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lexispodcast

Lexis

A Language Learning and Education podcast

#185 in Language Learning · 🇬🇧
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About the show

A podcast about language and linguistics for A Level English Language students, teachers and anyone else who's interested in language.

Newest episodes

Episode 88 - AI & language with Mel Evans and Joe Spencer-Bennett

44 min

We’re back after a long break! Welcome to Episode 88 of Lexis in which Jacky and Dan talk to Dr Mel Evans, Associate Professor of English Language with Digital, University of Leeds, also programme lead for MA in Digital Humanities and Cultures and Dr Joe Spencer-Bennett, Associate Professor in Applied Linguistics, Department of Linguistics and Communication at University of Birmingham. We talk about: The term ‘AI’ and how useful it is.  What Large Language Models do with language and how humans interpret it. ‘Moral panics’ around technology and whether we should be worried about AI’s effects on language and society. How we describe and conceptualise AI. Media discourses about AI and how it has been anthropomorphised. How we can work with/against AI and what’s at stake. Mel’s university page: https://ahc.leeds.ac.uk/english/staff/3899/dr-mel-evans  Joe’s university page: https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/staff/profiles/elal/bennett-joe  Joe’s sources, references and suggested reading: Narayanan, A. And S. Kapoor. 2025. AI as Normal Technology. Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University. Available at: https://knightcolumbia.org/content/ai-as-normal-technology  McLuhan, M. 1964. Understanding Media: the extensions of man. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.  Goffman, E. 1983. Forms of Talk. Oxford: Blackwell. https://ainglish.org       Marsh, J. (dir.) 2011. Project Nim. Icon Film. Bender, E.M, T. Gebru, A. McMillan-Major and S. Schmitchell.  2021. On the Dangers of Stochastic Parrots: Can Language Models Be Too Big? . In Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency (FAccT ’21), March 3–10, 2021, Virtual Event, Canada. ACM, New York, NY, USA, https://doi.org/10.1145/3442188.3445922 Thurlow, C. (ed.) 2020. The Business of Words: wordsmiths, linguists, and other language workers. London: Routledge.  Acknowledgements: I'd also like to acknowledge information from Marcus Perlman, Jack Grieve and Stephen Griffin, whose PhD project is provisionally title 'LLM...

Episode 87 - York English Language Toolkit 2026 with Devyani Sharma & Sam Hellmuth

35 min

Welcome to Episode 87 of Lexis in which Neil and Dan talk to Sam Hellmuth, Professor of Linguistics at University of York and Devyani Sharma, Professor of Language and Communication at University of Oxford about the 2026 York English Language Toolkit sessions at York.  We talk about: What the York English Language Toolkit is and what it’s designed to do.  What’s on this year. The Generations of London English takeover that’s happening this year. What the GLE project is and where MLE fits into this story. The synchronic and diachronic aspects of London English.  The new work that’s being featured and where it fits in.  The importance of real-time data in this project. Where the work on MLE has been going in recent years.  Recent debates and arguments about MLE and Black British English. York English Language Toolkit 2026: https://englishlanguagetoolkit.york.ac.uk/workshops  Generations of London English project page: https://generationsoflondonenglish.org/  Devyani Sharma’s university page: https://www.english.ox.ac.uk/people/professor-devyani-sharma  Sam Hellmuth’s university page: https://www.york.ac.uk/language-linguistic-science/people/sam-hellmuth/  Lexis is on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/lexispodcast.bsky.social  Contributors Lisa Casey  blog: https://livingthroughlanguage.wordpress.com/  Dan Clayton  blog: EngLangBlog & Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/englangblog.bsky.social  Jacky Glancey  Raj Rana Neil Hutchinson Amanda Cole Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/dramandacole.bsky.social  Matthew Butler  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 86 - Chris Montgomery & regional swearing

52 min

Show notes for Episode 86 ⚠️🤬⚠️Contains swearing (obvs) and quite a lot of it…handled seriously and with academic rigour (🧐)⚠️🤬⚠️ Welcome to episode 86 of Lexis in which we go in mob-handed with 5 (count ‘em!) interviewers and Dr Chris Montgomery, Senior Lecturer in Dialectology in the School of English at the University of Sheffield. Lisa, Jacky, Dan, Amanda and guest interviewer, Neil Hutchinson ask him about his work on dialect and how this relates to his new project on regional swearing.  (We treat the subject with delicacy and restraint until about 46 minutes when it becomes something of a swearing free-for-all, in case you’re interested/want to turn it off.)  We talk about: Why swearing is interesting from a dialectology point of view How swearing varies regionally in terms of the terms that are used and what they mean How he is going about this research and how it came to happen Different methodologies and their pros and cons Dialect levelling and swearing: what needs to be done to measure this Attitudes to academic research on swearing  The inventiveness of swearing How you can contribute to this research Advice to students about investigating swearing Dr Chris Montgomery | English | The University of Sheffield  Your contributions can be made here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSef-QCBddaJ9blKczAv_mrV3pWDHIKuPJHzDNHZ7U1IK0Rcdw/viewform (🔞only sorry) Guardian article: From divvy to dinlo: index of insults aims to record Britain’s diverse dialects | British identity and society | The Guardian  BBC feature: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c78rr219457o  Independent article: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/english-swearing-sheffield-university-midlands-merseyside-b2958087.html  Telegraph: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/04/15/language-linguists-preserve-britain-swear-words-phrases-map/  and http://archive.today/2026.04.15-173308/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/04/15/language-linguists-preserve-britain-swear-words-ph...

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All episodes

Episode 88 - AI & language with Mel Evans and Joe Spencer-Bennett

44 min

We’re back after a long break! Welcome to Episode 88 of Lexis in which Jacky and Dan talk to Dr Mel Evans, Associate Professor of English Language with Digital, University of Leeds, also programme lead for MA in Digital Humanities and Cultures and Dr Joe Spencer-Bennett, Associate Professor in Applied Linguistics, Department of Linguistics and Communication at University of Birmingham. We talk about: The term ‘AI’ and how useful it is.  What Large Language Models do with language and how humans interpret it. ‘Moral panics’ around technology and whether we should be worried about AI’s effects on language and society. How we describe and conceptualise AI. Media discourses about AI and how it has been anthropomorphised. How we can work with/against AI and what’s at stake. Mel’s university page: https://ahc.leeds.ac.uk/english/staff/3899/dr-mel-evans  Joe’s university page: https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/staff/profiles/elal/bennett-joe  Joe’s sources, references and suggested reading: Narayanan, A. And S. Kapoor. 2025. AI as Normal Technology. Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University. Available at: https://knightcolumbia.org/content/ai-as-normal-technology  McLuhan, M. 1964. Understanding Media: the extensions of man. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.  Goffman, E. 1983. Forms of Talk. Oxford: Blackwell. https://ainglish.org       Marsh, J. (dir.) 2011. Project Nim. Icon Film. Bender, E.M, T. Gebru, A. McMillan-Major and S. Schmitchell.  2021. On the Dangers of Stochastic Parrots: Can Language Models Be Too Big? . In Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency (FAccT ’21), March 3–10, 2021, Virtual Event, Canada. ACM, New York, NY, USA, https://doi.org/10.1145/3442188.3445922 Thurlow, C. (ed.) 2020. The Business of Words: wordsmiths, linguists, and other language workers. London: Routledge.  Acknowledgements: I'd also like to acknowledge information from Marcus Perlman, Jack Grieve and Stephen Griffin, whose PhD project is provisionally title 'LLM...

