Folgen

  • 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 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

    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



  • Fehlende Folgen?

    Hier klicken, um den Feed zu aktualisieren.

  • 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 other questions are examined by Christian Ilbury in his recent paper.

    The episode of Lexis that we mention in which we interviewed Shivonne gates about MLE in East London: https://open.spotify.com/episode/5leNPWkgQTMFzZ2UHRktnC

    Christian’s book recommendation can be found here:

    Homegirls: Language and Cultural Practice among Latina Youth Gangs. London: Blackwell.

    “In this ground-breaking new book on the Norteña and Sureña (North/South) youth gang dynamic, cultural anthropologist and linguist Norma Mendoza-Denton looks at the daily lives of young Latinas and their innovative use of speech, bodily practices, and symbolic exchanges that signal their gang affiliations and ideologies. Her engrossing ethnographic and sociolinguistic study reveals the connection of language behavior and other symbolic practices among Latina gang girls in California,and their connections to larger social processes of nationalism,racial/ethnic consciousness, and gender identity.”

    https://www.norma-mendoza-denton.com/books

    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 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’AcadĂ©mie 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



  • 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



  • Show notes for Episode 52

    Here are the show notes for Episode 52, a migration discourses bumper episode, in which we feature two interviews. First off, Dan and Raj talk to Professor Charlotte Taylor of the University of Sussex about:

    Why corpus linguistics can refresh the parts other approaches cannot reach

    Discourses around migration and the metaphors that are often used - water, commodity and them/us

    Why discourses around migration are usually about immigration

    Why nostalgia is such a powerful theme

    Whether the discourses around migration are worse now than they have been in the past

    Tools for students analysing language discourses

    We also talk to Ana Gavalas of the Migrants’ Rights Network about:

    The work of their organisation and why it matters

    The ‘Words Matter’ campaign they have been running

    Why migration is linked to wider struggles

    Why challenging dangerous migration myths involves critically engaging with language.

    Charlotte Taylor’s University of Sussex page: https://profiles.sussex.ac.uk/p329327-charlotte-taylor

    Open access paper: Metaphors of Migration Over Time https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0957926521992156

    Charlotte Taylor on Twitter: https://twitter.com/_ctaylor_

    Dan’s article on the language of migration: https://bylinetimes.com/2022/12/16/swamping-cockroaches-invasion-how-language-shapes-our-view-of-migration/

    The Migrants’ Rights Network: https://migrantsrights.org.uk

    Words Matter campaign: https://migrantsrights.org.uk/projects/wordsmatter/

    Contributors

    Lisa Casey

    blog: https://livingthroughlanguage.wordpress.com/ & Twitter: Language Debates (@LanguageDebates)

    Dan Clayton

    blog: EngLangBlog & Twitter: EngLangBlog (@EngLangBlog)

    Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/englangblog.bsky.social

    Jacky Glancey

    Twitter: https://twitter.com/JackyGlancey

    Raj Rana

    Matthew Butler

    Twitter: https://twitter.com/MatthewbutlerCA

    Music: Serge Quadrado - Cool Guys


    Cool Guys by Serge Quadrado is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. From the Free Music Archive: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/serge-quadrado/urban/cool-guys

  • Show notes for Episode 51

    Here are the show notes for Episode 51, in which Dan and (new Lexis team member) Raj talk to Professor Emily M. Bender of the University of Washington about:

    Why ‘Artificial Intelligence’ is not really the right term at all

    How Large Language Models work and why we should be sceptical of many of the claims made for them

    The biases inherent in LLMs and what to do about them

    Whether ‘neural networks’ and language processing can shed any light on child language development

    The discourses around ‘AI’: from booster to doomer.

