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:...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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:...

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 ...

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...

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...

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...

Here are the show notes for Episode 38, in which Lisa and Dan talk to Dr Anna Islentyeva of Innsbruck University, Austria about the representation of masculinity in advertising, including:  The “Real Men Score” paper she has recently published with her team Stereotypes around gender representation Methodologies and approaches to data Multimodal approaches to visual texts Anna’s university page: https://www.uibk.ac.at/anglistik/staff/islentyeva/islentyeva.html  Anna on Twitter:...

Show notes for Episode 37 Here are the show notes for Episode 37, in which Dan and Jill talk to Dr Heidi Colthup of the University of Kent about the language of gaming, including:  Her journey into academia How we define what a game is The language used around and about gaming Narrative and the power of storytelling in games Heidi’s university page: https://www.kent.ac.uk/cultures-languages/people/1705/colthup-heidi  Heidi on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Heidi_Colthup  Some...

Here are the show notes for Episode 36, in which Dan and Lisa talk to Dr Claire Hardaker about: Forensic linguistics What language can reveal about us The benefits and problems of technology in forensic linguistics The role of the forensic linguist in an unequal society The future of forensic linguistics Claire’s Lancaster University page: https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/linguistics/about/people/claire-hardaker Claire’s en clair podcast: http://wp.lancs.ac.uk/enclair/ Claire on...

Here are the show notes for Episode 35, an opinion articles special, in which Dan and Jacky talk to Harriet Williamson, the Voices Commissioning Editor at The Independent about: Opinion articles and what makes a good one, including pieces about language issues The job of a commissioning editor Paths into journalism Educating the public about language Harriet’s Independent page:  https://www.independent.co.uk/author/harriet-williamson Harriet on Twitter:...

Show notes for Episode 34 Here are the show notes for Episode 34, in which Dan and Jill talk to Arran Stibbe, professor of Ecological Linguistics, and teacher on the BA English course at the University of Gloucestershire (https://www.glos.ac.uk/enl) about: Ecolinguistics - what it is and why we need it The power of storytelling and the environment Critical language awareness and its role in fighting back against climate catastrophe Challenging ecologically damaging narratives,...

Show notes for Episode 33 Here are the show notes for Episode 33, in which Dan and Jill talk to Katy Brown from the Department of Politics, Languages and International Studies at University of Bath about: The mainstreaming of far-right discourses around migration & race What we mean by ‘discourse’ and ‘discourses’ and the power of discourse Analysing discourses, metaphors and narratives around social and political issues Dog whistles and the reception of messages by...