Episode 87 - York English Language Toolkit 2026 with Devyani Sharma & Sam Hellmuth

35 min

Welcome to Episode 87 of Lexis in which Neil and Dan talk to Sam Hellmuth, Professor of Linguistics at University of York and Devyani Sharma, Professor of Language and Communication at University of Oxford about the 2026 York English Language Toolkit sessions at York.  We talk about: What the York English Language Toolkit is and what it’s designed to do.  What’s on this year. The Generations of London English takeover that’s happening this year. What the GLE project is and where MLE fits into this story. The synchronic and diachronic aspects of London English.  The new work that’s being featured and where it fits in.  The importance of real-time data in this project. Where the work on MLE has been going in recent years.  Recent debates and arguments about MLE and Black British English. York English Language Toolkit 2026: https://englishlanguagetoolkit.york.ac.uk/workshops  Generations of London English project page: https://generationsoflondonenglish.org/  Devyani Sharma’s university page: https://www.english.ox.ac.uk/people/professor-devyani-sharma  Sam Hellmuth’s university page: https://www.york.ac.uk/language-linguistic-science/people/sam-hellmuth/  Lexis is on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/lexispodcast.bsky.social  Contributors Lisa Casey  blog: https://livingthroughlanguage.wordpress.com/  Dan Clayton  blog: EngLangBlog & Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/englangblog.bsky.social  Jacky Glancey  Raj Rana Neil Hutchinson Amanda Cole Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/dramandacole.bsky.social  Matthew Butler  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 86 - Chris Montgomery & regional swearing

52 min

Show notes for Episode 86 ⚠️🤬⚠️Contains swearing (obvs) and quite a lot of it…handled seriously and with academic rigour (🧐)⚠️🤬⚠️ Welcome to episode 86 of Lexis in which we go in mob-handed with 5 (count ‘em!) interviewers and Dr Chris Montgomery, Senior Lecturer in Dialectology in the School of English at the University of Sheffield. Lisa, Jacky, Dan, Amanda and guest interviewer, Neil Hutchinson ask him about his work on dialect and how this relates to his new project on regional swearing.  (We treat the subject with delicacy and restraint until about 46 minutes when it becomes something of a swearing free-for-all, in case you’re interested/want to turn it off.)  We talk about: Why swearing is interesting from a dialectology point of view How swearing varies regionally in terms of the terms that are used and what they mean How he is going about this research and how it came to happen Different methodologies and their pros and cons Dialect levelling and swearing: what needs to be done to measure this Attitudes to academic research on swearing  The inventiveness of swearing How you can contribute to this research Advice to students about investigating swearing Dr Chris Montgomery | English | The University of Sheffield  Your contributions can be made here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSef-QCBddaJ9blKczAv_mrV3pWDHIKuPJHzDNHZ7U1IK0Rcdw/viewform (🔞only sorry) Guardian article: From divvy to dinlo: index of insults aims to record Britain’s diverse dialects | British identity and society | The Guardian  BBC feature: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c78rr219457o  Independent article: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/english-swearing-sheffield-university-midlands-merseyside-b2958087.html  Telegraph: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/04/15/language-linguists-preserve-britain-swear-words-phrases-map/  and http://archive.today/2026.04.15-173308/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/04/15/language-linguists-preserve-britain-swear-words-ph...

Episode 85 - Rob Topinka & digital rhetoric

41 min

  Show notes for Episode 85 ⚠️⚠️⚠️We talk about some topics and forms of language - the language of incels and the manosphere, for example - that might be considered unpleasant and upsetting for some listeners⚠️⚠️⚠️ Welcome to episode 85 of Lexis in which Dan talks to Dr Rob Topinka, Reader in Digital Media and Rhetoric at Birkbeck, University of London. We talk about:  Why language is important to politics What rhetoric is, its characteristics and what it’s designed to do How rhetoric works in online spaces The kind of rhetoric used to promote extremist views online Incels, red pills, maxxing and NPCs What happened to ‘woke’  The pitfalls of ‘free speech’ and language policing  Avoiding reactionary narratives and promoting progressive alternatives Why being ‘unbiased’ is not really an option Rob’s Birkbeck page: https://www.bbk.ac.uk/our-staff/9151496/robert-topinka  Rob’s ResearchGate profile: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Robert-Topinka The Guardian articles Rob has written: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/mar/22/racist-meme-nigel-farage-cameos-online-far-right https://www.theguardian.com/news/audio/2025/oct/20/boriswave-fighting-age-men-cultural-marxism-how-the-far-right-is-changing-how-we-speak  https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/ng-interactive/2026/jan/31/digital-politics-the-right-internet-digital-politics-extreme-political-ideas https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/ng-interactive/2026/feb/01/digital-politics-progressives-internet-the-left-online-world More on NPCs:  https://www.mentalfloss.com/language/slang/npc-meaning-and-history  A report on Clavicular’s interview in Australia: https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/clavicular-incel-60-minutes-andrew-tate-looksmaxxing-b2957021.html  ‘Are You Mogging Me Right Now?’ https://bsky.app/profile/theserfstv.bsky.social/post/3mjhr6v2lek2r   Lexis is on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/lexispodcast.bsky.social  Contributors Lisa Casey  blog: https://livingthroughlanguage.wordpr...

Episode 84 - Daria Bahtina and 'Gen Z slang'

1 hr 14 min

Welcome to episode 84 of Lexis in which we have both an interview and a Lang in the News segment. Amanda and Dan talk to Dr Daria Bahtina, Continuing Lecturer in the Department of Linguistics at UCLA about a lot of things, including: Generational slang and online vernacular Whether any slang is ever truly ‘meaningless’ The rapid pace of slang generation, diffusion and disappearance in an online world What happens when slang leaves niche communities and gets picked up more widely Moral panics around slang and online vernacular The project work Daria does with her students and tips for A level English Language teachers and students about successful projects Guardian articles Daria is quoted in:  The Pentagon says it’s ‘lethalitymaxxing’. Why has ‘incel’ slang crossed into the mainstream? | Language | The Guardian (https://www.theguardian.com/science/2026/mar/01/incel-slang-mainstream-government-media) Slang terms like ‘six-seven’ have no definition. But they’re loaded with meaning | Matthew Cantor | The Guardian (https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/oct/30/six-seven-meaning-slang)  Daria’s UCLA pages: https://linguistics.ucla.edu/person/daria-bahtina/ Daria’s Languaged Life blog: https://languagedlife.ucla.edu/  The book Daria recommends: https://www.cambridge.org/highereducation/books/language-and-social-issues/5C1D0C2F61B4D0ADA69AE7024EF1E1E2#overview  Our Lang in the News segment returns too! Lisa, Jacky and Dan talk about stories in the media about slang, appropriation and appreciation, discussing articles from the Mail Online, The Guardian, the Mississippi Clarion Ledger (yes, it is real) and a new paper by two of our previous guests, Christian Ilbury and Rianna Walcott.  Articles: https://eu.clarionledger.com/story/news/2026/03/16/new-slang-67-what-does-lowkenuinely-mean-how-to-use-it/89180944007/  Christian Ilbury & Rianna Walcott - Gen Z Language? Y'all Mean AAVE’: The Appropriation of African American Vernacular English as ‘TikTok Language’ https://...