    Emily M. Bender’s University of Washington page: https://faculty.washington.edu/ebender/

    A great interview from 2023: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/ai-artificial-intelligence-chatbots-emily-m-bender.html

    Time Magazine on the ‘machine-learning myth buster’: https://time.com/collection/time100-ai/6308275/emily-m-bender/

    Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000 podcast: https://www.dair-institute.org/maiht3k/

    Emily’s book recommendations:

    ‘Babel’, R.F. Kuang: https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/babel-or-the-necessity-of-violence-an-arcane-history-of-the-oxford-translators-revolution-r-f-kuang/6627642?ean=9780008501853

    ‘A Memory Called Empire, Arkady Martine: https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/a-memory-called-empire-winner-of-the-hugo-award-for-best-novel-arkady-martine/219166?ean=9781529001594

    Other links from the interview

    Jess Dodge’s work: https://jessedodge.github.io/

    Batya Friedman & Helen Nissenbaum, Bias in Computer Systems (1996): https://nyuscholars.nyu.edu/en/publications/bias-in-computer-systems

    Some further reading:

    Police worried 101 call bot would struggle with 'Brummie' accents

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-68466369

    BBC News - 'Journalists are feeding the AI hype machine'

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-68488924

    Bias against African American English

    Paper: https://arxiv.org/abs/2403.00742

    Register article: https://www.theregister.com/2024/03/11/ai_models_exhibit_racism_based/

    An Al-Jazeera opinion piece about AI and borders:

    https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2023/4/20/ban-racist-and-lethal-ai-from-europes-borders

    Contributors

    Lisa Casey

    blog: https://livingthroughlanguage.wordpress.com/ & Twitter: Language Debates (@LanguageDebates)

    Dan Clayton

    blog: EngLangBlog & Twitter: EngLangBlog (@EngLangBlog)

    Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/englangblog.bsky.social

    Jacky Glancey

    Twitter: https://twitter.com/JackyGlancey

    Raj Rana

    Matthew Butler

    Twitter: https://twitter.com/MatthewbutlerCA

    Music: Serge Quadrado - Cool Guys

    Cool Guys by Serge Quadrado is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. From the Free Music Archive: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/serge-quadrado/urban/cool-guys



  • 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

  • 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/

    Our interview with Johanna about London English: https://open.spotify.com/episode/42lkwg3h0k9PjWtJFkJDbU?si=tHWJWE6XTLK1K3bOMLTzCQ

    Art Not Evidence campaign: https://artnotevidence.org/

    Garden Court Chambers on the Art Not Evidence campaign: https://www.gardencourtchambers.co.uk/news/art-not-evidence-launches-campaign-to-stop-rap-lyrics-being-used-as-evidence

    “One day we will ask ourselves how on earth the state was ever allowed to get away with using rap music as evidence to prosecute Black defendants in serious crime cases. Making music isn’t evidence of crime but the prosecuting of it is. As a result, the state creates unsafe convictions, perpetuates racist stereotypes and restricts artistic expression. This has got to stop. Join Art Not Evidence to help liberate rap from the legal system.”

    The Manchester 10 case: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/jul/01/fury-in-manchester-as-black-teenagers-jailed-as-result-of-telegram-chat

    The first episode of Black British English podcast:

    https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/the-black-british/can-uk-slang-be-a-language-wEfv74rgexA/

    Ife on Twitter: https://twitter.com/fufuisonme/status/1741037657084276882/photo/2

    Contributors

    Lisa Casey

    blog: https://livingthroughlanguage.wordpress.com/ & Twitter: Language Debates (@LanguageDebates)

    Dan Clayton

    blog: EngLangBlog & Twitter: EngLangBlog (@EngLangBlog)

    Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/englangblog.bsky.social

    Jacky Glancey

    Twitter: https://twitter.com/JackyGlancey

    Matthew Butler

    Twitter: https://twitter.com/MatthewbutlerCA

    Music: Serge Quadrado - Cool Guys

    Cool Guys by Serge Quadrado is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. From the Free Music Archive: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/serge-quadrado/urban/cool-guys



  • 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



  • 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

    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 46

    Here are the show notes for Episode 46, in which Lisa, Jacky and Dan talk to Paul Kerswill, Emeritus Professor, Department of Language and Linguistic Science at the University of York about what has driven his interests in linguistics, but mostly about Multicultural London English:

    What it is

    How it developed

    How it’s used now

    How it’s been reported on (and why it’s not ‘Jafaican’)

    The discourses and metaphors around it

    What it might sound like in the future

    Paul’s University of York page: https://www.york.ac.uk/language/people/academic-research/paul-kerswill/

