Tess was Chair of the British Association for Applied Linguistics 2015-18. In 2017 she was awarded Fellowship of the Academy of Social Sciences for her work in lexical studies and in widening our understanding of cognitive processes in language learning and education. In 2021 she became a Fellow of the Learned Society of Wales, and in 2023 was awarded an Ian Gordon Fellowship by Te Herenga Waka/Victoria University Wellington.