Episode 83 - Sarah Hopkyns and English in the Gulf

42 min

Welcome to episode 83 of Lexis, another student-led episode, which this time features Oli, an A Level student at the Dubai British School interviewing Dr Sarah Hopkyns, with some help from Dan. Sarah is a Lecturer in TESOL and International Education at the University of St Andrews, Lecturer (Teaching) in Intercultural Communication at the Institute of Education, UCL and Visiting Research Fellow at the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies. We talk about:  What we mean by ‘The Gulf’ and the Gulf nations What makes them interesting from a linguistic point of view The types of English spoken in the Gulf and whether we can talk about ‘Gulf English’ The role of Arabic in the region Translanguaging, multilingualism and reconceptualising how we think about doing language in the world Translingual practice as a real world manifestation of how people use language resources to communicate Attitudes to English use and English as a threat to local language and identity You can find Sarah’s university page here: https://research-portal.st-andrews.ac.uk/en/persons/sarah-hopkyns/  Her ResearchGate profile is here: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Sarah-Hopkyns  We discuss some of the following: Nizar Habash and David Palfreyman’s ZAEBUC corpus of Arabic-English: https://aclanthology.org/2022.lrec-1.9/  ‘The Pact We Made’ by Layla AlAmmar https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/the-pact-we-made-layla-alammar/82be48b15ed150fc  Blair Fussell’s 2011 work based on ‘Gulf English’: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/231752461_The_local_flavour_of_English_in_the_Gulf  Thanks to Oli and his teacher, Sumayya Kazi for making this episode happen and for all the work put into it.  Lexis is on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/lexispodcast.bsky.social  Contributors Lisa Casey  blog: https://livingthroughlanguage.wordpress.com/  Dan Clayton  blog: EngLangBlog & Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/englangblog.bsky.social  Jacky Glancey  Raj Rana Matthew Butler  Music: Serge Quadrado - Cool Guys  Coo...

Episode 82 - Rianna Walcott & Black Twitter

40 min

Welcome to episode 82 of Lexis, in which Raj, Dan and (guest interviewer and friend of the pod) Amanda Cole talk to Dr Rianna Walcott, Assistant Professor of Communication at the University of Maryland, and Associate Director of the Black Communication and Technology (BCaT) Lab. We discuss her 2023 PhD, A Tweet at the Table - Black British Identity Expression on Social Media. We talk about: Black community, identity and self-expression on social media Black Twitter Sociolinguistic work on Black British English and MLE Language online and offline Black feminist thought and its influences on this project and more Rianna’s current work You can download the thesis here (and the most language-focused part is chapter 5): https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/en/studentTheses/a-tweet-at-the-table  Rianna’s website is here and you can find some of the other papers and links mentioned: http://www.riannawalcott.com/  The Black Communication and Technology (BCaT) Lab is here: https://www.bcatlab.org/  Lexis is on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/lexispodcast.bsky.social  Contributors Lisa Casey  blog: https://livingthroughlanguage.wordpress.com/  Dan Clayton  blog: EngLangBlog & Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/englangblog.bsky.social  Jacky Glancey  Raj Rana Matthew Butler  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 81 - Jessica Aiston & Eltham Hill School students on the language of neurodiversity

40 min

Welcome to episode 81 of Lexis, a special student takeover edition which features Freya and Miles from Eltham Hill School in South London in conversation with Dr Jessica Aiston, postdoctoral research assistant in Linguistics at Queen Mary University of London (and who previously appeared on episode 50 talking about critical discourse studies). The episode is all about the language of, and around, neurodiversity, including: Why this episode exists and why Freya and Miles wanted to record it What we mean by ‘neurodiversity’ and other helpful definitions The neurodiversity paradigm Terms, labels and the history behind these The pros and cons of certain labels The importance of autistic people having agency in the terms being used  Semantic reclamation and euphemism cycles Person-first and identity-first terms The importance of autistic people centering themselves and being centered in linguistic research Using the lens of CCritical Discourse Analysis for exploring discourse around autism and neurodiversity Jess’s current work on the Autism in Affinity Spaces project Jess has supplied the following references based on the topics raised in the show: Kenny, L., Hattersley, C., Molins, B., Buckley, C., Povey, C., & Pellicano, E. (2016). Which terms should be used to describe autism? Perspectives from the UK autism community. Autism, 20(4), 442-462. https://doi.org/10.1177/1362361315588200  Botha, M., & Cage, E. (2022). "Autism research is in crisis": A mixed method study of researcher's constructions of autistic people and autism research. Frontiers in Psychology, 13, 1-22. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1050897  Botha, M., Hanlon, J., & Williams, G. L. (2023). Does language matter? Identity-first versus person-first language use in autism research: A response to Vivanti. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 53, 870-878. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-020-04858-w  Cage, E., Crompton, C. J., Dantas, S., Strachan, K., Birch, R., Robinson, M., Morgan-Appel, S.,...

Episode 80 - Matthew Hunt on voice pitch

46 min

Welcome to episode 80 of Lexis in which Dan and guest interviewer Ben talk to Dr Matthew Hunt, Lecturer of Sociolinguistics, University of Southampton about voice pitch, including: What it is and how we measure it What it ‘means’, including its ‘social meaning potential’ The judgements that we make about pitch and why these matter Gendered perceptions of pitch His work on domestic violence cases and the role of pitch in perceptions of ‘victimhood’ Gender and football commentaries Advice to A Level students on exploring pitch and its role ⚠️Content warning⚠️ We discuss domestic violence and abuse in broad terms in part of this episode.  Journal of Sociolinguistics paper on the effect of pitch variation on perceptions of domestic abuse victims: https://doi.org/10.1111/josl.12723 The second paper, ‘Gender Penalty? Linguistic Discrimination and Perceptions of Female Football Commentators’ is with Gender & Language and currently in press. We will update the link once it is published.  Matthew’s website: https://matthewhuntlinguistics.home.blog/  Matthew’s University of Southampton page: https://www.southampton.ac.uk/people/626sz2/doctor-matthew-hunt  Lexis is on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/lexispodcast.bsky.social  Contributors Lisa Casey  blog: https://livingthroughlanguage.wordpress.com/ & Twitter: Language Debates (@LanguageDebates) Dan Clayton  blog: 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 79 - Charlotte Entwistle on language & personality disorders

46 min

⚠️Content warning⚠️ We discuss mental health, self-harm and suicide as part of this episode.  Welcome to episode 79 of Lexis in which Raj & Dan talk to Dr Charlotte Entwistle, Leverhulme Early Career Research Fellow in Psychology, University of Liverpool. We discuss: Her path from A levels to research How language analysis can be used in psychology What language reveals about our minds and how they work The linguistic patterns associated with different personality traits Language and mental health Why we need to be cautious about making connections between language and personality The practical applications of this work The article in The Conversation that we discuss is here: https://theconversation.com/people-with-personality-disorders-often-use-language-differently-our-research-reveals-how-271109 Charlotte’s university page is here: https://www.liverpool.ac.uk/people/charlotte-entwistle 

Episode 78 - John Kelly and the 2025 Words of the Year

52 min

Welcome to episode 78 of Lexis in which Raj & Dan talk to John Kelly, former head of content at Dictionary.com, previous contributor to Merriam-Webster and Oxford Dictionaries, emoji lexicographer for Emojipedia, and school teacher. We discuss: How WOTY decisions were made at Dictionary.com Whether we should celebrate WOTY for getting us talking about words, or be cynical about it as a marketing exercise What makes a WOTY stick around What qualities a good WOTY should have The sketchier WOTYs that we've seen 2025’s crop of WOTY nominations - what we’ve seen so far and what might be to come WOTY as a barometer of the times ‘Fascism’ as John’s WOTY/etymology of the year and why an old word is pertinent again.  John’s blog is here: https://mashedradish.com/  ‘Fascism’ is here; https://mashedradish.com/2025/11/04/fascism-etymology-of-the-year-2025/  He is also on Bluesky here: https://bsky.app/profile/mashedradish.bsky.social  Some of the WOTY choices we discuss are covered in the articles and posts below:  https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2025/12/rage-bait-2025-oxford-word-internet-language-defense/685143/?gift=h5ssLVeyARshEXLqfVq5YwEAlKAoVnByCEZqdOsZdV8&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share https://theconversation.com/2025s-words-of-the-year-reflect-a-year-of-digital-disillusionment-270769 https://time.com/7334730/word-of-the-year-2025-cambridge-collins-dictionary-oxford-merriam/  https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/04/learning/what-teenagers-are-saying-about-6-7-and-the-era-of-brain-rot.html  https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cewjxqvqzgyo   https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/articles/z9xbh4j   https://www.bylinesupplement.com/p/brain-rot-what-the-oxford-word-of  https://www.bylinesupplement.com/p/the-words-that-define-our-enshittifed  https://bsky.app/profile/hooved-mammal.bsky.social/post/3m7ntojukdc2y  Lexis is on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/lexispodcast.bsky.social  Contributors Lisa Casey  blog: https://livingthroughlanguage.wordpress.com/ &...