    Some of the presentations and papers Paul Kerswill has produced on MLE:

    https://englishlanguagetoolkit.york.ac.uk/case-studies/who-made-mle

    https://englishlanguagetoolkit.york.ac.uk/case-studies/jafaican

    and the full paper of this workshop is here: https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/93713/1/17_Kerswill_corr.pdf

    Some links to early reporting on MLE, MEYD and more: https://englishlangsfx.blogspot.com/search?q=MEYD

    Some of Tony Thorne’s reflections on MLE (he denies coining the term ‘MEYD’ though!): https://language-and-innovation.com/?s=MLE

    We talked about Accent Bias Britain too:

    https://accentbiasbritain.org/

    Here’s a York English Language Toolkit session on this too:

    https://englishlanguagetoolkit.york.ac.uk/case-studies/accent-bias-britain

    And previous episodes of Lexis in which we’ve discussed MLE:

    Shivonne Gates: https://open.spotify.com/episode/5leNPWkgQTMFzZ2UHRktnC?si=wh-4nKMmTpm7Q5on2x2wIQ

    Matt Hunt Gardner: https://open.spotify.com/episode/7GBFEsLSNKYEpvX2yHIanO?si=_h-_-ROcRpm1llQLiLoSJw

    And we talk about recent reporting on MLE in this episode’s Lang in the News: https://open.spotify.com/episode/0cdODEHoWHIWLfd0gh6xSw?si=pwjAKwHbRyea0jxUBugbiA

    Contributors

    Lisa Casey

    blog: https://livingthroughlanguage.wordpress.com/ & Twitter: Language Debates (@LanguageDebates)

    Dan Clayton

    blog: EngLangBlog & Twitter: EngLangBlog (@EngLangBlog)

    Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/englangblog.bsky.social

    Jacky Glancey

    Twitter: https://twitter.com/JackyGlancey

    Matthew Butler

    Twitter: https://twitter.com/MatthewbutlerCA

    Music: Serge Quadrado - Cool Guys


    Cool Guys by Serge Quadrado is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. From the Free Music Archive: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/serge-quadrado/urban/cool-guys

  • 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 dictionary | Artificial intelligence (AI) | The Guardian

    AI named word of the year by Collins Dictionary - BBC News

    Opinion piece about new words https://archive.ph/kv2UQ

    Rob Drummond’s new book: https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/you-re-all-talk-why-we-are-what-we-speak-rob-drummond/7512151?aid=4868&ean=9781914484285

    Contributors

    Lisa Casey

    blog: https://livingthroughlanguage.wordpress.com/ & Twitter: Language Debates (@LanguageDebates)

    Dan Clayton

    blog: EngLangBlog & Twitter: EngLangBlog (@EngLangBlog)

    Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/englangblog.bsky.social Jacky Glancey

    Twitter: https://twitter.com/JackyGlancey

    Matthew Butler

    Twitter: https://twitter.com/MatthewbutlerCA

    Music: Serge Quadrado - Cool Guys

    Cool Guys by Serge Quadrado is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. From the Free Music Archive: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/serge-quadrado/urban/cool-guys





  • 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://theconversation.com/understanding-all-kinds-of-english-accent-can-improve-empathy-and-learning-and-even-be-a-matter-of-life-and-death-215922

    Contributors

    Lisa Casey

    blog: https://livingthroughlanguage.wordpress.com/ & Twitter: Language Debates (@LanguageDebates)

    Dan Clayton

    blog: EngLangBlog & Twitter: EngLangBlog (@EngLangBlog)

    BlueSky: @englangblog.bsky.socialJacky 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



  • 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/

    Deborah Cameron’s Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deborah_Cameron_(linguist)

    Deborah Cameron wrote this Research Update for Teachers for the EMC back in 2015: https://www.englishandmedia.co.uk/blog/language-gender-a-research-update-for-teachers

    Contributors

    Lisa Casey

    blog: https://livingthroughlanguage.wordpress.com/ & Twitter: Language Debates (@LanguageDebates)

