Alison Irvine-Sobers studied linguistics at The University of the West Indies (UWI) and the University of York. Her work has focused on Jamaican English and the phonological variation found in what has been referred to as the acrolect. In 2007 she received the prize for Most Outstanding Graduate Student Thesis (UWI). She currently lives in Washington DC, where she teaches Discourse Analysis and Sociolinguistics at the graduate level at the UWI Open Campus. She is also involved in human rights research, particularly to assist Jamaicans in the UK and the USA facing deportation.