Lexis
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LexisOct 28, 2022
Episode 53 - Language Awareness at School with Tim Marr & Steve Collins
Show notes for Episode 53
Here are the show notes for Episode 53, an episode aimed primarily at teachers, in which Jacky and Dan talk to Steve Collins (Head of English at Bishop Luffa School, Chichester) and Tim Marr (Visiting Professor at Icesi University, Cali, Colombia) about the ideas in their book, Language Awareness at School: A Practical Guide for Teachers and School Leaders, published in May 2023 by Routledge, including:
The importance of language education across the curriculum
Why language matters to each of them
Why zero tolerance approaches and deficit models help no one
Why debates about English teaching keep appearing in cycles every few decades
What can be done to revive the prospects of English Language across the secondary and A-level stages and into university and teacher training.
Contributors
Lisa Casey
blog: https://livingthroughlanguage.wordpress.com/ & Twitter: Language Debates (@LanguageDebates)
Dan Clayton
blog: EngLangBlog & Twitter: EngLangBlog (@EngLangBlog)
Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/englangblog.bsky.social
Jacky Glancey
Twitter: https://twitter.com/JackyGlancey
Raj Rana
Matthew Butler
Twitter: https://twitter.com/MatthewbutlerCA
Music: Serge Quadrado - Cool Guys
Cool Guys by Serge Quadrado is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. From the Free Music Archive: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/serge-quadrado/urban/cool-guys
Episode 52 - Migration discourses with Charlotte Taylor & Ana Gavalas
Show notes for Episode 52
Here are the show notes for Episode 52, a migration discourses bumper episode, in which we feature two interviews. First off, Dan and Raj talk to Professor Charlotte Taylor of the University of Sussex about:
Why corpus linguistics can refresh the parts other approaches cannot reach
Discourses around migration and the metaphors that are often used - water, commodity and them/us
Why discourses around migration are usually about immigration
Why nostalgia is such a powerful theme
Whether the discourses around migration are worse now than they have been in the past
Tools for students analysing language discourses
We also talk to Ana Gavalas of the Migrants’ Rights Network about:
The work of their organisation and why it matters
The ‘Words Matter’ campaign they have been running
Why migration is linked to wider struggles
Why challenging dangerous migration myths involves critically engaging with language.
Charlotte Taylor’s University of Sussex page: https://profiles.sussex.ac.uk/p329327-charlotte-taylor
Open access paper: Metaphors of Migration Over Time https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0957926521992156
Charlotte Taylor on Twitter: https://twitter.com/_ctaylor_
Dan’s article on the language of migration: https://bylinetimes.com/2022/12/16/swamping-cockroaches-invasion-how-language-shapes-our-view-of-migration/
The Migrants’ Rights Network: https://migrantsrights.org.uk
Words Matter campaign: https://migrantsrights.org.uk/projects/wordsmatter/
Contributors
Lisa Casey
blog: https://livingthroughlanguage.wordpress.com/ & Twitter: Language Debates (@LanguageDebates)
Dan Clayton
blog: EngLangBlog & Twitter: EngLangBlog (@EngLangBlog)
Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/englangblog.bsky.social
Jacky Glancey
Twitter: https://twitter.com/JackyGlancey
Raj Rana
Matthew Butler
Twitter: https://twitter.com/MatthewbutlerCA
Music: Serge Quadrado - Cool Guys
Cool Guys by Serge Quadrado is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. From the Free Music Archive: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/serge-quadrado/urban/cool-guys
Episode 51 - Emily M. Bender and 'AI' hype
Show notes for Episode 51
Here are the show notes for Episode 51, in which Dan and (new Lexis team member) Raj talk to Professor Emily M. Bender of the University of Washington about:
Why ‘Artificial Intelligence’ is not really the right term at all
How Large Language Models work and why we should be sceptical of many of the claims made for them
The biases inherent in LLMs and what to do about them
Whether ‘neural networks’ and language processing can shed any light on child language development
The discourses around ‘AI’: from booster to doomer.
Emily M. Bender’s University of Washington page: https://faculty.washington.edu/ebender/
A great interview from 2023: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/ai-artificial-intelligence-chatbots-emily-m-bender.html
Time Magazine on the ‘machine-learning myth buster’: https://time.com/collection/time100-ai/6308275/emily-m-bender/
Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000 podcast: https://www.dair-institute.org/maiht3k/
Emily’s book recommendations:
‘Babel’, R.F. Kuang: https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/babel-or-the-necessity-of-violence-an-arcane-history-of-the-oxford-translators-revolution-r-f-kuang/6627642?ean=9780008501853
‘A Memory Called Empire, Arkady Martine: https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/a-memory-called-empire-winner-of-the-hugo-award-for-best-novel-arkady-martine/219166?ean=9781529001594
Other links from the interview
Jess Dodge’s work: https://jessedodge.github.io/
Batya Friedman & Helen Nissenbaum, Bias in Computer Systems (1996): https://nyuscholars.nyu.edu/en/publications/bias-in-computer-systems
Some further reading:
Police worried 101 call bot would struggle with 'Brummie' accents
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-68466369
BBC News - 'Journalists are feeding the AI hype machine'
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-68488924
Bias against African American English
Paper: https://arxiv.org/abs/2403.00742
Register article: https://www.theregister.com/2024/03/11/ai_models_exhibit_racism_based/
An Al-Jazeera opinion piece about AI and borders:
https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2023/4/20/ban-racist-and-lethal-ai-from-europes-borders
Contributors
Lisa Casey
blog: https://livingthroughlanguage.wordpress.com/ & Twitter: Language Debates (@LanguageDebates)
Dan Clayton
blog: EngLangBlog & Twitter: EngLangBlog (@EngLangBlog)
Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/englangblog.bsky.social
Jacky Glancey
Twitter: https://twitter.com/JackyGlancey
Raj Rana
Matthew Butler
Twitter: https://twitter.com/MatthewbutlerCA
Music: Serge Quadrado - Cool Guys
Cool Guys by Serge Quadrado is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. From the Free Music Archive: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/serge-quadrado/urban/cool-guys
Episode 50 - Jess Aiston and Critical Discourse Analysis
Show notes for Episode 50
Here are the show notes for Episode 50, in which Jacky and Dan talk to Dr Jessica Aiston of QMUL about:
Critical Discourse Analysis and Critical Discourse Studies
Why CDA/CDS are such useful approaches for A Level English Language students
Some of the most useful elements of the CDA toolkit and why they’re helpful
The work that Jess has done on the representation of women by men in the manosphere
Using critical discourse approaches with social media data
The ethics of using social media data
The work that Jess is currently doing on ‘autism in affinity spaces’
Jess’s QMUL page: https://www.qmul.ac.uk/sllf/language-centre/people/academic/profiles/aiston.html
Jess on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/jessaiston.bsky.social
Crompton's paper on the telephone game: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1362361320919286
Damian Milton on the double empathy problem:https://www.autism.org.uk/advice-and-guidance/professional-practice/double-empathy
Autism in Affinity Spaces project website: https://autisminaffinityspaces.org/
Information about the survey: https://autisminaffinityspaces.org/our-survey-is-now-live/ -
Contributors
Lisa Casey
blog: https://livingthroughlanguage.wordpress.com/ & Twitter: Language Debates (@LanguageDebates)
Dan Clayton
blog: EngLangBlog & Twitter: EngLangBlog (@EngLangBlog)
Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/englangblog.bsky.social
Jacky Glancey
Twitter: https://twitter.com/JackyGlancey
Matthew Butler
Twitter: https://twitter.com/MatthewbutlerCA
Music: Serge Quadrado - Cool Guys
Cool Guys by Serge Quadrado is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. From the Free Music Archive: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/serge-quadrado/urban/cool-guys
Episode 49 - Ife Thompson and Black British English
Show notes for Episode 49
Here are the show notes for Episode 49, in which Jacky and Dan talk to lawyer, community activist and author, Ife Thompson, about:
Black British English
Linguistic justice in schools, courts and the rest of the world
Anti-Blackness in discourses about language in the media
Drill lyrics and the criminalisation of Black cultural expression
Why we should give Black people their flowers for lexical innovation and their huge influence on British English
Why MLE is the wrong term to be using…
BLAM (UK): https://blamuk.org/
“When Black students’ language is suppressed or outrightly banned in classrooms they begin to absorb messages that imply Black language is incorrect and unintelligent, this can cause them to internalise anti-Blackness. Students who internalise negative ideas about their language and culture may develop a sense of inferiority and lose confidence in their own abilities, and school in general.