    Dan Clayton

    blog: EngLangBlog & Twitter: EngLangBlog (@EngLangBlog)

    BlueSky: @danc.bsky.social

    Jacky Glancey

    Twitter: https://twitter.com/JackyGlancey

    Matthew Butler

    Twitter: https://twitter.com/MatthewbutlerCA

    Music: Serge Quadrado - Cool Guys

    Cool Guys by Serge Quadrado is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. From the Free Music Archive: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/serge-quadrado/urban/cool-guys



  • Here are the show notes for Episode 42, the first part of a Language & Gender double episode special, in which we talk to Deborah Cameron, Professor in Language and Communication at Worcester College, Oxford about:

    Robin Lakoff 50 years on from Language and Woman’s Place

    Where language & gender research has headed post-Lakoff

    Deborah Cameron’s forthcoming book, Language, Sexism and Misogyny

    What kinds of more recent research we could be looking at for the A Level

    Online misogyny and Disney princesses

    The other Deborah (Tannen)

    We’ll be back soon with a follow-up episode in which we look at how we can approach the teaching of language and gender in a world that’s changed since the earliest days of research into this field.

    Deborah Cameron’s blog, Language: a feminist guide: https://debuk.wordpress.com/

    Deborah Cameron’s Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deborah_Cameron_(linguist)

    Robin Lakoff’s 1973 article for Language in Society can be found here: https://web.stanford.edu/class/linguist156/Lakoff_1973.pdf

    Somer articles about Deborah Cameron’s Myth of Mars and venus from around the time it was published: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/oct/01/gender.books

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/oct/03/gender.politicsphilosophyandsociety1

    https://www.theguardian.com/books/2007/oct/02/gender.familyandrelationships

    https://www.bps.org.uk/psychologist/language-common

    Deborah wrote this Research Update for Teachers for the EMC back in 2015: https://www.englishandmedia.co.uk/blog/language-gender-a-research-update-for-teachers

    Carmen Fought and Karen Eisenhauer, ‘The Princess Problem’: https://www.kareneisenhauer.org/projects-and-publications/

    A Q&A with Karen Eisenhauer about her work: https://english.news.chass.ncsu.edu/2017/04/20/language-gender-and-disney-princesses/

    The Washington Post on the Disney Princess research: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/01/25/researchers-have-discovered-a-major-problem-with-the-little-mermaid-and-other-disney-movies/

    Alessia Tranchese’s paper on sexualised violence against women: https://researchportal.port.ac.uk/en/publications/covering-rape-how-the-media-determine-how-we-understand-sexualise

    Alessia Tranchese’s paper on the language of incels on Reddit: https://researchportal.port.ac.uk/en/projects/online-misogyny-new-media-old-attitudes

    Contributors

    Lisa Casey

    blog: https://livingthroughlanguage.wordpress.com/ & Twitter: Language Debates (@LanguageDebates)

    Dan Clayton

    blog: EngLangBlog & Twitter: EngLangBlog (@EngLangBlog)

    BlueSky: @danc.bsky.social

    Jacky Glancey

    Twitter: https://twitter.com/JackyGlancey

    Matthew Butler

    Twitter: https://twitter.com/MatthewbutlerCA

    Music: Serge Quadrado - Cool Guys

    Cool Guys by Serge Quadrado is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. From the Free Music Archive: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/serge-quadrado/urban/cool-guys

  • Show notes for Episode 41

    Here are the show notes for Episode 41, in which Dan talks to Dr Johanna Gerwin, a sociolinguist at QMUL and DFG (German Research Foundation) post-doctoral researcher for the London Talks project about London English, including:

    The London Talks and Real Talk East projects

    What ‘enregisterment’ means and how language styles and varieties become enregistered

    ‘Metalinguistic’ discourses about London English - MLE, Cockney and Estuary

    The power of discourses around language

    Slang swag

    Johanna’s QMUL staff page: https://www.qmul.ac.uk/sllf/linguistics/people/research-staff/profiles/johanna-gerwin.html

    Johanna on Twitter: https://twitter.com/jo_gerw

    The London Talks project website: https://londontalksresearch.co.uk/

    Real Talk on Twitter: https://twitter.com/RealTalkEast

    In our regular Lang in the News segment, Lisa, Jacky and Dan talk about ‘cis’ and how it’s been termed a slur by Elon Musk. We discuss where ‘cis’ comes from and all the related issues about language policing in a changing world.

