Natalie Braber (Nottingham Trent): Working with ‘pit talk’, the language of coal miners in the East Midlands | 7 May 2026

7 May 2026, 4-6 pm
Campus Westend, Casino 1.812

Natalie Braber (Nottingham Trent)

This talk is part of New Frontiers in Memory Studies (FMSP)

This talk explores the unique words and phrases used by coal miners in the East Midlands, revealing how language shaped their working lives and communities. Through oral history interviews, miners shared stories about the terms they used underground and how these changed when people moved in from other regions, like the North-East and Scotland. These conversations show that mining language was more than technical – it was part of local identity and culture. Many miners did not realise how important their words were, but they form a vital part of this heritage. Preserving this language helps keep the history and voices of mining alive.

Natalie Braber is Professor of Linguistics at Nottingham Trent University. Her research focuses on the accents and dialects of the East Midlands, including pit talk. Her publications include East Midlands English (2018), Lexical Variation of an East Midlands Coal Mining Community (2022) and Sociolinguistic Approaches to Lexical Variation in English (2025). She works on language as heritage, accent discrimination and language and memory. Her projects include collaboration with those in the fields of creative writing, poetry, photography, art and theatre in order to co-create with local communities.