“The linguistic stigma of BBE also encourages the inappropriate and racially discriminatory discipline of Black children. In 2021, this was evidenced when a South London school with a large proportion of Black students introduced a language ban that included BBE vocabulary and semantics. Children could be reprimanded and punished for speaking in a way most natural and culturally significant to them, fuelling the practice and policies of UK schools criminalising Blackness.”
“The misidentification of Black British English as MLE minimises the cultural value and influence of Black heritage in modern-day Britain.”
Ife in conversation with Johanna Gerwin: ttps://londontalksresearch.co.uk/2023/01/20/black-british-english-as-a-label-for-multicultural-london-english/
Our interview with Johanna about London English: https://open.spotify.com/episode/42lkwg3h0k9PjWtJFkJDbU?si=tHWJWE6XTLK1K3bOMLTzCQ
Art Not Evidence campaign: https://artnotevidence.org/
Garden Court Chambers on the Art Not Evidence campaign: https://www.gardencourtchambers.co.uk/news/art-not-evidence-launches-campaign-to-stop-rap-lyrics-being-used-as-evidence
“One day we will ask ourselves how on earth the state was ever allowed to get away with using rap music as evidence to prosecute Black defendants in serious crime cases. Making music isn’t evidence of crime but the prosecuting of it is. As a result, the state creates unsafe convictions, perpetuates racist stereotypes and restricts artistic expression. This has got to stop. Join Art Not Evidence to help liberate rap from the legal system.”
The Manchester 10 case: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/jul/01/fury-in-manchester-as-black-teenagers-jailed-as-result-of-telegram-chat
The first episode of Black British English podcast:
https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/the-black-british/can-uk-slang-be-a-language-wEfv74rgexA/
Ife on Twitter: https://twitter.com/fufuisonme/status/1741037657084276882/photo/2
Contributors
Lisa Casey
blog: https://livingthroughlanguage.wordpress.com/ & Twitter: Language Debates (@LanguageDebates)
Dan Clayton
blog: EngLangBlog & Twitter: EngLangBlog (@EngLangBlog)
Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/englangblog.bsky.social
Jacky Glancey
Twitter: https://twitter.com/JackyGlancey
Matthew Butler
Twitter: https://twitter.com/MatthewbutlerCA
Music: Serge Quadrado - Cool Guys
Cool Guys by Serge Quadrado is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. From the Free Music Archive: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/serge-quadrado/urban/cool-guys
Episode 48 - Frazer Heritage on representation of gender in videogames (and more)
Show notes for Episode 48
Here are the show notes for Episode 48, in which Lisa, Jacky and Dan talk to Dr Frazer Heritage of Manchester Metropolitan University about:
Representation of gender in video games
What’s changed in the representation of gender and sexuality in video games since the 1980s
Language methods for analysing representation
Analysing how incels construct representations of gender
Dealing with difficult data
Frazer’s staff profile at MMU: Dr Frazer Heritage | Manchester Metropolitan University
Some of Frazer’s work for Manchester Game Centre: Language, Equality, and Gaming – LEG project
Frazer’s website: Frazer Heritage
Contributors
Lisa Casey
blog: https://livingthroughlanguage.wordpress.com/ & Twitter: Language Debates (@LanguageDebates)
Dan Clayton
blog: EngLangBlog & Twitter: EngLangBlog (@EngLangBlog)
Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/englangblog.bsky.social
Jacky Glancey
Twitter: https://twitter.com/JackyGlancey
Matthew Butler
Twitter: https://twitter.com/MatthewbutlerCA
Music: Serge Quadrado - Cool Guys
Cool Guys by Serge Quadrado is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. From the Free Music Archive: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/serge-quadrado/urban/cool-guys
Episode 47 - Fiona McPherson of the OED and Words of the Year 2023
Show notes for Episode 47
Here are the show notes for Episode 47, in which Dan talks to Fiona McPherson of the Oxford English Dictionary about:
Word of the Year 2023
What makes a good word of the year
Previous winners (and losers)
What new words can tell us about the world
Some of the best articles and updates about #WOTY2023 can be found here:
AI named word of the year by Collins Dictionary - BBC News
Rizz named word of the year 2023 by Oxford University Press - BBC News
Dictionary.com’s 2023 Word Of The Year Is…
The Cambridge Dictionary Word of the Year 2023
The Collins Word of the Year 2023 is…
Word of the Year 2023 | Authentic | Merriam-Webster
» Nominate the 2023 Words of the Year American Dialect Society
Japan chooses ‘tax’ as kanji of the year amid concern over cost of living
Opinion pieces about new words
The Collins word of the year shortlist shows we’re more self-obsessed than ever
Hallucinating AIs and What The Words Of The Year Lists Reveal About our Modern World
Rizz: I study the history of charisma – here's why the word of the year is misunderstood
Thread on Twitter responding to the ‘manosphere’ links
Who's got 'the rizz'? Apparently, just men
I get the need for ‘rizz’, but ‘influencer’ should be banned for ever
Contributors
Lisa Casey
blog: https://livingthroughlanguage.wordpress.com/ & Twitter: Language Debates (@LanguageDebates)
Dan Clayton
blog: EngLangBlog & Twitter: EngLangBlog (@EngLangBlog)
Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/englangblog.bsky.social
Jacky Glancey
Twitter: https://twitter.com/JackyGlancey
Matthew Butler
Twitter: https://twitter.com/MatthewbutlerCA
Music: Serge Quadrado - Cool Guys
Cool Guys by Serge Quadrado is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. From the Free Music Archive: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/serge-quadrado/urban/cool-guys
Episode 46 - Paul Kerswill & MLE
Show notes for Episode 46
Here are the show notes for Episode 46, in which Lisa, Jacky and Dan talk to Paul Kerswill, Emeritus Professor, Department of Language and Linguistic Science at the University of York about what has driven his interests in linguistics, but mostly about Multicultural London English:
What it is
How it developed
How it’s used now
How it’s been reported on (and why it’s not ‘Jafaican’)
The discourses and metaphors around it
What it might sound like in the future
Paul’s University of York page: https://www.york.ac.uk/language/people/academic-research/paul-kerswill/
Some of the presentations and papers Paul Kerswill has produced on MLE:
https://englishlanguagetoolkit.york.ac.uk/case-studies/who-made-mle
https://englishlanguagetoolkit.york.ac.uk/case-studies/jafaican
and the full paper of this workshop is here: https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/93713/1/17_Kerswill_corr.pdf
Some links to early reporting on MLE, MEYD and more: https://englishlangsfx.blogspot.com/search?q=MEYD
Some of Tony Thorne’s reflections on MLE (he denies coining the term ‘MEYD’ though!): https://language-and-innovation.com/?s=MLE
We talked about Accent Bias Britain too:
https://accentbiasbritain.org/
Here’s a York English Language Toolkit session on this too:
https://englishlanguagetoolkit.york.ac.uk/case-studies/accent-bias-britain
And previous episodes of Lexis in which we’ve discussed MLE:
Shivonne Gates: https://open.spotify.com/episode/5leNPWkgQTMFzZ2UHRktnC?si=wh-4nKMmTpm7Q5on2x2wIQ
Matt Hunt Gardner: https://open.spotify.com/episode/7GBFEsLSNKYEpvX2yHIanO?si=_h-_-ROcRpm1llQLiLoSJw
And we talk about recent reporting on MLE in this episode’s Lang in the News: https://open.spotify.com/episode/0cdODEHoWHIWLfd0gh6xSw?si=pwjAKwHbRyea0jxUBugbiA
Contributors
Lisa Casey
blog: https://livingthroughlanguage.wordpress.com/ & Twitter: Language Debates (@LanguageDebates)
Dan Clayton
blog: EngLangBlog & Twitter: EngLangBlog (@EngLangBlog)
Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/englangblog.bsky.social
Jacky Glancey
Twitter: https://twitter.com/JackyGlancey
Matthew Butler
Twitter: https://twitter.com/MatthewbutlerCA
Music: Serge Quadrado - Cool Guys
Cool Guys by Serge Quadrado is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. From the Free Music Archive: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/serge-quadrado/urban/cool-guys
Episode 45 - Alex Baratta and accentism
Show notes for Episode 45
Here are the show notes for Episode 45, in which we talk to Dr Alex Baratta, Senior Lecturer in Language, Linguistics & Communication, Manchester Institute of Education, University of Manchester about:
Accents, accents… and more accents!
Teacher accents and ‘professionalism’
Social connotations and stereotypes of accents - good and bad
Why one accent isn’t ‘better’ than another and why exposure to accents might be the way to overcome accentism
In our regular Lang in the News segment we talk about how formal greetings and sign-offs might be becoming a thing of the past and why that’s the fault of… well, pretty much everyone that Daily Mail readers don’t like. We also have a quick chat about the European-wide attempts to make language more inclusive, the first round of WOTY2023 and we big up Rob Drummond’s book, You’re All Talk.