Episode 77 - Lynne Murphy and the 'Americanisation' of young people's English

29 min

Welcome to episode 77 of Lexis in which Raj & Dan talk to Lynne Murphy, Professor of Linguistics at the University of Sussex about a flurry of recent news stories about children’s adoption of American vocabulary (and even accents). We discuss: What these stories are about and whether we can even tell if this 'Americanisation' is happening The main themes in them and their precursors in previous panics about ‘Americanisation’  The discourses within and behind these stories What motivates them and how to approach them critically  How British English is also making its way into American English Lynne is author of ‘The Prodigal Tongue: the Love–Hate Relationship between British and American English’ , and the Separated by a Common Language blog.  You can also find her on Bluesky and other social media platforms under the name Lynneguist. Bluesky here: https://bsky.app/profile/lynneguist.bsky.social  The stories we discuss are here: The Times and Sunday Times feature itself: http://archive.today/9UM7W  ‘Trash-talking children are sounding like Americans, say teachers Garbage, candy and apartment are Americanisms that are growing more popular among younger pupils’ Kristina Murkett’s op-ed for The Telegraph,  ‘The Americanisation of British English reveals this dark thing about our society Many parents are happy to allow their children consume videos made by companies that have no obligation to care for them’ http://archive.today/cZ4kF  The Telegraph article links to this absolute stinker of a piece by Simon Heffer from 2024 too, ‘Americanisms are poisoning our language’ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/authors/americanism-english-language-simon-heffer/    A more sensible take from Charlotte Crips in The Independent, ‘Mom, can we take the elevator?’ Why I’m fine with my daughter speaking Americanese’ https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/features/americanism-english-children-b2857680.html  But some quite mixed responses to that piece from their rea...

Episode 76 - Dani Yin & Cheryl Wakslak on gender and exclamation marks in digital communication

1 hr 0 min

Welcome to episode 76 of Lexis which features Raj & Dan (and guest interviewer & friend of the pod, Amanda Cole) talking about gender and exclamation marks in digital communication with Yidan (Dani) Yin, Assistant Professor in the Department of Management and Organization at the Smeal College of Business, Penn State University and Dr Cheryl Wakslak, Associate Professor of Management and Organization at USC Marshall. Their JESP (Journal of Experimental Social Psychology) paper (with Gil Appel): Nice to meet you.(!) Gendered norms in punctuation usage can be found here and is a fascinating read:  https://www.researchgate.net/publication/397148363_Nice_to_meet_you_Gendered_norms_in_punctuation_usage  We pick up on some of the media coverage of their paper and also reference Deborah Cameron’s blog about the paper and its coverage.  Financial Times coverage: https://archive.ph/cCOiL  The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/oct/28/exclamation-marks-why-do-women-use-them-three-times-as-much-as-men  London Evening Standard: https://www.standard.co.uk/comment/exclamation-marks-female-gender-norms-punctuation-b1255212.html  Harvard Business Review: https://hbr.org/2025/09/dont-overthink-your-use-of-exclamation-points  Deborah Cameron’s blog: https://debuk.wordpress.com/2025/11/06/enough-already-punctuation-silly-women-and-soundbite-science/  We also mention Gretchen McCulloch’s thoughts on the full-stop: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-49182824  Dani Yin: https://sites.google.com/view/yidan-yin  Cheryl Wakslak: https://www.marshall.usc.edu/personnel/cheryl-jan-wakslak  And then in our Lang in the News segment, Lisa, Jacky and Dan discuss more media tales of the woes of inclusive language and discuss some of these stories:  ‘Man the phones’ is offensive, insurers told Trade body accused of ‘pandering to woke dogma’ after issuing language guide advising against use of everyday terms http://archive.today/dLoSb  Health trust breached equality commitments over gender...

Episode 75 - Teachers' Accents special

1 hr 21 min

Welcome back to Lexis. This is episode 75 and it’s a bumper edition. We pick up on a recent survey of teachers by Teacher Tapp about teachers’ accents and run with it… We talk to teacher, Arun Sharma about his experiences, we interview Alex Baratta, Amanda Cole and Rob Drummond and we discuss the survey results in more detail and cover some other stories about accents in the news.  Teacher Tapp’s blog about this: https://teachertapp.com/articles/how-teachers-feel-about-their-accents/  Teacher Tapp: https://teachertapp.com/  The stories we discuss in Lang in the News: http://archive.today/2025.09.23-223722/https://www.thetimes.com/life-style/sex-relationships/article/it-only-took-a-term-at-oxford-for-my-grimsby-accent-to-go-posh-z52g9pqfh  https://archive.ph/2025.10.05-173953/https://www.thetimes.com/uk/science/article/why-actors-are-ditching-queens-english-for-their-old-regional-accents-rtr29rcdt  https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cyv638r2dglo?app-referrer=deep-link Lexis is on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/lexispodcast.bsky.social  Contributors Lisa Casey  blog: https://livingthroughlanguage.wordpress.com/ & Twitter: Language Debates (@LanguageDebates) Dan Clayton  blog: 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 74 - Laura Smith-Khan and the language of law

44 min

Welcome to Episode 74 of Lexis. Jacky and Dan talk to Dr Laura Smith-Khan, Senior Lecturer - School of Law, University of New England, Australia about… How she got into the linguistics of law Where and how law and language overlap Clarity, accuracy and the power dynamics in legal language Migration, borders, refugees and the law Assessing ‘credibility’ and some of the processes of refugee law Critically assessing media discourses around migration Laura Smith-Khan’s university profile: https://www.une.edu.au/staff-profiles/law/Dr-Laura-Smith-Khan_Profile Laura is part of the Law and Linguistics Interdisciplinary Research Network - more here: Law and Language – Sharing research, news and events related to law and language as well as the Language on the Move research group - blog and podcast https://www.languageonthemove.com/author/laura/  Some of the studies and research mentioned in the show: Legal literacy in a linguistically diverse society – Language on the Move  Learning to speak like a lawyer – Language on the Move Trust and suspicion at the airport – Language on the Move Refugee credibility assessment and the vanishing interpreter – Language on the Move   The post we discussed about judges, clarity and distance: How Judges Think About Language – Language on the Move   The Bluey episode mentioned is Bluey Season 3, Episode 49 | The Sign and the episode’s impact on people looking up road rules received attention from the QLD government and the media, eg What are the rules around children sitting in the front seat of a car? And is it safe? - ABC News   Reading Challenges with lists of recommended books (2025 has yearly links back to 2018): Language on the Move Reading Challenge 2025 – Language on the Move   Category – Language on the Move (posts organized by topic) Authors – Language on the Move (full list of contributors, each with a short bio and link to posts)   Lexis is on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/lexispodcast.bsky.social  Contributors Lisa Casey  blo...