    Elon Musk claims ‘cis’ is a slur


    Elon Musk sparks outrage with threat to ban ‘cisgender’ as a ‘slur’ on Twitter | The Independent

    Elon Musk claims use of 'cis' and 'cisgender' on Twitter is 'harassment', threatens to suspend users

    Researcher who coined term 'cisgender' hits back at Elon Musk

    Cisgender refers to people whose gender identity aligns with the one assigned at birth. The researcher who coined the term, Dana Defosse, first used the word in a 1994 post on an early internet forum, which Oxford English Dictionary cited when it added the term to the dictionary in 2015

    No, Elon Musk, cis is not a slur | The Independent

    OED update December 2015:

    New words notes December 2015 | Oxford English Dictionary

    “Another sign of our increasingly complex understanding of personal identity in the twenty-first century is the inclusion of a cluster of words beginning with the prefix cis–: cis, cisgender, cisgendered, and cissexual. Derived from the Latin preposition cis, meaning ‘on this side of’, until relatively recently this prefix was chiefly visible in English in the adjectives cisalpine and cismontane (‘on this side of the Alps/mountains’), and in the names of certain chemicals displaying a particular type of molecular symmetry. Since 1994 however, when the word cisgendered was used by an American academic appealing for help with a study of transgender issues, cis– has taken on a new lease of life in a group of words which provide a direct equivalent to identity terms such as transgender and transsexual when referring to people who are not trans, i.e., those whose sense of their own personal identity corresponds to their birth sex.”

    What does 'cisgender' mean? | Merriam-Webster

    Etymology of ‘cis’: The Word “Cisgender” Has Scientific Roots | Office for Science and Society - McGill University

    And Jill is no longer part of the Lexis team - thanks to her for being involved and for all her contribution and insights!

    Contributors

    Lisa Casey

    blog: https://livingthroughlanguage.wordpress.com/ & Twitter: Language Debates (@LanguageDebates)

    Dan Clayton

    blog: EngLangBlog & Twitter: EngLangBlog (@EngLangBlog)

    BlueSky: @danc.bsky.social

    Jacky Glancey

    Twitter: https://twitter.com/JackyGlancey

    Matthew Butler

    Twitter: https://twitter.com/MatthewbutlerCA

    Music: Serge Quadrado - Cool Guys

    Cool Guys by Serge Quadrado is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. From the Free Music Archive: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/serge-quadrado/urban/cool-guys

  • 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

  • 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?

    đŸš©As might be obvious when looking at hate speech, this episode comes with a content warning for themes of racism and discrimination.đŸš©

    And for a Lang in the News special, we talk to Heddwen Newton about her newsletter English in Progress, some recent news stories that have caught her eye and how to stay on top of news stories about language.

    Dan Collen on Twitter: https://twitter.com/SpinelessL

    The Weaponized Laughter Memes report: https://cdn.sanity.io/files/rdq6owff/production/6b78f8630669069025ea145da2221ef2c1fac032.pdf

    Hatepedia site: Hatepedia

    “Hatepedia is an online database and resource centre built with original research to provide educators, parents, lawmakers, and researchers with tools to identify and counter the proliferation of online hate.”

    Heddwen’s Language in Progress newsletter: https://englishinprogress.substack.com/

    Heddwen’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/Heddwen

    Susie Dent’s ‘banished words list’: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-65634829

    And the Tweet that started it: https://twitter.com/susie_dent/status/1658380887698931712?s=20

    Contributors

    Lisa Casey

    blog: https://livingthroughlanguage.wordpress.com/ & Twitter: Language Debates (@LanguageDebates)

    Dan Clayton

    blog: EngLangBlog & Twitter: EngLangBlog (@EngLangBlog)

    Mastodon:

    Jacky Glancey

    Twitter: https://twitter.com/JackyGlancey

    Jill Lavender

    Twitter: https://twitter.com/JillLavs

    Matthew Butler

    Twitter: https://twitter.com/MatthewbutlerCA

    Music: Serge Quadrado - Cool Guys

    Cool Guys by Serge Quadrado is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. From the Free Music Archive: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/serge-quadrado/urban/cool-guys

  • Here are the show notes for Episode 38, in which Lisa and Dan talk to Dr Anna Islentyeva of Innsbruck University, Austria about the representation of masculinity in advertising, including:

    The “Real Men Score” paper she has recently published with her team

    Stereotypes around gender representation

    Methodologies and approaches to data

    Multimodal approaches to visual texts

    Anna’s university page: https://www.uibk.ac.at/anglistik/staff/islentyeva/islentyeva.html

    Anna on Twitter: https://twitter.com/hei_anni

    The “Real Men Score” paper: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1HZsad35JBMD0kM4FqpXpWn8xWnIzAiL-/view?usp=share_link

    Anna Islentyeva, Elisabeth Zimmermann, Nadia SchĂŒtzinger & Andrea Platzer (2023) ‘Real Men Score’: Masculinity in Contemporary Advertising Discourse, Critical Discourse Studies, DOI: 10.1080/17405904.2023.2173625

    The study that Anna mentioned into perfume advertising was by Helen Ringrow and this is her book The Language of Cosmetics: The Language of Cosmetics Advertising | SpringerLink

    And in our regular Lang in the News segment, Jacky and Dan talk about linguistic accommodation, the power of accents and why politicians love to talk down to us.

    Northern lessons for southern Tories

    https://twitter.com/christopherhope/status/1649520363926110210?t=pCM6q2gelPqBiOFGy4bQcA&s=19

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/04/21/how-do-you-sex-a-limpet-susie/

    Rishi Sunak’s downwards convergence

    Here’s the clip: https://twitter.com/sturdyAlex/status/1640280827086143488

    Is it “hilariously inauthentic”(Alex Andreou)?

    Is it “sheer desperation by an out of touch rich boy trying to show he is in tune with the public” (Dave Lawrence in replies to tweet above https://twitter.com/dave43law/status/1640326877842685954?s=20 )?

    Or is it just another example of politicians (of all parties) trying to sound more human and a perfectly natural way of doing language?

    Jane Setter article about people keeping/losing accents:

    https://theconversation.com/why-some-people-lose-their-accents-but-others-dont-linguistic-expert-201986

    George Osborne:

    'Mockney' George Osborne backs working Briddish with dodgy accent

    George 'Mockney' Osborne: Chancellor in Estuary accent shocker

    George Osborne, gawd bless yer | Victoria Coren | The Guardian

    Academics 'dropping regional accents' to fit in at elite universities (linked story to accommodation)

    Ed Miliband with Russell Brand:

    Accent on common ground as Miliband takes on Russell Brand's estuary twang

    The cultural significance of Ed Miliband's mockney accent | The Spectator

    Has Ed Miliband changed his accent to get elected?

    Tony Blair:

    London Journal; Britons Prick Up Their Ears: Blair's a Li'l Peculiar

    I don’t have a posh accent – am I bothered? | Suzanne Moore | The Guardian

    Accents in Higher Education:

    Academics 'dropping regional accents' to fit in at elite universities

    British academics try to hide regional accents, study finds

    Alex Barratta’s work on accents and teaching

    Research exposes prejudice over teachers with northern accents

    Contributors

    Lisa Casey

    blog: https://livingthroughlanguage.wordpress.com/ & Twitter: Language Debates (@LanguageDebates)

    Dan Clayton

    blog: EngLangBlog & Twitter: EngLangBlog (@EngLangBlog)

    Mastodon:

    Jacky Glancey

    Twitter: https://twitter.com/JackyGlancey

    Jill Lavender

    Twitter: https://twitter.com/JillLavs

    Matthew Butler

    Twitter: https://twitter.com/MatthewbutlerCA

    Music: Serge Quadrado - Cool Guys

    Cool Guys by Serge Quadrado is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. From the Free Music Archive: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/serge-quadrado/urban/cool-guys