Alex Baratta’s University of Manchester page:
https://research.manchester.ac.uk/en/persons/alex.baratta
Some of the articles, books and research we mentioned:
https://theconversation.com/teachers-with-northern-accents-are-being-told-to-posh-up-heres-why-88425
https://www.bera.ac.uk/blog/clarifying-accent-standards-for-british-teachers
Yours Sincerely is dead…
The Guardian:
And in the Mail:
Attempts to promote inclusive language in European languages
What’s in a word? How less-gendered language is faring across Europe
#WOTY2023
AI named word of the year by Collins Dictionary - BBC News
Opinion piece about new words https://archive.ph/kv2UQ
Rob Drummond’s new book: https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/you-re-all-talk-why-we-are-what-we-speak-rob-drummond/7512151?aid=4868&ean=9781914484285
Contributors
Lisa Casey
blog: https://livingthroughlanguage.wordpress.com/ & Twitter: Language Debates (@LanguageDebates)
Dan Clayton
blog: EngLangBlog & Twitter: EngLangBlog (@EngLangBlog)
Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/englangblog.bsky.social Jacky Glancey
Twitter: https://twitter.com/JackyGlancey
Matthew Butler
Twitter: https://twitter.com/MatthewbutlerCA
Music: Serge Quadrado - Cool Guys
Cool Guys by Serge Quadrado is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. From the Free Music Archive: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/serge-quadrado/urban/cool-guys
Episode 44 - Kingsley Ugwuanyi + Amanda Cole
Show notes for Episode 44
Here are the show notes for Episode 44, in which we talk to Dr Kingsley Ugwuanyi, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Horizon Europe’s RISE UP Research Project, School of Languages, Cultures and Linguistics at SOAS about:
Nigerian English
Global Englishes and who ‘owns’ a language
Accent attitudes and identity
Models and theories of world Englishes
In a Lang in the News bumper segment we talk about recent research into young people’s accents in the south east of England and media reactions to it, including a chat with Dr Amanda Cole of University of Essex about her paper and how it’s been covered.
Kingsley Ugwuanyi’s SOAS page: https://www.soas.ac.uk/about/kingsley-o-ugwuanyi
The paper (with Folajimi Oyebola) that we discussed: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Attitudes-of-Nigerian-expatriates-towards-accents-Ugwuanyi-Oyebola/ed2c0e7ac631c4a10fad45021abc8028c1305efc
The BBC article we talked about: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-66569668
Kingsley’s PhD: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/344951319_English_language_ownership_perceptions_of_speakers_of_Nigerian_English
Amanda Cole's recent accent research
The Mail covers it… And its readers comment: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12691143/Kings-speech-cockney-silenced-rise-new-accents-popularised-Ellie-Goulding-Adele-Stormzy.html
Telegraph
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/10/30/kings-english-cockney-replaced-new-accents/
BBC: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-essex-67289519
The Guardian Pass Notes: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2023/oct/31/language-barrier-why-even-harry-has-stopped-speaking-the-kings-english
The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/nov/05/cockneys-out-all-speaking-multicultural-now-accents
Accent intelligibility
Contributors
Lisa Casey
blog: https://livingthroughlanguage.wordpress.com/ & Twitter: Language Debates (@LanguageDebates)
Dan Clayton
blog: EngLangBlog & Twitter: EngLangBlog (@EngLangBlog)
BlueSky: @englangblog.bsky.social Jacky Glancey
Twitter: https://twitter.com/JackyGlancey
Matthew Butler
Twitter: https://twitter.com/MatthewbutlerCA
Music: Serge Quadrado - Cool Guys
Cool Guys by Serge Quadrado is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. From the Free Music Archive: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/serge-quadrado/urban/cool-guys
Episode 43 - language & gender special part 2
Show notes for Episode 43
Here are the show notes for Episode 43, the second part of a Language & Gender double episode special, in which Lisa, Jacky and Dan discuss ways to teach Language and Gender at A Level, from the 3 / 4 Ds models, to slightly tweaked and reverse Ds, through to corpus methods, treating gender as part of a wider ‘identity’ approach and much more.
Some of the resources and links that we mention in this episode
Cameron et al. on tag qns: https://web.stanford.edu/~eckert/PDF/CameronTags.pdf
Clare Feeney’s Twitter thread with a suggested approach: https://twitter.com/ClareFeeneyUK/status/1672172689224605697?s=20
Corpus for Schools | Corpus resources for A-level English Language and English Language Teaching
Alessia Tranchese’s paper on sexualised violence against women: https://researchportal.port.ac.uk/en/publications/covering-rape-how-the-media-determine-how-we-understand-sexualise
Alessia Tranchese’s paper on the language of incels on Reddit: https://researchportal.port.ac.uk/en/projects/online-misogyny-new-media-old-attitudes
Previous Lexis episodes that we mention in this episode.
Episode 10: Lucy Jones gender, sexuality and identity special https://open.spotify.com/episode/1m9UKNUUysD6Vawj61C2kW?si=U8fBAYFyRHSonV9NQ85qag
Episode 14: Emma Moore
https://open.spotify.com/episode/1j6MyddIEivQ8x2e2cObhR?si=uLwnyY10QDy_92UEpk4EhA
Episode 15: Dana Gablasova
https://open.spotify.com/episode/7nagsHhogFSfJmexecKlXt?si=U5ehaxmxQWSN57J5dAtjkQ
Episode 19: Elena Semino
https://open.spotify.com/episode/1ISaApHlLITDd7l9npXKKj?si=Wlei19KwTTyTeWfbK15qvg
Suggested reading:
Deborah Cameron’s blog, Language: a feminist guide: https://debuk.wordpress.com/
Deborah Cameron’s Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deborah_Cameron_(linguist)
Deborah Cameron wrote this Research Update for Teachers for the EMC back in 2015: https://www.englishandmedia.co.uk/blog/language-gender-a-research-update-for-teachers
Contributors
Lisa Casey
blog: https://livingthroughlanguage.wordpress.com/ & Twitter: Language Debates (@LanguageDebates)
Dan Clayton
blog: EngLangBlog & Twitter: EngLangBlog (@EngLangBlog)
BlueSky: @danc.bsky.social
Jacky Glancey
Twitter: https://twitter.com/JackyGlancey
Matthew Butler
Twitter: https://twitter.com/MatthewbutlerCA
Music: Serge Quadrado - Cool Guys
Cool Guys by Serge Quadrado is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. From the Free Music Archive: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/serge-quadrado/urban/cool-guys
Episode 42 - Deborah Cameron, language & gender special part 1
Here are the show notes for Episode 42, the first part of a Language & Gender double episode special, in which we talk to Deborah Cameron, Professor in Language and Communication at Worcester College, Oxford about:
Robin Lakoff 50 years on from Language and Woman’s Place
Where language & gender research has headed post-Lakoff
Deborah Cameron’s forthcoming book, Language, Sexism and Misogyny
What kinds of more recent research we could be looking at for the A Level
Online misogyny and Disney princesses
The other Deborah (Tannen)
We’ll be back soon with a follow-up episode in which we look at how we can approach the teaching of language and gender in a world that’s changed since the earliest days of research into this field.
