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

Mar 22, 2025 • 35min
Episode 71 - Mercedes Durham & Welsh English
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 distinctiveVarieties of Welsh English and how they’ve come to beAttitudes to Welsh English accentsThe power of Gavin and StaceyCharlotte from The TraitorsThe Speak For Yersel project that links Welsh English to other varieties around the UK and IrelandMercedes 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 NewsWenglish: 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 explainsWelsh language: Is mixing with English causing 'erosion'? - BBC News The Speak For Yersel pages:https://speakforyersel.ac.uk/wales/ University of Glasgow - Colleges - College of Arts & Humanities - About Us - College of Arts & Humanities news - Your voice needed as language survey expands to Ireland and Wales Mercedes’ favourite book about language: https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/language-and-gender-a-reader-2e-j-coates/3651256?ean=9781405191272 Lexis is on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/lexispodcast.bsky.social ContributorsLisa 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/JackyGlanceyRaj RanaMatthew 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

Mar 8, 2025 • 50min
Episode 70 - Emma Humphries & prescriptivism
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 definedPrescriptivism in French and English and the role of the AcademyThe Your Wrong project that Emma is working onPrescriptivism in popular culture and traditional guides, manuals and grammarsWhy prescriptivism and descriptivism are not locked in a war and why it’s more than a goodies vs baddies, left vs right binaryThe kinds of arguments prescriptivists put forwardWhy complaints about language are often - but not always - proxies for complaints about peopleHow to convert a prescriptivistHow to get involved in the Your Wrong projectYour 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 ContributorsLisa 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/JackyGlanceyRaj RanaMatthew 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

Feb 27, 2025 • 37min
Episode 69 - Natalie Braber & Alice Paver on accent stereotypes
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 IndependentCambridge study raises concern about regional accents stereotypes - BBC News People with working-class accents more likely to be suspected of committing crimes | UK criminal justice | The Guardian UK's hierarchy of accents: 'I thought mine made me sound stupid' - BBC News Jorja Smith puts hometown accent on map Lexis is on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/lexispodcast.bsky.social ContributorsLisa 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/JackyGlanceyRaj RanaMatthew 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

Feb 8, 2025 • 40min
Episode 68 - Tony Thorne on the new words of 2024 & 2025
Show notes for Episode 68Here 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 2024Why WOTY generates interest and column inchesWhat didn’t make the cutWhat’s driving lexical changeWhy new words aren’t all about fun and frivolityWhat the words that are bubbling under for 2025 tell us about the year that could be to comeAs part of the discussion, we touch on some explicit language and themes of an adult and politically controversial nature. Tony’s website:https://language-and-innovation.com/ Tony’s 2024 piece for The Conversation:https://theconversation.com/most-words-of-the-year-dont-actually-tell-us-about-the-state-of-the-world-heres-what-id-pick-instead-246190 And Tony’s 2023 piece:https://theconversation.com/im-an-expert-in-slang-here-are-my-picks-for-word-of-the-year-218286 We talk about words featured in some of the following articles: Collins WOTY brat:https://www.collinsdictionary.com/woty Brat, delulu and raw-dogging make Collins dictionary 2024 - can you decode this Gen Z slang? - Mirror OnlineCharli XCX's Brat crowned Collins Dictionary word of the year - BBC NewsTelegraph 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 mediaDan’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 ‘Government by the worst’: why people are calling Trump’s new sidekicks a ‘kakistocracy’ | Trump administration | The Guardian Words of the year: maybe I’m delulu, but these don’t seem like words people actually use | Crosswords | The Guardian Nancy Friedman:https://bsky.app/profile/fritinancy.bsky.social Lexis is on Bluesky:https://bsky.app/profile/lexispodcast.bsky.social ContributorsLisa 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/JackyGlanceyRaj 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

Dec 22, 2024 • 53min
Episode 67 - Joe McVeigh on how to spot a bad linguistics article
Show notes for Episode 67
Here are the show notes for Episode 67, in which Jacky and Dan talk to Joe McVeigh, Senior Lecturer in Communication at the Metropolia University of Applied Sciences, PhD candidate at University of Helsinki and formerly a Linguistics lecturer at the University of Jyväskylä in Finland about how to spot (and critique) a bad linguistics article, including how to look at:
1) misleading framing
2) contradictions, and
3) no evidence (or anecdotal evidence).
The articles we discuss are here and we’d recommend reading them before listening!
FT article on Liberals Speak a Different Language: https://www.ft.com/content/cd01b007-7156-4da4-8d0f-e34e9ebfcc82
Archived version here: http://archive.today/2024.11.16-063838/https://www.ft.com/content/cd01b007-7156-4da4-8d0f-e34e9ebfcc82
The thread on Bluesky that started this: https://bsky.app/profile/eviljoemcveigh.bsky.social/post/3lbu6quucdc2v
The Atlantic article on ‘How social media broke slang’ is here: https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2024/06/social-media-american-slang-crisis/678754/
Joe's website:
https://eviljoemcveigh.com/
Joe's recommended reading:
William Labov, ‘Dialect Diversity in America’: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=vrCKA3TDDrMC&printsec=frontcover&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false
And he also talked about Mary Bucholtz. This is a good place to start with her work:
https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/White_Kids.html?id=mtqrQIzIM4wC&source=kp_book_description&redir_esc=y
Lexis is on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/lexispodcast.bsky.social
Contributors
Lisa Casey
blog: https://livingthroughlanguage.wordpress.com/ & Twitter: Language Debates (@LanguageDebates)
Dan Clayton
blog: EngLangBlog & Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/englangblog.bsky.social
Jacky Glancey
Twitter: https://twitter.com/JackyGlancey
Raj Rana
Matthew Butler
Twitter: https://twitter.com/MatthewbutlerCA
Music: Serge Quadrado - Cool Guys
Cool Guys by Serge 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

