Lexis

Welcome to Episode 11 of the Lexis podcast in which Jacky, Dan, Lisa and Matthew talk about: Interruptions: in the US presidential debate, in online classrooms via TikTok and how gender and power are factors in how we are treated in conversations. We also talk to Dr Catherine Laing from Cardiff University’s Centre for Language and Communication Research about child language development and infant-directed speech. Catherine Laing’s University page: https://www.cardiff.ac.uk/people/view/921190-laing-catherine Catherine’s Twitter account: https://twitter.com/cathelaing24 Schieffelin and Ochs’s paper (1986) on how child-directed speech isn’t used in some societies: http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/anthro/faculty/ochs/articles/Schieffelin_Ochs_1986_Language_Socialization.pdf Casillas, Brown and Levinson on verbal interaction with children in a southern Mexico village https://srcd.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/cdev.13349 Cristia, Dupoux, Gurven & Stieglitz on verbal interaction with children in lowland Bolivia: https://srcd.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/cdev.12974 Babel, The Language Magazine: https://babelzine.co.uk/ The Vocal Fries podcast https://vocalfriespod.com/ Language in the News Interruptions in the US presidential debate: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/09/trump-interruptions-first-presidential-debate-biden.html Interruptions between Trump and Clinton in 2016: https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2016/9/27/13017666/presidential-debate-trump-clinton-sexism-interruptions https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/donald-trump-hillary-clinton-third-presidential-debate-how-many-times-interruptions-sexism-a7371286.html Interruptions of a woman in STEM (via TikTok): https://www.dailydot.com/unclick/woman-in-stem-interruptions-tiktok/ Deborah Cameron on interruptions and gender: https://debuk.wordpress.com/2020/08/15/woman-interrupted/ Language in Conflict: https://languageinconflict.org/ Contact us @LexisPodcast. Subscribe: Lexis Podcast | Podcast on Spotify Contributors Matthew Butler Twitter: https://twitter.com/Matthewbutlerwy Lisa Casey blog: https://livingthroughlanguage.wordpress.com/ & Twitter: Language Debates (@LanguageDebates) Dan Clayton blog: EngLangBlog & Twitter: EngLangBlog (@EngLangBlog) Jacky Glancey Twitter: https://twitter.com/JackyGlancey Music: Freenotes

Show notes for Episode 10 Welcome to Episode 10 of the Lexis podcast in which Jacky, Dan, Lisa and Matthew talk about: Another bad article about language, which takes a swipe at people who ask for people to respect their pronoun choices. We also talk to Associate Professor in Sociolinguistics at the University of Nottingham, Dr Lucy Jones about language, sexuality, gender and identity. Lucy Jones’ blog: https://queerlinglang.wordpress.com/ Lucy Jones’ University of Nottingham page: https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/english/people/lucy.jones Lucy’s Twitter account: https://twitter.com/jones_lucy Robert Podesva’s study on falsetto and identity: https://web.stanford.edu/~eckert/Courses/l1562018/Readings/Podesva2007.pdf Language in the News Here’s the article by Joanna Williams in The Times that we analysed: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/declaring-your-pronouns-is-pure-narcissism-7rffv2mrz A couple of the bits we talked about are reproduced below: Declaring your pronouns is pure narcissism An identity-obsessed minority with too much time on its hands has lost touch with reality Joanna Williams I’m Joanna, she/her. You probably guessed that from my name and my photo. But declaring one’s pronouns is all the rage and I’d hate to appear out of touch. I’m all for denying biology. I pretend I’m not getting older and can still drink too much without suffering the next day. I pretend I can fit into clothes I bought 20 years ago. But I don’t insist other people confirm my delusions. Demanding to be called they/them rather than he/she is to insist that the rest of the world share in your fantasy. When Jeremy Corbyn spoke at the Pink News awards late last year he began his speech by saying: “My name is Jeremy Corbyn, pronouns he/him.” Surely no one in attendance doubted Corbyn’s manhood, or that men are commonly referred to as “he”. People devise all kinds of ways to signal their political beliefs, particularly when they decide that doing so makes them out to be especially virtuous. Pronoun-declaring is, in truth, a game played by an identity-obsessed minority with far too much time on its hands. Forced attempts at normalising pronoun introductions may be done in the name of inclusivity but they reveal only how hopelessly out of touch those who run our universities, local authorities and political parties have become. They no longer have any idea how normal people talk to each other. Contact us @LexisPodcast. Subscribe: Lexis Podcast | Podcast on Spotify Contributors Matthew Butler Twitter: https://twitter.com/Matthewbutlerwy Lisa Casey blog: https://livingthroughlanguage.wordpress.com/ & Twitter: Language Debates (@LanguageDebates) Dan Clayton blog: EngLangBlog & Twitter: EngLangBlog (@EngLangBlog) Jacky Glancey Twitter: https://twitter.com/JackyGlancey Music: Freenotes