Deborah Cameron’s blog, Language: a feminist guide: https://debuk.wordpress.com/
Deborah Cameron’s Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deborah_Cameron_(linguist)
Robin Lakoff’s 1973 article for Language in Society can be found here: https://web.stanford.edu/class/linguist156/Lakoff_1973.pdf
Somer articles about Deborah Cameron’s Myth of Mars and venus from around the time it was published: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/oct/01/gender.books
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/oct/03/gender.politicsphilosophyandsociety1
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2007/oct/02/gender.familyandrelationships
https://www.bps.org.uk/psychologist/language-common
Deborah wrote this Research Update for Teachers for the EMC back in 2015: https://www.englishandmedia.co.uk/blog/language-gender-a-research-update-for-teachers
Carmen Fought and Karen Eisenhauer, ‘The Princess Problem’: https://www.kareneisenhauer.org/projects-and-publications/
A Q&A with Karen Eisenhauer about her work: https://english.news.chass.ncsu.edu/2017/04/20/language-gender-and-disney-princesses/
The Washington Post on the Disney Princess research: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/01/25/researchers-have-discovered-a-major-problem-with-the-little-mermaid-and-other-disney-movies/
Alessia Tranchese’s paper on sexualised violence against women: https://researchportal.port.ac.uk/en/publications/covering-rape-how-the-media-determine-how-we-understand-sexualise
Alessia Tranchese’s paper on the language of incels on Reddit: https://researchportal.port.ac.uk/en/projects/online-misogyny-new-media-old-attitudes
Contributors
Lisa Casey
blog: https://livingthroughlanguage.wordpress.com/ & Twitter: Language Debates (@LanguageDebates)
Dan Clayton
blog: EngLangBlog & Twitter: EngLangBlog (@EngLangBlog)
BlueSky: @danc.bsky.social
Jacky Glancey
Twitter: https://twitter.com/JackyGlancey
Matthew Butler
Twitter: https://twitter.com/MatthewbutlerCA
Music: Serge Quadrado - Cool Guys
Cool Guys by Serge Quadrado is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. From the Free Music Archive: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/serge-quadrado/urban/cool-guys
Episode 41 - Johanna Gerwin and London English
Show notes for Episode 41
Here are the show notes for Episode 41, in which Dan talks to Dr Johanna Gerwin, a sociolinguist at QMUL and DFG (German Research Foundation) post-doctoral researcher for the London Talks project about London English, including:
The London Talks and Real Talk East projects
What ‘enregisterment’ means and how language styles and varieties become enregistered
‘Metalinguistic’ discourses about London English - MLE, Cockney and Estuary
The power of discourses around language
Slang swag
Johanna’s QMUL staff page: https://www.qmul.ac.uk/sllf/linguistics/people/research-staff/profiles/johanna-gerwin.html
Johanna on Twitter: https://twitter.com/jo_gerw
The London Talks project website: https://londontalksresearch.co.uk/
Real Talk on Twitter: https://twitter.com/RealTalkEast
In our regular Lang in the News segment, Lisa, Jacky and Dan talk about ‘cis’ and how it’s been termed a slur by Elon Musk. We discuss where ‘cis’ comes from and all the related issues about language policing in a changing world.
Elon Musk claims ‘cis’ is a slur…
Elon Musk sparks outrage with threat to ban ‘cisgender’ as a ‘slur’ on Twitter | The Independent
Elon Musk claims use of 'cis' and 'cisgender' on Twitter is 'harassment', threatens to suspend users
Researcher who coined term 'cisgender' hits back at Elon Musk
Cisgender refers to people whose gender identity aligns with the one assigned at birth. The researcher who coined the term, Dana Defosse, first used the word in a 1994 post on an early internet forum, which Oxford English Dictionary cited when it added the term to the dictionary in 2015
No, Elon Musk, cis is not a slur | The Independent
OED update December 2015:
New words notes December 2015 | Oxford English Dictionary
“Another sign of our increasingly complex understanding of personal identity in the twenty-first century is the inclusion of a cluster of words beginning with the prefix cis–: cis, cisgender, cisgendered, and cissexual. Derived from the Latin preposition cis, meaning ‘on this side of’, until relatively recently this prefix was chiefly visible in English in the adjectives cisalpine and cismontane (‘on this side of the Alps/mountains’), and in the names of certain chemicals displaying a particular type of molecular symmetry. Since 1994 however, when the word cisgendered was used by an American academic appealing for help with a study of transgender issues, cis– has taken on a new lease of life in a group of words which provide a direct equivalent to identity terms such as transgender and transsexual when referring to people who are not trans, i.e., those whose sense of their own personal identity corresponds to their birth sex.”
What does 'cisgender' mean? | Merriam-Webster
Etymology of ‘cis’: The Word “Cisgender” Has Scientific Roots | Office for Science and Society - McGill University
And Jill is no longer part of the Lexis team - thanks to her for being involved and for all her contribution and insights!
Contributors
Lisa Casey
blog: https://livingthroughlanguage.wordpress.com/ & Twitter: Language Debates (@LanguageDebates)
Dan Clayton
blog: EngLangBlog & Twitter: EngLangBlog (@EngLangBlog)
BlueSky: @danc.bsky.social
Jacky Glancey
Twitter: https://twitter.com/JackyGlancey
Matthew Butler
Twitter: https://twitter.com/MatthewbutlerCA
Music: Serge Quadrado - Cool Guys
Cool Guys by Serge Quadrado is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. From the Free Music Archive: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/serge-quadrado/urban/cool-guys
Episode 40 - York English Language Toolkit
Show notes for Episode 40
Here are the show notes for Episode 40, a bumper edition in which Lisa, Jacky and Dan talk to four linguists from the University of York about their York English Language Toolkit website and teacher CPD sessions. We talk to:
Sam Hellmuth about the Toolkit and some of her favourite sessions in the past 10 years.
Tamar Keren-Portnoy about her child language research
George Bailey about the Our Dialect app
Claire Childs about her work on perceptions of non-standard grammar
The York English Language Toolkit website can be found here: https://englishlanguagetoolkit.york.ac.uk/case-studies
This year’s sessions can be found here: https://englishlanguagetoolkit.york.ac.uk/workshops
York English Language Toolkit on Twitter: https://twitter.com/YorkToolkit
Sam Hellmuth on Twitter: https://twitter.com/samhellmuth
Claire Childs on Twitter: https://twitter.com/childs_claire
George Bailey on Twitter: https://twitter.com/grbails
University of York Department of Language and Linguistic Science: https://twitter.com/UoYLangLing
Contributors
Lisa Casey
blog: https://livingthroughlanguage.wordpress.com/ & Twitter: Language Debates (@LanguageDebates)
Dan Clayton
blog: EngLangBlog & Twitter: EngLangBlog (@EngLangBlog)
BlueSky: @danc.bsky.social
Jacky Glancey
Twitter: https://twitter.com/JackyGlancey
Jill Lavender
Twitter: https://twitter.com/JillLavs
Matthew Butler
Twitter: https://twitter.com/MatthewbutlerCA
Music: Serge Quadrado - Cool Guys
Cool Guys by Serge Quadrado is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. From the Free Music Archive: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/serge-quadrado/urban/cool-guys
Episode 39: Dan Collen on weaponized laughter memes & Heddwen Newton on Lang in the News
Show notes for Episode 39
Here are the show notes for Episode 39, in which Lisa and Dan talk to Dan Collen, an online hate researcher from Canada about his work on the Weaponized Laughter: Memes and Hate in the Canadian Digital Landscape report he has helped produce. We talk about:
Memes: what they are and how they work
What is classified as hate speech and the ‘hallmarks of hate’
The discourses at work in hate speech
Online communities and their role in shaping and influencing wider culture
Dog whistles and plausible deniability
Hope for the future?
🚩As might be obvious when looking at hate speech, this episode comes with a content warning for themes of racism and discrimination.🚩
And for a Lang in the News special, we talk to Heddwen Newton about her newsletter English in Progress, some recent news stories that have caught her eye and how to stay on top of news stories about language.
Dan Collen on Twitter: https://twitter.com/SpinelessL
The Weaponized Laughter Memes report: https://cdn.sanity.io/files/rdq6owff/production/6b78f8630669069025ea145da2221ef2c1fac032.pdf
Hatepedia site: Hatepedia
“Hatepedia is an online database and resource centre built with original research to provide educators, parents, lawmakers, and researchers with tools to identify and counter the proliferation of online hate.”
Heddwen’s Language in Progress newsletter: https://englishinprogress.substack.com/
Heddwen’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/Heddwen
Susie Dent’s ‘banished words list’: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-65634829
And the Tweet that started it: https://twitter.com/susie_dent/status/1658380887698931712?s=20
Contributors
Lisa Casey
blog: https://livingthroughlanguage.wordpress.com/ & Twitter: Language Debates (@LanguageDebates)
Dan Clayton
blog: EngLangBlog & Twitter: EngLangBlog (@EngLangBlog)
Mastodon:
Jacky Glancey
Twitter: https://twitter.com/JackyGlancey
Jill Lavender
Twitter: https://twitter.com/JillLavs
Matthew Butler
Twitter: https://twitter.com/MatthewbutlerCA
Music: Serge Quadrado - Cool Guys
Cool Guys by Serge Quadrado is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. From the Free Music Archive: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/serge-quadrado/urban/cool-guys
Episode 38 - Anna Islentyeva and the representation of masculinity in advertising
Here are the show notes for Episode 38, in which Lisa and Dan talk to Dr Anna Islentyeva of Innsbruck University, Austria about the representation of masculinity in advertising, including:
The “Real Men Score” paper she has recently published with her team
Stereotypes around gender representation
Methodologies and approaches to data
Multimodal approaches to visual texts
Anna’s university page: https://www.uibk.ac.at/anglistik/staff/islentyeva/islentyeva.html
Anna on Twitter: https://twitter.com/hei_anni
The “Real Men Score” paper: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1HZsad35JBMD0kM4FqpXpWn8xWnIzAiL-/view?usp=share_link
Anna Islentyeva, Elisabeth Zimmermann, Nadia Schützinger & Andrea Platzer (2023) ‘Real Men Score’: Masculinity in Contemporary Advertising Discourse, Critical Discourse Studies, DOI: 10.1080/17405904.2023.2173625
The study that Anna mentioned into perfume advertising was by Helen Ringrow and this is her book The Language of Cosmetics: The Language of Cosmetics Advertising | SpringerLink
And in our regular Lang in the News segment, Jacky and Dan talk about linguistic accommodation, the power of accents and why politicians love to talk down to us.
