Cambridge linguist Amanda Cole urges people with Tourette’s to tic freely

Amanda Cole wants people with Tourette’s to “tic freely” without embarrassment, a message shaped by her own experience of hiding the condition. The University of Cambridge linguist now works in the Department of Theoretical and Applied Linguistics, where her research turns on how speech is judged, from language variation to the attitudes attached to it.

Cambridge Language Sciences says Cole’s work focuses on sociolinguistics, language variation and change, language attitudes, and perceptual dialectology. It also says she was born into a family of East Londoners in Essex and has long been fascinated by Essex and London dialects, a background that fits the questions she studies about how people hear, label and value one another’s speech. The Conversation has a profile page for her, and Google Scholar lists 185 citations, with 173 since 2021, showing a growing academic record behind her public-facing work.

That research context matters because Cole studies the same kind of social judgment that often shapes reactions to Tourette’s. A Cambridge Core article on language attitudes in South East England, published online on 6 October 2021, reflected how tightly accent, dialect and identity can be linked in the region Cole has long examined. Her interest in how people speak and how they are heard gives her a direct lens on a condition that is still too often met with embarrassment rather than understanding.

Public health and education materials show how widely Tourette’s is already discussed in school and family settings. Sheffield Children’s NHS Foundation Trust has a resource page titled Tics and Tourette syndrome, while the Tourette Association of America maintains education resources and a press room devoted to the condition. Against that backdrop, Cole’s message lands as a challenge to the reflex that people with tics should suppress them to appear acceptable, whether in classrooms, lecture halls or offices.

Cole’s reach is not confined to Cambridge alone. An English and Media Centre video page references her at the University of Essex and describes her as researching language while drawing on her own language background, extending her work into public education. Together, those appearances place an academic voice with a strong research record, and a personal stake in the issue, at the center of a broader push for visibility, recognition and ordinary space for people with Tourette’s to be seen without apology.