Following a degree in Folklore Studies from Western Washington University (Fairhaven College), he switched to linguistics (MA, University of Washington) before doing a PhD in Trinity College on the history and syntax of Irish English (or Hiberno-English). Though he has taught in nearly every area of linguistics (including phonetics and phonology, syntax and morphology, child language acquisition, bilingualism, historical linguistics, language and ethnicity, sociolinguistics, and linguistic approaches to language disability), his main research interests include Irish English, corpus linguistics, English as a world language, the sociology of language in Ireland, and studies in the Linguistic Landscape (the display of written language in the public space).