Northern lessons for southern Tories
https://twitter.com/christopherhope/status/1649520363926110210?t=pCM6q2gelPqBiOFGy4bQcA&s=19
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/04/21/how-do-you-sex-a-limpet-susie/
Rishi Sunak’s downwards convergence
Here’s the clip: https://twitter.com/sturdyAlex/status/1640280827086143488
Is it “hilariously inauthentic”(Alex Andreou)?
Is it “sheer desperation by an out of touch rich boy trying to show he is in tune with the public” (Dave Lawrence in replies to tweet above https://twitter.com/dave43law/status/1640326877842685954?s=20 )?
Or is it just another example of politicians (of all parties) trying to sound more human and a perfectly natural way of doing language?
Jane Setter article about people keeping/losing accents:
George Osborne:
'Mockney' George Osborne backs working Briddish with dodgy accent
George 'Mockney' Osborne: Chancellor in Estuary accent shocker
George Osborne, gawd bless yer | Victoria Coren | The Guardian
Academics 'dropping regional accents' to fit in at elite universities (linked story to accommodation)
Ed Miliband with Russell Brand:
Accent on common ground as Miliband takes on Russell Brand's estuary twang
The cultural significance of Ed Miliband's mockney accent | The Spectator
Has Ed Miliband changed his accent to get elected?
Tony Blair:
London Journal; Britons Prick Up Their Ears: Blair's a Li'l Peculiar
I don’t have a posh accent – am I bothered? | Suzanne Moore | The Guardian
Accents in Higher Education:
Academics 'dropping regional accents' to fit in at elite universities
British academics try to hide regional accents, study finds
Alex Barratta’s work on accents and teaching
Research exposes prejudice over teachers with northern accents
Contributors
Lisa Casey
blog: https://livingthroughlanguage.wordpress.com/ & Twitter: Language Debates (@LanguageDebates)
Dan Clayton
blog: EngLangBlog & Twitter: EngLangBlog (@EngLangBlog)
Mastodon:
Jacky Glancey
Twitter: https://twitter.com/JackyGlancey
Jill Lavender
Twitter: https://twitter.com/JillLavs
Matthew Butler
Twitter: https://twitter.com/MatthewbutlerCA
Music: Serge Quadrado - Cool Guys
Cool Guys by Serge Quadrado is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. From the Free Music Archive: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/serge-quadrado/urban/cool-guys
Episode 37 - Heidi Colthup and the language of gaming
Show notes for Episode 37
Here are the show notes for Episode 37, in which Dan and Jill talk to Dr Heidi Colthup of the University of Kent about the language of gaming, including:
Her journey into academia
How we define what a game is
The language used around and about gaming
Narrative and the power of storytelling in games
Heidi’s university page: https://www.kent.ac.uk/cultures-languages/people/1705/colthup-heidi
Heidi on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Heidi_Colthup
Some of Heidi’s recommended reading:
Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman, Rules of Play: https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262240451/rules-of-play/
Marie-Laure Ryan, Narrative as Virtual Reality: Immersion and Interactivity in Literature and Electronic Media: https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Narrative_as_Virtual_Reality.html?id=cjAWAQAAIAAJ&redir_esc=y
And in our regular Lang in the News segment, Lisa and Dan talk about Oxfam’s guide to “inclusive language” and why it has upset some people.
Pronouns and inclusive language
Oxfam and gender neutral language:
Words matter: that’s why Oxfam is launching an inclusive language guide - Views & Voices
“These principles and language guidelines are designed to prompt thought when using language. They are not set rules and should not be viewed as restrictions. They are intended to complement existing messaging frameworks and positionings.
We recognize that language is context- and audience-specific, and shifts between time and place; we would encourage you to think about what works best for your purpose.”
New Statesman
The furore over Oxfam’s “woke” language guide misses the point - New Statesman
Is it a choice between “Blustering bigotry or preening sanctimony”?
“Language is neither progressive nor regressive. It does not move along a line of continuous, consensus-led improvement, nor will it wholly degrade into meaningless relativism. What it does do is change – change being the mess made by the passage of time. It evolves as nature evolves: scruffily, multifariously and incrementally, its infinite variety matching that of the needs and circumstances of the people it serves. This is what gives words their power to disrupt the status quo –they are radically demotic, belonging to everyone and no one. No top-down initiative or prescription, whether from a right-on NGO or a thundering middle-market tabloid, can rob them of that quality. No actor, however powerful, can control or shape the whole.”
Mail Online
Telegraph
Don’t say mother or father as it could offend, Oxfam tells staff
Pink News
Oxfam hits back at critics of trans-inclusive guidance who claim its 'erasing mums and dads'
An Oxfam spokesperson told PinkNews: “We are proud of using inclusive language; we won’t succeed in tackling poverty by excluding marginalised groups. This guide is not prescriptive, it is intended to help authors communicate with the diverse range of people with which we work.
“We are disappointed that some people have decided to misrepresent the advice offered in the guide which clearly states that authors should respect the desires of those who want to be described as a mother or father.”
Why inclusive language doesn't have to exclude:
https://twitter.com/msolurin/status/1638908370274119682?t=yAnw7WkwLYQTKY0DbOUkgg&s=19
Dennis Baron on Twitter: https://twitter.com/DrGrammar/status/1638682725585657856
And his book “What’s Your Pronoun?” is really good on the history of much of this.
Interesting piece on pronouns and language change
Episode 36 - Claire Hardaker and forensic linguistics
Here are the show notes for Episode 36, in which Dan and Lisa talk to Dr Claire Hardaker about:
- Forensic linguistics
- What language can reveal about us
- The benefits and problems of technology in forensic linguistics
- The role of the forensic linguist in an unequal society
- The future of forensic linguistics
Claire’s Lancaster University page: https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/linguistics/about/people/claire-hardaker
Claire’s en clair podcast: http://wp.lancs.ac.uk/enclair/
Claire on Twitter: https://twitter.com/drclaireH
Claire on Mastodon: https://mastodonapp.uk/@drclaireh
And in our regular Lang in the News segment, Lisa and Dan talk about Words of the Year- which ones have been chosen so far, how they have been selected, why they work (or don’t?) and what they might tell us about 2022.
Collins: ‘Sums up 2022’: Permacrisis chosen as Collins word of the year | Culture | The Guardian
A year of ‘permacrisis’ - Collins Dictionary Language Blog
Oxford Dictionaries:
https://languages.oup.com/word-of-the-year/2022/#WOTY2022vote
‘Goblin mode’: new Oxford word of the year speaks to the times | Language | The Guardian
Cambridge Dictionary:
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/editorial/woty
Merriam Webster: Word of the Year 2022 | Gaslighting | Merriam-Webster
Macquarie:
Teal named Macquarie Dictionary’s word of the year – ‘an emblem of Australia’s political landscape’
Dictionary dot com:
Dictionary.com’s 2022 Word Of The Year Is…
Dictionary.com announces word of the year: ‘woman’ | US news | The Guardian
Dan’s Independent article about WOTY2022:
2022’s Words of the Year and what they tell us | The Independent
Episode 35 - an opinion articles special with Harriet Williamson
Here are the show notes for Episode 35, an opinion articles special, in which Dan and Jacky talk to Harriet Williamson, the Voices Commissioning Editor at The Independent about:
- Opinion articles and what makes a good one, including pieces about language issues
- The job of a commissioning editor
- Paths into journalism
- Educating the public about language
Harriet’s Independent page: https://www.independent.co.uk/author/harriet-williamson
Harriet on Twitter: https://twitter.com/harriepw
Indy Voices on Twitter: https://twitter.com/IndyVoices
Harriet’s article on accent-shaming: https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/accent-bias-shaming-bbc-english-b2216735.html
Harriet on why, if you want to be a writer, it pays to be a reader: https://www.independent.co.uk/independentpremium/editors-letters/better-writer-journalism-reading-stephen-king-b2140181.html
Victoria Richards’ article on language and refugees:
https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/suella-braverman-invasion-migrants-firebombing-b2214905.html
And in our regular Lang in the News segment, Lisa, Jacky and Dan discuss and analyse an article by Michael Deacon of the Daily Telegraph that lays into the BBC’s Amol Rajan over his views on accents at the BBC. We also look at two letters from Telegraph readers in response to (and in support of) the Deacon article. We also see how many times we can say Amol Rajan’s name in the space of 30 minutes…
Make sure you have the article to hand as we pull it apart!