Episode 73 - York English Language Toolkit preview 2025

27 min

Welcome to Episode 73 of Lexis. Dan talks to Sam Hellmuth, Catherine Laing, Lauren Harrington and Salina Cuddy about the forthcoming York English Language Toolkit event for A Level English Language teachers.  You can sign up here:  https://englishlanguagetoolkit.york.ac.uk/workshops  Previous workshops and case studies are here:  https://englishlanguagetoolkit.york.ac.uk/case-studies  Lexis is on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/lexispodcast.bsky.social  Contributors Lisa Casey  blog: https://livingthroughlanguage.wordpress.com/ & Twitter: Language Debates (@LanguageDebates) Dan Clayton  blog: 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 72 - Karrin Vasby Anderson on gender, politics and power

54 min

Welcome to Episode 72 of Lexis. Raj and Dan talk to Professor Karrin Vasby Anderson, Department of Communication Studies, Colorado State University, USA about: Communication studies - what kinds of communication are studied and how Power and politics Toxic masculinity & Trump Gender and politics The ‘double-bind’ for women in politics The Presidential debates of 2016 and 2024 Language, demagoguery & healthy democracies.  Karrin’s University of Colorado page: https://www.libarts.colostate.edu/people/karrin/  The article in The Conversation about Trump and Zelenskyy that we discuss: https://theconversation.com/how-trumps-compulsion-to-dominate-sabotages-dealmaking-undermines-democracy-and-threatens-global-stability-251210  Some of the other articles that Karrin has written that we would recommend:  https://theconversation.com/americas-dad-vs-the-manosphere-walz-vance-debate-highlights-two-versions-of-masculinity-240319  https://theconversation.com/kamala-harris-effectively-baited-donald-trump-during-the-debate-drawing-out-his-insecure-white-masculinity-238850  https://theconversation.com/biden-crashes-trump-lies-a-campaign-defining-presidential-debate-232672  ‘Toxic femininity’: https://theconversation.com/the-movie-barbie-has-put-the-phrase-toxic-femininity-back-in-the-news-heres-what-it-means-and-why-you-should-care-205884  Anti-feminist backlash in politics:  https://theconversation.com/watch-more-tv-to-understand-the-backlash-against-the-women-in-the-running-for-vice-president-143725  And the book that she recommends: https://theexperimentpublishing.com/catalogs/spring-2020/demagoguery-and-democracy/  Lexis is on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/lexispodcast.bsky.social  Contributors Lisa Casey  blog: https://livingthroughlanguage.wordpress.com/ & Twitter: Language Debates (@LanguageDebates) Dan Clayton  blog: EngLangBlog & Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/englangblog.bsky.social  Jacky Glancey  Twitter: https://twitter.com/JackyGlancey Raj Rana Matthew Butler ...

Episode 71 - Mercedes Durham & Welsh English

35 min

Welcome to Episode 71 of Lexis. Lisa, Dan and guest presenter Amanda Cole talk to Professor Mercedes Durham, from the Centre for Language and Communication, Cardiff University about her work on Welsh English. We talk about: The Leverhulme Trust project "Sociolinguistic Variation in South East Wales: Change and Contact" What makes Welsh English distinctive Varieties of Welsh English and how they’ve come to be Attitudes to Welsh English accents The power of Gavin and Stacey Charlotte from The Traitors The Speak For Yersel project that links Welsh English to other varieties around the UK and Ireland Mercedes Durham’s Cardiff University profile page: https://profiles.cardiff.ac.uk/staff/durhamm  Some of the coverage of the ongoing work: https://www.cardiff.ac.uk/news/view/2684264-whats-occurin-dialects-in-barry,-caerphilly-and-pontypridd-subject-of-academic-study  Welsh accents: Is commuting changing how people speak? - BBC News Wenglish: Experts research how the English language is used in day-to-day life in Wales  The Traitors: how trustworthy is a Welsh accent? A sociolinguist explains Welsh language: Is mixing with English causing 'erosion'? - BBC News    The Speak For Yersel pages: https://speakforyersel.ac.uk/wales/  University of Glasgow - Colleges - College of Arts & Humanities - About Us - College of Arts & Humanities news - Your voice needed as language survey expands to Ireland and Wales  Mercedes’ favourite book about language: https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/language-and-gender-a-reader-2e-j-coates/3651256?ean=9781405191272  Lexis is on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/lexispodcast.bsky.social  Contributors Lisa Casey  blog: https://livingthroughlanguage.wordpress.com/ & Twitter: Language Debates (@LanguageDebates) Dan Clayton  blog: 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 - C...

Episode 70 - Emma Humphries & prescriptivism

50 min

Welcome to Episode 70 of Lexis. Raj and Dan talk to Dr Emma Humphries, Leverhulme Early Career Fellow, School of Arts, English and Languages, Queen’s University Belfast about all things prescriptivism.  We talk about: What prescriptivism is and how it can de defined Prescriptivism in French and English and the role of the Academy The Your Wrong project that Emma is working on Prescriptivism in popular culture and traditional guides, manuals and grammars Why prescriptivism and descriptivism are not locked in a war and why it’s more than a goodies vs baddies, left vs right binary The kinds of arguments prescriptivists put forward Why complaints about language are often - but not always - proxies for complaints about people How to convert a prescriptivist How to get involved in the Your Wrong project Your Wrong website: https://yourwrong.co.uk/  Submit your examples: https://yourwrong.co.uk/submit  Contact Emma: popularprescriptivism@gmail.com  Emma’s Queen’s University page: https://pure.qub.ac.uk/en/persons/emma-humphries Emma’s favourite book about language: https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/language-myths-laurie-bauer/762943?ean=9780140260236  Lexis is on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/lexispodcast.bsky.social  Contributors Lisa Casey  blog: https://livingthroughlanguage.wordpress.com/ & Twitter: Language Debates (@LanguageDebates) Dan Clayton  blog: 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 69 - Natalie Braber & Alice Paver on accent stereotypes

37 min

Welcome to Episode 69 of Lexis. Dan is joined by guest interviewer Amanda Cole for this episode as we talk to Dr Natalie Braber, Professor in linguistics at Nottingham Trent University and Alice Paver, Research Assistant at the Phonetics Laboratory, University of Cambridge about their new paper, ‘Stereotyped accent judgements in forensic contexts: listener perceptions of social traits and types of behaviour’.  We talk about: Previous accent attitude research What makes their research different and more expansive Criminality and morality in relation to accent attitudes  The rise (and fall) of Brummie 😕 The real world, legal implications of accent prejudice What happens in a voice parade ⚠️As part of the discussion, we touch on issues of criminality, including sexual assault⚠️ Alice Paver’s profile page: https://www.phonetics.mmll.cam.ac.uk/staff/alice-paver  Natalie Braber’s profile page: https://www.ntu.ac.uk/staff-profiles/arts-humanities/natalie-braber  Their paper (with David Wright and Nikolas Pautz):  https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/communication/articles/10.3389/fcomm.2024.1462013/full  Some of the media coverage:  The Traitors: Why Charlotte’s fake Welsh accent could be a stroke of genius | The Independent Cambridge study raises concern about regional accents stereotypes - BBC News  People with working-class accents more likely to be suspected of committing crimes | UK criminal justice | The Guardian  UK's hierarchy of accents: 'I thought mine made me sound stupid' - BBC News   Jorja Smith puts hometown accent on map  Lexis is on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/lexispodcast.bsky.social  Contributors Lisa Casey  blog: https://livingthroughlanguage.wordpress.com/ & Twitter: Language Debates (@LanguageDebates) Dan Clayton  blog: 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...