Dec 1, 2024 • 42min
Episode 66 - Andreea Calude & the language of social media
Here are the show notes for Episode 66, in which Raj and Dan talk to Dr Andreea Calude, author of The Linguistics of Social Media: an introduction (Routledge, 2024). Andreea is Associate Professor in Linguistics at the University of Waikato, in New Zealand, Associate of the Human Lang Tech Research Centre in Romania, and Lennoy chair in multilingualism at VUB in Brussels. Our conversation includes discussion of
How we use social media for different purposes and for different audiences
The affordances of different platforms
Constructing & performing identity online
Using ‘move analysis’ with social media texts
Media discourses about social media
The Linguistics of Social Media: An Introduction - 1st Edition
Dr. Andreea Calude
The Language Game
Dimensions of Register Variation
BBC Radio 4 - Word of Mouth, Social media language
Lexis is on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/lexispodcast.bsky.social
Contributors
Lisa Casey
blog: https://livingthroughlanguage.wordpress.com/ & Twitter: Language Debates (@LanguageDebates)
Dan Clayton
blog: EngLangBlog & Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/englangblog.bsky.social
Jacky Glancey
Twitter: https://twitter.com/JackyGlancey
Raj Rana
Matthew Butler
Twitter: https://twitter.com/MatthewbutlerCA
Music: Serge Quadrado - Cool Guys
Cool Guys by Serge Quadrado is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. From the Free Music Archive: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/serge-quadrado/urban/cool-guys

Nov 23, 2024 • 28min
Episode 65 - Jullietta Stoencheva on everyday extremism
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

Nov 14, 2024 • 52min
Episode 64 - Katie Mansfield on working-class children & standard English in the classroom
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

Nov 7, 2024 • 41min
Episode 63 - Isobelle Clarke and anti-science discourses
Show notes for Episode 63
Here are the show notes for Episode 63, in which Raj and Dan talk to Dr Isobelle Clarke, Lecturer in Security and Protection Science in the Dept of Linguistics and English Language at Lancaster University about:
Anti-science discourses
The language of climate change denialism
The attraction and appeal of anti-science narratives
Methodologies for analysing discourses: including why linguists still need to interpret patterns
Exploring discourses around Islam and Muslims in the UK press
Dealing with difficult data and problematic topics
Isobelle Clarke’s Lancaster University page: https://www.research.lancs.ac.uk/portal/en/people/isobelle-clarke(447fc73a-d7fa-4f7b-922e-604f12549485).html
Media Bias Fact Check: https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/
LancsBox: https://lancsbox.lancs.ac.uk/
The Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming
https://www.merchantsofdoubt.org/
The Big Myth: How American Business Taught Us to Loathe Government and Love the Free Market: https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/big-myth-9781635573572/
Peter Hotez: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Hotez
Kate Fox, Watching the English: https://dauntbooks.co.uk/shop/books/watching-the-english/
The Routledge Handbook of Discourse and Disinformation
https://www.routledge.com/The-Routledge-Handbook-of-Discourse-and-Disinformation/Maci-Demata-McGlashan-Seargeant/p/book/9781032124254
Lexis is on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/lexispodcast.bsky.social
Contributors
Lisa Casey
blog: https://livingthroughlanguage.wordpress.com/ & Twitter: Language Debates (@LanguageDebates)
Dan Clayton
blog: EngLangBlog & Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/englangblog.bsky.social
Jacky Glancey
Twitter: https://twitter.com/JackyGlancey
Raj Rana
Matthew Butler
Twitter: https://twitter.com/MatthewbutlerCA
Music: Serge Quadrado - Cool Guys
Cool Guys by Serge Quadrado is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. From the Free Music Archive: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/serge-quadrado/urban/cool-guys

Nov 1, 2024 • 29min
Episode 62 - Fiona McPherson and 20 Years of Oxford WOTY
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
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