Michael Deacon article here (paywalled version): https://www.telegraph.co.uk/columnists/2022/09/28/amol-rajans-attack-posh-presenters-pure-inverted-snobbery/
Michael Deacon article here (Pressreader version): https://pressreader.com/article/281573769572585
Letters here: https://pressreader.com/article/282093460615450
Amol Rajan’s Cracking the Class Ceiling programme https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001fygr
And reviewed here
Telegraph: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/tv/2022/12/06/how-crack-class-ceiling-review/
Amol Rajan’s initial points reported here: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/09/27/amol-rajan-accuses-bbc-posh-having-accent-bias
Episode 34 - Arran Stibbe and ecolinguistics
Show notes for Episode 34
Here are the show notes for Episode 34, in which Dan and Jill talk to Arran Stibbe, professor of Ecological Linguistics, and teacher on the BA English course at the University of Gloucestershire (https://www.glos.ac.uk/enl) about:
- Ecolinguistics - what it is and why we need it
- The power of storytelling and the environment
- Critical language awareness and its role in fighting back against climate catastrophe
- Challenging ecologically damaging narratives, ‘greenwashing’, economic ‘growth’ metaphors and more…
Arran’s university page: Arran Stibbe - Staff Profiles
Taylor & Francis author interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTiktxHF_pY
The book: Ecolinguistics: Language, Ecology and the Stories We Live By - 2nd Edi
The Stories We Live By site: Stories We Live By
And in our regular Lang in the News segment, Lisa, Jacky and Dan talk about how language is used to represent the environment, how it is used in discussions and political campaigns around green issues and how some metaphors for the economy might not be the best ones to use…
Just Stop Oil: research shows how activists and politicians talk differently about climate change
Economists question 'black hole' in UK finances - BBC News
Economists urge BBC to rethink 'inappropriate' reporting of UK economy | IPPR
Contact us @LexisPodcast. Subscribe: Lexis Podcast | Podcast on Spotify
Contributors
Matthew Butler
Twitter: https://twitter.com/MatthewbutlerCA
Lisa Casey
blog: https://livingthroughlanguage.wordpress.com/ & Twitter: Language Debates (@LanguageDebates)
Dan Clayton
blog: EngLangBlog & Twitter: EngLangBlog (@EngLangBlog)
Jacky Glancey
Twitter: https://twitter.com/JackyGlancey
Jill Lavender
Twitter: https://twitter.com/JillLavs
Music: Serge Quadrado - Cool Guys
Cool Guys by Serge Quadrado is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. From the Free Music Archive: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/serge-quadrado/urban/cool-guys
Episode 33 - Katy Brown and discourse analysis
Episode 32 - Kate Barber and the language of misogyny in online communities
Episode 31 - Danny Bate and the joys of etymology
Show notes for Episode 31
Here are the show notes for Episode 31, in which Lisa, Dan and (*drumroll*) new Lexis team member, Jill Lavender (*end drumroll*) talk to Edinburgh University PhD student and ‘that etymology guy’, Danny Bate about:
- Etymology (obvs)
- Connections between English and other languages
- What words can tell us about language change
- ‘Sound laws’ and historical linguistics
Danny’s website: https://dannybate.com/
Danny on Twitter: https://twitter.com/DannyBate4
Lang in the News links
Swearing - It's been in the news a fair bit… https://www.theguardian.com/media/2022/oct/20/krishnan-guru-murthy-taken-off-air-for-swearing-about-steve-baker
https://preply.com/en/blog/cities-that-swear-most/
The power of swearing: how obscene words influence your mind, body and relationships
Good episode of The Bunker podcast about this: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/bunker-bonus-swearing-by-it-why-we-ing-love-to-curse/id1496246490?i=1000582791786
The success of compound swears - ‘shitgibbon’’ ‘fucktrumpet’ and ‘flagshagger’...
The rise of the shitgibbon – Strong Language
Compound pejoratives on Reddit – from 'buttface' to 'wankpuffin'
Contact us @LexisPodcast. Subscribe: Lexis Podcast | Podcast on Spotify
Contributors
Matthew Butler
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Matthewbutlerwy
Lisa Casey
blog: https://livingthroughlanguage.wordpress.com/ & Twitter: Language Debates (@LanguageDebates)
Dan Clayton
blog: EngLangBlog & Twitter: EngLangBlog (@EngLangBlog)
Jacky Glancey
Twitter: https://twitter.com/JackyGlancey
Jill Lavender
Music: Serge Quadrado - Cool Guys
Cool Guys by Serge Quadrado is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. From the Free Music Archive: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/serge-quadrado/urban/cool-guys
Episode 30 - Jessica Norledge and the Language of Dystopia
Show notes for Episode 30 Here are the show notes for Episode 30, in which Jacky, Dan and Lisa talk to Dr Jessica Norledge, Assistant Professor in Stylistics at the University of Nottingham, about: Stylistics - what it is and how we can use it The language of and in dystopia ‘Text worlds’ and cognitive linguistics Her favourite dystopian novels Jess has just published The Language of Dystopia with Palgrave (see here: https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-93103-2) - (40% off until Oct 31st 2022 with HAL40 code!) We also talk in our regular Lang in the News segment about recent news stories on emojis, the ‘word gap’ and how ‘culture wars’ news stories are framed, with advice about reading them critically. Jessica Norledge’s University of Nottingham webpage: Jessica Norledge Twitter: https://twitter.com/jessnorledge The book: https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-93103-2 (40% off until Oct 31st with HAL40 code) Lang in the News links Thumbs up emojis get the thumbs down from Gen Z (or not): Daily Mirror: https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/weird-news/thumbs-up-emoji-branded-inappropriate-28219379 NY Post: Gen Z has canceled the thumbs-up emoji because it's 'hostile' emoji thumbs up NYPost Oct 2022.pdf Thread here: https://twitter.com/EngLangBlog/status/1580276631473516544 The non-story aspect of all this is covered here: https://twitter.com/RottenInDenmark/status/1580348731215740928 But also the link to other non-stories about generational outrage is worth discussing: Linguists say full stops ‘intimidate young people’ as they seem angry | Metro News Another emoji story this week: geek emoji Article here: geek emoji Nottingham Post Oct 2022.pdf and also covered briefly in Telegraph and Mail Links to an older story in summer about generational use of emojis: Mail emojis generations July 2022.docx Ian Cushing gets the Daily Mail treatment for his critiques of ‘word gap’ discourses Ian’s thread: https://twitter.com/ian_cushing/status/1579731095884820481 The Mail article: Schools branded 'racist' for trying to improve pupils' vocabulary | Daily Mail Online Cushing Mail + later comments Oct 2022.docx Ian’s paper: Full article: Word rich or word poor? Deficit discourses, raciolinguistic ideologies and the resurgence of the ‘word gap’ in England’s education policy Ian’s thread on this: https://twitter.com/ian_cushing/status/1551555550395129856?s=20&t=dNK7RVsA-DrIIgr4C7VXPQ Ian and Julia Snell’s Ofsted paper: The (white) ears of Ofsted: A raciolinguistic perspective on the listening practices of the schools inspectorate | Language in Society | Cambridge Core Discussion of standardised English and Ofsted in the TES: Ofsted: Teaching pupils to speak standard English is 'social justice' Lynne Murphy’s emagazine article ‘How To Read the Language News – Sceptically’ is in emagazine 82 and available (if you have an emag subscription) through this link: emagazine For Advanced Level English Students Contact us @LexisPodcast. Subscribe: Lexis Podcast | Podcast on Spotify Contributors Matthew Butler Twitter: https://twitter.com/Matthewbutlerwy Lisa Casey blog: https://livingthroughlanguage.wordpress.com/ & Twitter: Language Debates (@LanguageDebates) Dan Clayton blog: EngLangBlog & Twitter: EngLangBlog (@EngLangBlog) Jacky Glancey Twitter: https://twitter.com/JackyGlancey Music: Freenotes End music: Serge Quadrado - Cool Guys Cool Guys by Serge Quadrado is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. From the Free Music Archive: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/serge-quadrado/urban/cool-guys
Episode 29 - JPB Gerald
Show notes for Episode 29
Here are the show notes for Episode 29, in which Dan and Lisa talk to Dr JPB Gerald about the tensions around standard language ideology when teaching English as a foreign language, the problems with the English teaching ‘industry’, and the spread of English around the world, along with many other themes featured in his new book, Antisocial Language Teaching: English and the Pervasive Pathology of Whiteness coming soon (30th September) from Multilingual Matters, Bristol.