Episode 68 - Tony Thorne on the new words of 2024 & 2025

40 min

Show notes for Episode 68 Here are the show notes for Episode 68, in which Lisa, Jacky, Raj and Dan talk to lexicographer extraordinaire, connoisseur of coinages and expert slangster, Tony Thorne,Language consultant at King’s College London, about the words of 2024, those on his radar for 2025 and what new words tell us (or don’t) about the world we live in today.   We talk about: The WOTY lists of 2024 Why WOTY generates interest and column inches What didn’t make the cut What’s driving lexical change Why new words aren’t all about fun and frivolity What the words that are bubbling under for 2025 tell us about the year that could be to come As part of the discussion, we touch on some explicit language and themes of an adult and politically controversial nature.  Tony’s website:https://language-and-innovation.com/  Tony’s 2024 piece for The Conversation:https://theconversation.com/most-words-of-the-year-dont-actually-tell-us-about-the-state-of-the-world-heres-what-id-pick-instead-246190  And Tony’s 2023 piece:https://theconversation.com/im-an-expert-in-slang-here-are-my-picks-for-word-of-the-year-218286  We talk about words featured in some of the following articles:  Collins WOTY brat:https://www.collinsdictionary.com/woty  Brat, delulu and raw-dogging make Collins dictionary 2024 - can you decode this Gen Z slang? - Mirror Online Charli XCX's Brat crowned Collins Dictionary word of the year - BBC News Telegraph on brat:http://archive.today/2024.11.01-074903/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/11/01/brat-collins-dictionary-charli-xcx-eras/    The Times on brat:http://archive.today/2024.11.01-004723/https://www.thetimes.com/uk/society/article/collins-word-of-the-year-brat-20m337nhc  Celebrities make ‘manifest’ appear as 2024 word of the year | Social media | The Guardian  2024 Word of the Year Is “Rawdog” - American Dialect Society  How did ‘rawdogging’ become part of polite conversation? | Arwa Mahdawi | The Guardian  Dictionary Dot Com WOTYdemure:https://www.dic...

Episode 67 - Joe McVeigh on how to spot a bad linguistics article

52 min

Show notes for Episode 67 Here are the show notes for Episode 67, in which Jacky and Dan talk to Joe McVeigh, Senior Lecturer in Communication at the Metropolia University of Applied Sciences, PhD candidate at University of Helsinki and formerly a Linguistics lecturer at the University of Jyväskylä in Finland about how to spot (and critique) a bad linguistics article, including how to look at: 1) misleading framing  2) contradictions, and  3) no evidence (or anecdotal evidence).  The articles we discuss are here and we’d recommend reading them before listening! FT article on Liberals Speak a Different Language: https://www.ft.com/content/cd01b007-7156-4da4-8d0f-e34e9ebfcc82  Archived version here: http://archive.today/2024.11.16-063838/https://www.ft.com/content/cd01b007-7156-4da4-8d0f-e34e9ebfcc82  The thread on Bluesky that started this: https://bsky.app/profile/eviljoemcveigh.bsky.social/post/3lbu6quucdc2v   The Atlantic article on ‘How social media broke slang’ is here: https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2024/06/social-media-american-slang-crisis/678754/  Joe's website: https://eviljoemcveigh.com/  Joe's recommended reading: William Labov, ‘Dialect Diversity in America’:  https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=vrCKA3TDDrMC&printsec=frontcover&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false  And he also talked about Mary Bucholtz. This is a good place to start with her work: https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/White_Kids.html?id=mtqrQIzIM4wC&source=kp_book_description&redir_esc=y  Lexis is on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/lexispodcast.bsky.social  Contributors Lisa Casey  blog: https://livingthroughlanguage.wordpress.com/ & Twitter: Language Debates (@LanguageDebates) Dan Clayton  blog: 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 Qu...

Episode 66 - Andreea Calude & the language of social media

41 min

Here are the show notes for Episode 66, in which Raj and Dan talk to Dr Andreea Calude, author of The Linguistics of Social Media: an introduction (Routledge, 2024). Andreea is Associate Professor in Linguistics at the University of Waikato, in New Zealand, Associate of the Human Lang Tech Research Centre in Romania, and Lennoy chair in multilingualism at VUB in Brussels. Our conversation includes discussion of  How we use social media for different purposes and for different audiences The affordances of different platforms Constructing & performing identity online Using ‘move analysis’ with social media texts Media discourses about social media The Linguistics of Social Media: An Introduction - 1st Edition  Dr. Andreea Calude  The Language Game  Dimensions of Register Variation   BBC Radio 4 - Word of Mouth, Social media language  Lexis is on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/lexispodcast.bsky.social  Contributors Lisa Casey  blog: https://livingthroughlanguage.wordpress.com/ & Twitter: Language Debates (@LanguageDebates) Dan Clayton  blog: 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 65 - Jullietta Stoencheva on everyday extremism

28 min

Here are the show notes for Episode 65, in which Raj and Dan talk to Jullietta Stoencheva, PhD candidate in Media and Communication Studies at Malmo University about: Extremist narratives and how they are constructed Who the ‘Us’ and ‘Them’ are in extremist Us vs Them narratives Everyday extremism, plausible deniability and ‘borderline discourse’ Pushing the Overton window Her latest work and what it reveals  The Psychologist article about the everyday extremism project: https://www.bps.org.uk/psychologist/memes-and-mugs-everyday-extremism-digital-mainstream   More about the OppAttune project: https://ec.europa.eu/info/funding-tenders/opportunities/portal/screen/how-to-participate/org-details/927578603/project/101095170/program/43108390/details  JM Berger’s Extremism: https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262535878/extremism/  Jullietta’s NordMedia page: https://nordmedianetwork.org/researchers/jullietta-stoencheva/  Lexis is on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/lexispodcast.bsky.social  Contributors Lisa Casey  blog: https://livingthroughlanguage.wordpress.com/ & Twitter: Language Debates (@LanguageDebates) Dan Clayton  blog: 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 64 - Katie Mansfield on working-class children & standard English in the classroom

51 min

Show notes for Episode 64 Here are the show notes for Episode 64, in which Raj and Dan talk to Katie Mansfield, PhD Researcher at The University of Sheffield & Lecturer in Education at The University of Gloucestershire about: Her research on working-class children, non-standard English and style shifting at school Combining approaches from linguistics and psychology to develop a suitable methodology  Working memory, executive function and style shifting School and government policies on standard English and how they affect classroom practice, especially for working-class students How her A-Level study prepared her for degree and post-graduate work in linguistics Katie’s previous work on representations of Meghan Markle in the UK press  Katie’s ResearchGate profile: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Katie-Mansfield  University of Sheffield Alumni profile: https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/english/undergraduate/alumni-profiles/katie-mansfield  A discussion of the research methodologies used in this PhD project: https://beonlineconference.com/do-differences-in-working-memory-and-executive-functioning-affect-the-use-of-standard-english-in-working-class-childrens-speech/  The Meghan Markle research: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/363693792_The_Architecture_of_Racism_Sexism_and_Misogyny_A_Critical_Discourse_Analysis_of_the_Representation_of_Meghan_Markle_by_the_British_Press  Lexis is on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/lexispodcast.bsky.social  Contributors Lisa Casey  blog: https://livingthroughlanguage.wordpress.com/ & Twitter: Language Debates (@LanguageDebates) Dan Clayton  blog: 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...