Show notes for Episode 9 Welcome to Episode 9 of the Lexis podcast in which Jacky, Dan, Lisa and Matthew talk about: Good and bad articles about language, featuring an absolute peeve-fest from James Innes-Smith in The Spectator and a much better one from Stan Carey on emoji panics on the MacMillan Dictionary blog. We also talk to author, lexicographer, slang expert and visiting language consultant at King’s College, London, Tony Thorne about new words and lots more! Tony’s Twitter page: https://twitter.com/tonythorne007 Tony Thorne’s King’s College page: https://www.kcl.ac.uk/study/foundations/tony-thorne/who-is-tony-thorne Language and Innovation: Tony’s blog which chronicles much of his recent work on new words: https://language-and-innovation.com/ Coronaspeak: #CORONASPEAK – the language of Covid-19 goes viral Kate Burridge and Howard Manns onn pandemic vocabulary: 'Iso', 'boomer remover' and 'quarantini': how coronavirus is changing our language Language in the News Here’s the article from The Spectator that we analysed: War of the words: have we stopped making sense? (Hat Tip to Havant and South Downs College for the link to the Spectator article: https://twitter.com/HSDCEngLang) We also made reference to this article by Lindsay Johns: Ghetto grammar robs the young of a proper voice If you want to see some responses to the Lindsay Johns article, many of which are relevant to the Spectator one too, try here: EngLangBlog: Ghetto grammar and here: Thoughts on Lindsay Johns and 'Ghetto Grammar' We liked this article by Stan Carey, though: Will emojis ruin English? Find more of Stan’s writing through here: https://www.macmillandictionaryblog.com/author/stan-carey and here: https://twitter.com/StanCarey Contact us @LexisPodcast. Subscribe: Lexis Podcast | Podcast on Spotify Contributors Matthew Butler Twitter: https://twitter.com/Matthewbutlerwy Lisa Casey blog: https://livingthroughlanguage.wordpress.com/ & Twitter: Language Debates (@LanguageDebates) Dan Clayton blog: EngLangBlog & Twitter: EngLangBlog (@EngLangBlog) Jacky Glancey Twitter: https://twitter.com/JackyGlancey Music: Freenotes

Show notes for Episode 8 Here are the show notes for Episode 8 which is a special edition on Northern accents where Jacky, Dan, Lisa and Matthew (2 proper Northerners, a Welsh person and a soft, southern shandy drinker) talk about: Northern accents, dialect levelling and reports of a new ‘educated middle class northern English accent’ emerging. And we talk to Dr Georgina Brown from Lancaster University about the study itself. Georgina Brown’s Lancaster University page: https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/linguistics/about/people/georgina-brown Northern accents are becoming more similar, suggests new research A link posted by project leader Patrycja Strycharczuk about the Manchester research: Strycharczuk et al.’s Frontiers paper sparks controversy The paper itself can be found here: General Northern English. Exploring Regional Variation in the North of England With Machine Learning Patrycja Strycharczuk (@PatStrycharczuk) Kevin Watson on Scouse: Scousers are proud of their accent Cambridge University’s app to measure dialect change: Do you say splinter, spool, spile or spell? English Dialects app tries to guess your regional accent Cambridge app maps decline in regional diversity of English dialects Media reports on the paper Guardian: Northern English accents becoming more similar, researchers find Mail Online: Northern accents 'are becoming more similar' Daily Telegraph: Northern accents becoming more similar as middle-class 'General Northern English' emerges, study finds Independent: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/northern-accents-more-similar-distinct-cities-manchester-leeds-sheffield-a9623071.html A great Twitter account to follow if you want to see how Twitter can be used for dialect research: https://twitter.com/tweetolectology Contact us @LexisPodcast. Subscribe: Lexis Podcast | Podcast on Spotify Contributors Matthew Butler Twitter: https://twitter.com/Matthewbutlerwy Lisa Casey blog: https://livingthroughlanguage.wordpress.com/ & Twitter: Language Debates (@LanguageDebates) Dan Clayton blog: EngLangBlog & Twitter: EngLangBlog (@EngLangBlog) Jacky Glancey Twitter: https://twitter.com/JackyGlancey Music: Freenotes