We also talk in our regular Lang in the News segment about recent news stories about accent reduction and infant-directed speech.
JPB Gerald’s podcast: https://anchor.fm/unstandardized
Website: https://jpbgerald.com/blog/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/JPBGerald
The book! https://multilingual-matters.com/page/detail/?k=9781800413269
Lang in the News links
Infant-directed speech research
And this from University of York links nicely:
The York English Language Toolkit - changing IDS
Making your accent whiter
Linked thread here: https://twitter.com/EngLangBlog/status/1562322119022845952
Contact us @LexisPodcast. Subscribe: Lexis Podcast | Podcast on Spotify
Contributors
Matthew Butler
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Matthewbutlerwy
Lisa Casey
blog: https://livingthroughlanguage.wordpress.com/ & Twitter: Language Debates (@LanguageDebates)
Dan Clayton
blog: EngLangBlog & Twitter: EngLangBlog (@EngLangBlog)
Jacky Glancey
Twitter: https://twitter.com/JackyGlancey
Music: Freenotes
End music: Serge Quadrado - Cool Guys
Cool Guys by Serge Quadrado is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. From the Free Music Archive: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/serge-quadrado/urban/cool-guys
Episode 28 - Kendra Calhoun
Show notes for Episode 28 Here are the show notes for Episode 28, in which Dan talks to Dr Kendra Calhoun, University of California President’s Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Anthropology, UCLA about her work on online communication, how racialised identities are performed and constructed online and the power of interdisciplinarity (fine if you can say it).
Kendra Calhoun’s UCLA page: https://anthro.ucla.edu/person/kendra-calhoun/
Kendra’s website: https://kendrancalhoun.com/ research pages (where many of the projects we talk about are covered) https://kendrancalhoun.com/research/ and her teaching pages https://kendrancalhoun.com/teaching/ ‘They edited out her nip nops’: Linguistic Innovation as Textual Censorship Avoidance on TikTok - this is the work on TikTok, censorship avoidance and linguistic creativity that we discussed: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1BkagHBlDpZNqkMqXTlxsJcL9swApokqu
Kendra Calhoun’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/_kendracalhoun
Contact us @LexisPodcast.
Subscribe: Lexis Podcast | Podcast on Spotify Contributors
Matthew Butler Twitter: https://twitter.com/Matthewbutlerwy
Lisa Casey blog: https://livingthroughlanguage.wordpress.com/ & Twitter: Language Debates (@LanguageDebates)
Dan Clayton blog: EngLangBlog & Twitter: EngLangBlog (@EngLangBlog)
Jacky Glancey Twitter: https://twitter.com/JackyGlancey
Music: Freenotes End music: Serge Quadrado - Cool Guys Cool Guys by Serge Quadrado is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
From the Free Music Archive: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/serge-quadrado/urban/cool-guys
Episode 27 - MLE in the Media special
Show notes for Episode 27 Here are the show notes for Episode 27, an MLE in the media special, in which we talk to Dr Matt Hunt Gardner from the Faculty of Linguistics, Philology and Phonetics, University of Oxford about recent stories and articles on Multicultural London English and look at the language, the views, the framing and the timing of those pieces in a bit more detail. Matt Hunt Gardner’s website: https://www.matthuntgardner.com/ Matt’s pages at University of Oxford: https://www.ling-phil.ox.ac.uk/people/dr-matt-hunt-gardner Matt on Twitter: https://twitter.com/matthuntgardner The articles themselves The Telegraph Twitter thread: https://twitter.com/Telegraph/status/1536696753717665792 The Telegraph piece: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/06/13/wagwan-street-slang-britains-main-dialect/ The Guardian piece: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2022/jun/14/wagwan-why-are-more-and-more-britons-speaking-multicultural-london-english The Mail Online piece: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-10921527/Wagwan-language-urban-dialect-takes-IRAM-RAMZAN-says-not-change-good.html Some selected Mail Online comments: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Dx0UfZPxEAXxjX9abBNtyCGz6SRo_BlL/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=110439791983693362630&rtpof=true&sd=true Evening Standard piece: https://www.standard.co.uk/comment/britain-london-slang-accents-regional-diversity-lenny-henry-b1006546.html The i piece: https://inews.co.uk/opinion/multicultural-london-english-dialect-40-years-old-middle-class-britain-terrified-1690448 Other sources on MLE: Multicultural London English – part 1 The 'M' in 'MLE' – Youth Slang's Origins | tony thorne Old MLE complaints from EngLangBlog: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RNLPjiCIv4X8Pw_VhLzSbj6olcISUn_1/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=110439791983693362630&rtpof=true&sd=true Contact us @LexisPodcast. Subscribe: Lexis Podcast | Podcast on Spotify Contributors Matthew Butler Twitter: https://twitter.com/Matthewbutlerwy Lisa Casey blog: https://livingthroughlanguage.wordpress.com/ & Twitter: Language Debates (@LanguageDebates) Dan Clayton blog: EngLangBlog & Twitter: EngLangBlog (@EngLangBlog) Jacky Glancey Twitter: https://twitter.com/JackyGlancey Music: Freenotes End music: Serge Quadrado - Cool Guys Cool Guys by Serge Quadrado is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. From the Free Music Archive: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/serge-quadrado/urban/cool-guys
Note: a better audio version of this was uploaded on Nov 30th 2022
Episode 26 - Robert McKenzie and Speaking of Prejudice
Show notes for Episode 26
Here are the show notes for Episode 26, in which Jacky, Dan, Lisa and Matthew talk to Dr Robert McKenzie of Northumbria University about implicit biases in accent attitudes, the benefits of approaching language study with a multidisciplinary approach and the Speaking of Prejudice project.
Robert McKenzie’s Northumbria University webpage https://researchportal.northumbria.ac.uk/en/persons/robert-mckenzie
The Speaking of Prejudice project website: https://research.northumbria.ac.uk/languageattitudesengland/
Student resources from Speaking of Prejudice project: https://drive.google.com/file/d/10ui8etPOB2z2OvO6k2ebTIe-56t24rHR/view?usp=sharing
Speaking of Prejudice on Twitter: https://twitter.com/SpeechPrejudice
Robert McKenzie on Twitter: https://twitter.com/robertm98205445
Teacher resources from Speaking of Prejudice project:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1CjuWwWJHMupN_ZRB1CRjQKFo2ZgraZGk/view?usp=sharing
The British Academy showcase event can be found here: https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/events/british-academy-summer-showcase-2022/programme-exhibits/
The forthcoming book: https://www.routledge.com/Implicit-and-Explicit-Language-Attitudes-Mapping-Linguistic-Prejudice-and/McKenzie-McNeill/p/book/9780367703530
Robert’s book recommendations:
Language Myths by Laurie Bauer
and
English with an Accent: Language, Ideology and Discrimination in the U
Contact us @LexisPodcast. Subscribe: Lexis Podcast | Podcast on Spotify
Contributors
Matthew Butler
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Matthewbutlerwy
Lisa Casey
blog: https://livingthroughlanguage.wordpress.com/ & Twitter: Language Debates (@LanguageDebates)
Dan Clayton
blog: EngLangBlog & Twitter: EngLangBlog (@EngLangBlog)
Jacky Glancey
Twitter: https://twitter.com/JackyGlancey
Music: Freenotes
End music: Serge Quadrado - Cool Guys
Cool Guys by Serge Quadrado is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. From the Free Music Archive: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/serge-quadrado/urban/cool-guys
Episode 25 - the OED
Here are the show notes for Episode 25, in which Jacky, Dan, Lisa and Matthew talk to Fiona McPherson and Freia Reimink-Layfield about their work on the OED: how they view the role of dictionaries, expand their pool of sources and reassess word definitions as time goes by.