Episode 63 - Isobelle Clarke and anti-science discourses

40 min

Show notes for Episode 63 Here are the show notes for Episode 63, in which Raj and Dan talk to Dr Isobelle Clarke, Lecturer in Security and Protection Science in the Dept of Linguistics and English Language at Lancaster University about: Anti-science discourses  The language of climate change denialism The attraction and appeal of anti-science narratives Methodologies for analysing discourses: including why linguists still need to interpret patterns Exploring discourses around Islam and Muslims in the UK press Dealing with difficult data and problematic topics Isobelle Clarke’s Lancaster University page: https://www.research.lancs.ac.uk/portal/en/people/isobelle-clarke(447fc73a-d7fa-4f7b-922e-604f12549485).html  Media Bias Fact Check: https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/  LancsBox: https://lancsbox.lancs.ac.uk/  The Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming https://www.merchantsofdoubt.org/  The Big Myth: How American Business Taught Us to Loathe Government and Love the Free Market: https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/big-myth-9781635573572/  Peter Hotez: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Hotez  Kate Fox, Watching the English: https://dauntbooks.co.uk/shop/books/watching-the-english/  The Routledge Handbook of Discourse and Disinformation https://www.routledge.com/The-Routledge-Handbook-of-Discourse-and-Disinformation/Maci-Demata-McGlashan-Seargeant/p/book/9781032124254  Lexis is on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/lexispodcast.bsky.social  Contributors Lisa Casey  blog: https://livingthroughlanguage.wordpress.com/ & Twitter: Language Debates (@LanguageDebates) Dan Clayton  blog: 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 Attributi...

Episode 62 - Fiona McPherson and 20 Years of Oxford WOTY

29 min

Show notes for Episode 62 Here are the show notes for Episode 62, in which Raj and Dan talk to Fiona McPherson, senior editor at the Oxford English Dictionary about: 20 years of Oxford Word of the Year Why she can’t reveal any secrets about WOTY2024…  Why some words stick around and others don’t What makes a good WOTY candidate Word formation processes Where and how new words are being generated and disseminated  20 Years of Words that Reflect our World: https://corp.oup.com/word-of-the-year/  Our 2023 conversation with Fiona: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/lexispodcast/episodes/Episode-47---Fiona-McPherson-of-the-OED-and-Words-of-the-Year-2023-e2db526  Contributors Lisa Casey  blog: https://livingthroughlanguage.wordpress.com/ & Twitter: Language Debates (@LanguageDebates) Dan Clayton  blog: 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  We are on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/lexispodcast.bsky.social  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 61 - Lucy Jones on Words We Live By: A Guide to LGBTQ+ Language

35 min

Show notes for Episode 61 Here are the show notes for Episode 61, in which Jacky and Dan talk to Dr Lucy Jones, Associate Professor in Sociolinguistics at the University of Nottingham about Words We Live By: A Guide to LGBTQ+ Language, including: Why language labels are so important when discussing sexuality and sexual identity Whether or not such labels categorise and divide more than they validate and unite The expanding lexicon of LGBT terminology and initialisms Why it’s important to start conversations around this language to learn more  Advice for navigating the changing, choppy and sometimes contentious waters of the language of sexual identity in the A-Level classroom The project webpage is here: https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/research/groups/cral/projects/words-we-live-by/about.aspx  Lucy Jones’ University of Nottingham profile page:  https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/english/people/lucy.jones   Our previous episode with Lucy is here: https://open.spotify.com/episode/1m9UKNUUysD6Vawj61C2kW?si=3LdfVQjEREaUvWgxopxLEg  Thanks to Ali Cotton (and friends) for some question suggestions and input. Contributors Lisa Casey  blog: https://livingthroughlanguage.wordpress.com/ & Twitter: Language Debates (@LanguageDebates) Dan Clayton  blog: 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 60 - Stylistics with Peter Stockwell and Jessica Norledge

39 min

Show notes for Episode 60 Here are the show notes for Episode 60, in which Raj and Dan talk to Peter Stockwell, Professor of Literary Linguistics at the University of Nottingham and Jessica Norledge, Assistant Professor in Stylistics at the University of Nottingham about stylistics, including: What stylistics is and what it offers How English language students can apply linguistic analysis to literary texts The Nottingham Stylistics Toolkit project Some of their favourite tools in the toolkit Why stylistics is a linguistic superpower The (free!) Nottingham Stylistics Toolkit is here: https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/common/stylisticstoolkit/StylisticsToolkit/content/#/  Peter Stockwell’s University of Nottingham profile page: https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/english/people/peter.stockwell  Jessica Norledge’s University of Nottingham profile page:  https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/english/people/jessica.norledge  Our previous interview with Jess about the language of dystopia: https://open.spotify.com/episode/3gnJ0ZiPSKkXvzx3G6HRDe?si=A6u-5LwHQ7avOIMHAxe6Eg  Pocahontas Colors of the Wind: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4i0HDygKdLM Carol Ann Duffy reads Valentine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFhFgyImwtE  Jess and Peter will be running some teacher CPD with Dan at The English and Media Centre in London in December and January. You can find out more here:  Non-fiction: https://www.englishandmedia.co.uk/courses/acbaed53-8a27-48cc-96b5-db6ce1b1995f/emc-cpd-face-to-face-new-approaches-to-non-fiction-for-a-level-lang-lit/ Reading fictional minds: https://www.englishandmedia.co.uk/courses/61cd442a-68d2-4cd2-a172-f2a4d2206d31/emc-cpd-face-to-face-reading-fictional-minds-viewpoints-character-in-english-lan/  And keep an eye out for an A-Level Lang Lit student conference in April 2025 at University of Nottingham.  Contributors Lisa Casey  blog: https://livingthroughlanguage.wordpress.com/ & Twitter: Language Debates (@LanguageDebates) Dan Clayton  blog: Eng...

Episode 59 - York English Language Toolkit 2024

41 min

Show notes for Episode 59 Here are the show notes for Episode 59, in which Dan talks to Sam Hellmuth, Professor of Linguistics at the University of York about the 2024 York English Language Toolkit workshop. We also talk to Eytan Zweig and James Tompkinson about their sessions.  You can sign up here:  https://englishlanguagetoolkit.york.ac.uk/workshops  Previous workshops and case studies are here:  https://englishlanguagetoolkit.york.ac.uk/case-studies  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 58 - Vaclav Brezina and the new Frequency Dictionary of British English

30 min

Show notes for Episode 58 Here are the show notes for Episode 58, in which Dan talks to Professor of Corpus Linguistics, Dr Vaclav Brezina of Lancaster University about: The new Frequency Dictionary of British English What certain words can tell us about a changing language Using corpora to track change Why we need more than just words to understand patterns of language change  Why media discourses around change might need to be treated with caution Vaclav’s University page:  https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/linguistics/about/people/vaclav-brezina  Some coverage of the research and the publication:  https://portal.lancaster.ac.uk/intranet/news/article/sonew-dictionary-sheds-light-on-frequency-of-words-in-british-english    https://theconversation.com/tea-weather-and-being-on-time-analysis-of-100-million-words-reveals-what-brits-talk-about-most-222088  https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/02/03/english-language-use-more-informal-words-linguistics/ 

Episode 57 - Lang in the News and Johanna Gerwin on MLE

57 min

Show notes for Episode 57 Here are the show notes for Episode 57, in which Lisa, Jacky and Dan talk about some recent Lang in the News, including: Apostrophes and why their disappearance has signalled the end of civilisation Johanna Gerwin’s new paper on how MLE and ‘Jafaican’ have been ‘enregistered’ in the UK press Some articles about MLE A really good student answer to a question on MLE (thanks, Abi 😁 ) And then straight after that, Raj and Dan talk to the actual Dr Johanna Gerwin about her paper and about the ways the media discourses around MLE have developed since it was dubbed ‘Jafaikan’ back in the day… The apostrophe stories https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-york-north-yorkshire-68942321  https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/article/2024/may/05/north-yorkshires-dropped-apostrophe-for-street-signs-upsets-residents  https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-39459831  Johanna Gerwin’s paper: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0271530924000314  Rebecca Mead’s New Yorker article on MLE: http://archive.today/AdcqJ  The Ed West Telegraph article: http://www.eckington.net/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2020/03/Jafaican-may-be-cool-but-it-sounds-ridiculous.pdf  Abi’s essay: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1YKBmHSxWvQ1Uku44cYEqJxsc0j0B2eiH/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=110439791983693362630&rtpof=true&sd=true  Lots of articles about MLE gathered in one place: https://englishlangsfx.blogspot.com/2021/03/discourses-around-mle-and-youth-language.html  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 In...

