Ranya Hossain

ranya
MSc Student

I am a fourth-year student doing my Master’s in Experimental Psychology, following my undergrad in Psychology and Linguistics, under the supervision of Dr Nicky Dawson. My whole life has revolved around books: I learnt English when I moved to the UK mainly through reading (and doing crosswords) and every year I did my local library's summer reading challenge, for which I won many medals. Due to my love of reading, I studied English literature all the way through school and decided it just wasn’t enough. I wanted to know absolutely everything about words and how language works and all the details of writing, and communication, and so on, leading to my choice in degree. I clearly haven’t gotten enough of it the last 3 years since I chose to be part of this research team, now investigating the role of language in maths problem-solving. Hopefully, in the future I will continue studying similar topics and maybe one day finally write and illustrate a children’s book like I’ve always wanted to.

My favourite word

I think my favourite words in English are those that exemplify through sound or evoke their meaning when spoken, whether this is due to conventionalism or naturalism or any other theory, I think they’re such an important part of English. A current favourite would be "eventually" - it's hard to pronounce it well whilst rushing through its several syllables, making you feel the wait for whatever is to happen eventually.

My favourite childhood book

This is the hardest question ever, but if we ignore all my favourite series’ I grew up reading, one of my favourite standalone books is “A year without Autumn” by Liz Kessler. Books about friendship mean a lot to me and this book made such a massive impact on me that I developed a mild fear and fascination with elevators for a while. Highly recommend for any head-in-the-clouds type 8 year olds!