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:
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
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
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
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
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/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:
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
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
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/
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 - 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
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
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
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 - 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
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
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.dictionary.com/e/word-of-the-year-2024/
Macquarie WOTYenshittification:https://www.theguardian.com/science/2024/nov/26/enshittification-macquarie-dictionary-word-of-the-year-explained
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/01/arts/brain-rot-oxford-word.html (alternative link:http://archive.today/2024.12.03-205352/https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/01/arts/brain-rot-oxford-word.html )
OUP on Oxford WOTY:https://corp.oup.com/word-of-the-year/
‘Brain rot’: Oxford word of the year 2024 reflects ‘trivial’ use of social media
Dan’s for Byline Times:https://www.bylinesupplement.com/p/brain-rot-what-the-oxford-word-of (alt link:http://archive.today/2024.12.06-210125/https://www.bylinesupplement.com/p/brain-rot-what-the-oxford-word-of )
Dan’s piece for Byline Times piece on ‘enshittification’:The Words That Define Our 'Enshittified' World alt link:http://archive.today/2024.11.16-094738/https://www.bylinesupplement.com/p/the-words-that-define-our-enshittifed
2024 Word of the Year | School of Literature, Languages and Linguistics
Nancy Friedman:https://bsky.app/profile/fritinancy.bsky.social
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
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:
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:
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
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
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
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
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 Archive: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/serge-quadrado/urban/cool-guys
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
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
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
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
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:
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: 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
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
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://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/02/03/english-language-use-more-informal-words-linguistics/
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.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
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 International License. From the Free Music Archive: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/serge-quadrado/urban/cool-guys
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
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