After studying English at Cambridge University, he joined the British Council, and then worked in Uganda.
Afterward he taught at the University College of Cape Coast in Ghana, before moving to Edinburgh, where he received his Ph.D. in linguistics in 1972.
As at 2014 he is an Affiliated Lecturer in the Department of Theoretical and Applied Linguistics, and a fellow of Pembroke College, Cambridge.
In the period of 1990-1994 he was the president of the Linguistics Association of Great Britain, and also a member of Council of the Philological Society since 1998.
He serves as a co-editor of Transactions of the Philological Society and sits on several other editorial boards.