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