Episode 56 - Danielle Turton and dialect study

35 min

Here are the show notes for Episode 56, in which Raj and Dan talk to Dr Danielle Turton, Senior Lecturer in Sociolinguistics at Lancaster University and Principal Investigator for a Leverhulme funded project on Lancashire rhoticity. We talk about: Dialect levelling and why it’s a complicated picture Why researching UK dialects is so interesting What’s happening to rhoticity in the North West (and beyond) Media discourses around dialect change Danielle Turton’s Lancaster page: https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/linguistics/about/people/danielle-turton  Danielle Turton’s own pages: https://danielleturton.rbind.io/  The rhoticity paper can be found here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0095447023000694  Some of the news stories that we mention: https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/news/researchers-fear-the-spoken-r-is-ready-to-roll-away-from-the-last-bastion-of-rhoticity  Telegraph article: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/12/16/blackburn-bristol-traditional-english-accent/  Archived Telegraph link: http://archive.today/pFeod  https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/lancashire-north-west-blackburn-jane-horrocks-england-b2470464.html  https://www.theguardian.com/science/2023/dec/28/strong-r-sound-of-some-lancashire-accents-in-danger-of-dying-out  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 55 - Christian Ilbury and online language

38 min

Here are the show notes for Episode 55, in which Jacky and Dan talk to Dr Christian Ilbury, Lecturer in Linguistics and English Language in the School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences at The University of Edinburgh about: Being an online linguist Social media and language change - why it’s complicated Why ‘slang’ is an unhelpful word and why ‘internet vernacular’ is a better term for the kind of styles he is looking at Appropriation and diffusion Media discourses about young people, online language and technology His continuing work on MLE and why ‘MLE’ is still a useful term Christian’s University of Edinburgh profile: https://www.ed.ac.uk/profile/christian-ilbury Some appearances in the media that we mention: https://theconversation.com/theyre-serving-what-how-the-c-word-went-from-camp-to-internet-mainstream-210214  https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/apr/09/bait-ting-certi-how-uk-rap-changed-the-language-of-the-nation “You have quite a long history of British vernaculars being exported through British cultural forms,” says Christian Ilbury, a lecturer in sociolinguistics at the University of Edinburgh – from Scouse accents with the Beatles to Arctic Monkeys and the presence of industrial working-class accents in indie music. “Grime essentially became the vehicle in which we perceived MLE.” Those kids in suburban England, he says, “don’t speak this variety because of where they grew up. They’re using it to align with a cultural orientation that they appreciate.” https://linguistics-research-digest.blogspot.com/2019/10/  ‘Slay’, ‘yaas kween’, ‘squad’ – if you’re a keen social media, you might be familiar with some of these words. Originally from African American Vernacular English (AAVE) – a variety of English spoken by some Black Americans – these terms have quickly become part of the internet grammar. But, how and why have these terms entered our lexicon and what does the use of AAVE in internet communication mean? This and oth...

Episode 54 - Florent Moncomble

48 min

Here are the show notes for Episode 54, in which Raj and Dan talk to Dr Florent Moncomble, Senior Lecturer in English Linguistics at University of Artois, France about what English and French have in common and all the discourses swirling around French that are also relevant to English, including: The role of L’Académie Française  Prescriptivism in French and English Complaints about decline, destruction, young people and migration and why they use the same language proxies as their English counterparts.  What French linguists are doing to address these misunderstandings and misrepresentations.  Florent’s links: https://linktr.ee/f_moncomble  Les Linguistes Atterrées: https://www.tract-linguistes.org/  L'Académie Française: https://www.academie-francaise.fr/  and a Guardian story about it: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/16/academie-francaise-denounces-rise-of-english-words-in-public-life  Bernard Cerquiglini on why English isn’t a real language:  https://www.lefigaro.fr/langue-francaise/actu-des-mots/la-langue-anglaise-n-existe-pas-un-linguiste-provoque-avec-humour-les-britanniques-20240311   https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/03/08/english-is-not-a-language-its-just-badly-spoken-french/ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-13181993/English-exist-badly-pronounced-French-linguist.html  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 53 - Language Awareness at School with Tim Marr & Steve Collins

39 min

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. The book: https://www.routledge.com/Language-Awareness-at-School-A-Practical-Guide-for-Teachers-and-School-Leaders/Marr-Collins/p/book/9781032062334  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

1 hr 11 min

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 und...

Episode 51 - Emily M. Bender and 'AI' hype

33 min

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_racis...

Episode 50 - Jess Aiston and Critical Discourse Analysis

57 min

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

53 min

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/  https://www.runnymedetrust.org/blog/is-it-that-deep-the-impact-of-policing-black-british-language-speakers-in-british-schools “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.” BLAM on MLE: https://blamuk.org/2022/06/22/blam-uk-condemns-the-recent-anti-black-language-racism-from-uk-white-owned-media-outlets/  “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/  Ou...

Episode 48 - Frazer Heritage on representation of gender in videogames (and more)

49 min

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

28 min

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 most notable word of 2023 by Collins dictionary | Artificial intelligence (AI) | The Guardian AI named word of the year by Collins Dictionary - BBC News  Rizz named word of the year 2023 by Oxford University Press - BBC News  Got rizz? Tom Holland memes propel popularity of 2023 word of the year | Social trends | The Guardian  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… Oxford Word of the Year 2023 Word of the Year 2023 | Authentic | Merriam-Webster Macquarie Dictionary Blog Cozzie livs: light-hearted term for cost-of-living crisis named Macquarie dictionary word of the year | Language | The Guardian  » 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 Matt...

Episode 46 - Paul Kerswill & MLE

41 min

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) B...

Episode 45 - Alex Baratta and accentism

42 min

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  http://blog.policy.manchester.ac.uk/british_politics/2017/06/putting-an-accent-on-things-the-need-to-clarify-speech-expectations-for-british-teachers/   https://www.bera.ac.uk/blog/clarifying-accent-standards-for-british-teachers  Understanding all kinds of English accent can improve empathy and learning – and even be a matter of life and death   Yours Sincerely is dead… The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2023/sep/13/yours-sincerely-is-dead-so-how-should-you-sign-off-an-email  And in the Mail:  https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12510471/Is-end-sincerely-Old-phrases-die-decade-language-formal-research-finds.html  Attempts to promote inclusive language in European languages What’s in a word? How less-gendered language is faring across Europe  #WOTY2023  ‘AI’ named most notable word of 2023 by Collins dictiona...

Episode 44 - Kingsley Ugwuanyi + Amanda Cole

1 hr 8 min

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  https://theconversation.com/cockney-and-queens-english-have-all-but-disappeared-among-young-people-heres-whats-replaced-them-215478 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://archive.ph/c56Zb 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  https://theconv...

Episode 43 - language & gender special part 2

40 min

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 Cameron, Deborah. and Shaw, Sylvia. (2016). Gender, Power and Political Speech: Women and Language in the 2015 UK General Election - Research Portal | Lancaster University Corpus for Schools | Corpus resources for A-level English Language and English Language Teaching  Teaching unit 17: Being Asian in London – Ethnicity, gender and social networks Background Audio clips  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/  Debora...

Episode 42 - Deborah Cameron, language & gender special part 1

56 min

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  Some 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-...

Episode 41 - Johanna Gerwin and London English

45 min

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 ci...

Episode 40 - York English Language Toolkit

56 min

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

1 hr 7 min

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 ...

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