OED100: Repainting the dictionary
https://public.oed.com/blog/oed100-repainting-the-dictionary/
Blog | Oxford English Dictionary
Varieties of English Archives | Oxford English Dictionary
Lang in the News
Man arrested for allegedly threatening Merriam-Webster over definition of female - ABC News
Man arrested for threatening to 'bomb' Merriam-Webster over trans-inclusive definitions
'I want a voice that fits me': teenager's quest for communication aid with Walsall accent
Contact us @LexisPodcast. Subscribe: Lexis Podcast | Podcast on Spotify
Contributors
Matthew Butler
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Matthewbutlerwy
Lisa Casey
blog: https://livingthroughlanguage.wordpress.com/ & Twitter: Language Debates (@LanguageDebates)
Dan Clayton
blog: EngLangBlog & Twitter: EngLangBlog (@EngLangBlog)
Jacky Glancey
Twitter: https://twitter.com/JackyGlancey
Music: Freenotes
End music: Serge Quadrado - Cool Guys
Cool Guys by Serge Quadrado is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. From the Free Music Archive: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/serge-quadrado/urban/cool-guys
Episode 24 - Kamran Khan
Show notes for Episode 24
Here are the show notes for Episode 24, in which Jacky, Dan, Lisa and Matthew talk to Dr Kamran Khan of the University of Copenhagen about security studies, discourses around refugees and Muslims and the role of language in national identity, especially around language testing and citizenship.
Kamran Khan on Twitter: https://twitter.com/SecurityLing
Kamran’s ResearchGate page: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Kamran-Khan-45
https://archive.discoversociety.org/2020/01/08/the-counter-extremism-shift-in-esol-policy-and-the-double-securitisation-of-muslims/
The New York Times’ Trojan Horse Affair podcast can be found here: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/podcasts/trojan-horse-affair.html
Lang in the News
We talked about this paper by Ian Cushing and Julia Snell:
You can read more about it here (check out the comments and Ian’s patient replies too!):
And we refer to the TES article that you can find here: https://www.tes.com/magazine/analysis/general/does-ofsted-have-problem-language-policing
LancsBox is here: http://corpora.lancs.ac.uk/lancsbox/download.php
Contact us @LexisPodcast. Subscribe: Lexis Podcast | Podcast on Spotify
Contributors
Matthew Butler
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Matthewbutlerwy
Lisa Casey
blog: https://livingthroughlanguage.wordpress.com/ & Twitter: Language Debates (@LanguageDebates)
Dan Clayton
blog: EngLangBlog & Twitter: EngLangBlog (@EngLangBlog)
Jacky Glancey
Twitter: https://twitter.com/JackyGlancey
Music: Freenotes
End music: Serge Quadrado - Cool Guys
Cool Guys by Serge Quadrado is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. From the Free Music Archive: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/serge-quadrado/urban/cool-guys
Episode 23 - Gareth Carrol
Episode 22 - Katie Edwards
Episode 21 - Robbie Love
Episode 20 - Sandra Jansen
Episode 19 - Elena Semino
Episode 18 - Emma Byrne
*Explicit warning*
Show notes for Episode 18 Here are the show notes for Episode 18 - our first birthday episode! - where Jacky, Dan, Lisa and Matthew talk about: ‘So’ and why it annoys language pedants and prescriptivists. Language discourses around two texts discussing ‘so’. And we talk to Dr Emma Byrne, author of ‘Swearing Is Good For You: the amazing science of bad language’ about...swearing. Obvs. Emma Byrne’s Swearing is Good for You page: Swearing is Good for You – Emma Byrne, Science Writer and Broadcaster Emma Byrne in The Guardian: Swear by it: why bad language is good for you | Emma Byrne Emma Byrne in Time Magazine: The Benefits of Swearing Emma Byrne in Elle: There's a Swearing Double Standard—and Women Can Change It - Emma Byrne on Gendered Perception of Swearing Broca’s area in the brain: The Broca Area and Language Production Wernicke’s area in the brain: WikiPedia: Wernicke's area Sophie Scott on Why we Laugh Sophie Scott: Why we laugh | TED Talk Sophie Scott on Why do Humans Laugh Why do humans laugh? So Alec Marsh in The Spectator on ‘so’ The remorseless rise of 'so' Lane Greene has responded on Twitter: https://twitter.com/lanegreene/status/1392805484768468993 He links to this https://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/so-and-so-that-coordinating-or-subordinating-conjunctions?page=1 And there’s already been several peeve fests about ‘so’ over the years: So Here's Why Everyone Is Starting Sentences With The Word 'So' How A Popular Two-Letter Word Is Undermining Your Credibility So Shoot Me – Frank McNally on the sentence-opener of the century (so far) Today presenter John Humphrys declare war on the use of the word 'so' So, here's a carefully packaged sentence that shows me in my best light | Oliver James And this is a good piece on it: https://www.npr.org/2015/09/03/432732859/so-whats-the-big-deal-with-starting-a-sentence-with-so?t=1620925294688 In defence of the word 'so' - a much better take on ‘so’ from Elizabeth East. Contact us @LexisPodcast. Subscribe: Lexis Podcast | Podcast on Spotify Contributors Matthew Butler Twitter: https://twitter.com/Matthewbutlerwy Lisa Casey blog: https://livingthroughlanguage.wordpress.com/ & Twitter: Language Debates (@LanguageDebates) Dan Clayton blog: EngLangBlog & Twitter: EngLangBlog (@EngLangBlog) Jacky Glancey Twitter: https://twitter.com/JackyGlancey Music: Freenotes
Episode 17 - Dr Amanda Cole
Episode 16 Ffion Brown
Episode 15 - Dana Gablasova
Episode 14 - Emma Moore
Episode 13 - Accent Special
Episode 12 - Vanja Karanovic
Episode 11 - Catherine Laing
E10 Language, sexuality and identity special
Episode 9 - Tony Thorne
Episode 8 - Northern accent special
Philip Seargeant - E7
Show notes for Episode 7
Here are the show notes for Episode 7 where Jacky, Dan, Lisa and Matthew talk about:
- ‘Irregardless’ and why this word causes prescriptivists such angst.
- The Daily Mail going overboard on ‘man overboard’ and why challenging sexist language gets such a bad press.
And we talk to Dr Philip Seargeant of the Open University about emoji and political storytelling.
Philip Seargeant’s university page: http://www.open.ac.uk/people/ps4549
Philip Seargeant’s website: Philip Seargeant
Twitter: https://twitter.com/philipseargeant
Philip Seargeant on emoji: https://www.digitaltrends.com/features/emoji-digital-language-of-emotion-phillip-seargeant/
Philip Seargeant on political storytelling: https://www.ft.com/content/d0d0f4ec-a4d2-11ea-92e2-cbd9b7e28ee6 (paywalled)
The Special Adviser's Tale, or Political Storytelling in the Time of Covid
Irregardless
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/jul/06/is-irregardless-a-real-word-dictionary
Peter Sokolowski of Merriam Webster Dictionaries discusses ‘irregardless’ in a Twitter thread: https://twitter.com/PeterSokolowski/status/1280585356908388352
‘Man overboard’
Sailors told to stop using Navy terms like 'unmanned' and 'man power'
Royal Navy bans terms 'unmanned' and 'manpower' because it's 'sexist'
Contact us @LexisPodcast. Subscribe: Lexis Podcast | Podcast on Spotify
Contributors
Matthew Butler
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Matthewbutlerwy
Lisa Casey
blog: https://livingthroughlanguage.wordpress.com/ & Twitter: Language Debates (@LanguageDebates)
Dan Clayton
blog: EngLangBlog & Twitter: EngLangBlog (@EngLangBlog)
Jacky Glancey
Twitter: https://twitter.com/JackyGlancey
Music: Freenotes
Kelly Wright - E6
Ian Cushing - E5
Shivonne Gates - E4
Here are the show notes for Episode 4 where Jacky, Dan, Lisa and Matthew talk about
- sacking headlines: who’s been sacked and who’s doing the sacking?
- TikTok teens and K-Pop stans trolling Trump
- and talk to Dr Shivonne Gates about Multicultural London English and how language is used by teenagers to express their social identities.
You can find the links to the stories and research we’ve mentioned in this programme, below.
Some of Shivonne Gates’ work mentioned in the interview:
Voices and Practices in Applied Linguistics: Diversifying a Discipline
Why the Long FACE?: Ethnic Stratification and Variation in the London Diphthong System
Shivonne’s book recommendation: https://wordery.com/homegirls-norma-mendoza-denton-9780631234906
Headlines:
The Guardian
Rebecca Long-Bailey sacked from Labour shadow cabinet by Keir Starmer – UK politics liveDaily Mail
Starmer reignites Labour civil war
Story of Trump’s Tulsa Rally being trolled by Tiktok users:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/21/style/tiktok-trump-rally-tulsa.html
Contact us @LexisPodcast. Subscribe: Lexis Podcast | Podcast on Spotify
Contributors
Matthew Butler
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Matthewbutlerwy
Lisa Casey
blog: https://livingthroughlanguage.wordpress.com/ & Twitter: Language Debates (@LanguageDebates)
Dan Clayton
blog: EngLangBlog & Twitter: EngLangBlog (@EngLangBlog)
Jacky Glancey
Twitter: https://twitter.com/JackyGlancey
Music: Freenotes