Show notes for Episode 7 Here are the show notes for Episode 7 where Jacky, Dan, Lisa and Matthew talk about: ‘Irregardless’ and why this word causes prescriptivists such angst. The Daily Mail going overboard on ‘man overboard’ and why challenging sexist language gets such a bad press. And we talk to Dr Philip Seargeant of the Open University about emoji and political storytelling. Philip Seargeant’s university page: http://www.open.ac.uk/people/ps4549 Philip Seargeant’s website: Philip Seargeant Twitter: https://twitter.com/philipseargeant Philip Seargeant on emoji: https://www.digitaltrends.com/features/emoji-digital-language-of-emotion-phillip-seargeant/ Philip Seargeant on political storytelling: https://www.ft.com/content/d0d0f4ec-a4d2-11ea-92e2-cbd9b7e28ee6 (paywalled) The Special Adviser's Tale, or Political Storytelling in the Time of Covid Irregardless https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/jul/06/is-irregardless-a-real-word-dictionary Peter Sokolowski of Merriam Webster Dictionaries discusses ‘irregardless’ in a Twitter thread: https://twitter.com/PeterSokolowski/status/1280585356908388352 ‘Man overboard’ Sailors told to stop using Navy terms like 'unmanned' and 'man power' Royal Navy bans terms 'unmanned' and 'manpower' because it's 'sexist' Contact us @LexisPodcast.  Subscribe: Lexis Podcast | Podcast on Spotify Contributors Matthew Butler Twitter: https://twitter.com/Matthewbutlerwy Lisa Casey blog: https://livingthroughlanguage.wordpress.com/ & Twitter: Language Debates (@LanguageDebates) Dan Clayton blog: EngLangBlog & Twitter: EngLangBlog (@EngLangBlog) Jacky Glancey Twitter: https://twitter.com/JackyGlancey Music: Freenotes

Show notes for Episode 6 Here are the show notes for Episode 6 where Jacky, Dan, Lisa and Matthew talk about: language change related to the term ‘Karen’ and how its meaning has drifted and been debated the changing of the name of Washington’s American Football team And we talk to Kelly Wright in a wide-ranging interview about her work in experimental sociolinguistics, how race and ethnicity are represented in language, blackness and whiteness in voices and lots more... Kelly Wright’s website: Covert Racism | Wright Linguistics Publications and interviews: https://kellywright5.wixsite.com/raciolinguistics/recent-publications John Rickford on Rachel Jeantel’s testimony at the George Zimmerman trial: Stanford linguist: prejudice toward African American dialect can result in unfair rulings A link to a presentation on housing discrimination: https://youtu.be/2YiSTziPt5o Kelly Wright on Twitter: https://twitter.com/raciolinguistic Groundbreaking report reveals racial bias in English football commentary The RunRepeat study: Racial Bias in Football Commentary (Study) Karen How 'Karen' went from a popular baby name to a stand-in for white entitlement What is and where did it come from? This from the Indy: What is the Karen meme and is it a misogynistic slur? | indy100 Hadley freeman in the Guardian on Karen being sexist: The 'Karen' meme is everywhere – and it has become mired in sexism Karen Attiah in the Washington Post about why it's not oppressive: Opinion | The ‘Karen’ memes and jokes aren’t sexist or racist. Let a Karen explain. A bit of a more nuanced suggestion that it allows white women to uphold white supremacy: I am no longer Outside in a AMG on Twitter Changing the Washington NFL team name (We’ve chosen not to use the team name here but you’ll find it referred to in some of these articles.) An NFL Name Change That Has Been a Long Time Coming https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-53390944 https://www.economist.com/united-states/2020/07/18/renaming-the-washington-redskins Contact us @LexisPodcast. Subscribe: Lexis Podcast | Podcast on Spotify Contributors Matthew Butler Twitter: https://twitter.com/Matthewbutlerwy Lisa Casey blog: https://livingthroughlanguage.wordpress.com/ & Twitter: Language Debates (@LanguageDebates) Dan Clayton blog: EngLangBlog & Twitter: EngLangBlog (@EngLangBlog) Jacky Glancey Twitter: https://twitter.com/JackyGlancey Music: Freenotes

Show notes for Episode 5 Here are the show notes for Episode 5 where Jacky, Dan, Lisa and Matthew talk about language change and some of the arguments around banning and censoring language - the word game, Scrabble ‘banning’ racial slurs - slaves and masters, master bedrooms and nitty gritty: words that are being challenged and reviewed - political correctness, cancel culture and wokeness And we talk to Dr Ian Cushing about language in schools, the policing of language and the role, politics and importance of Standard English in education.  You can find the links to the stories and research we’ve mentioned in this programme, below. Ian Cushing’s work on language in schools: Teachers' slang bans 'likely to cause long-term damage' Should schools be allowed to ban slang words like 'peng'? The Policy and Policing of Language in Schools: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/language-in-society/article/policy-and-policing-of-language-in-schools/6C4BC80399E27747D34819060E186A62#fndtn-information Comment on Ian’s article: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/language-in-society/article/comment-on-the-policy-and-policing-of-language-in-schools-by-ian-cushing/780222C30D0C8C011B8ACEB0FD8EC964 Ian’s response: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/language-in-society/article/power-policing-and-language-policy-mechanisms-in-schools-a-response-to-hudson/ACEE15C4A9A3BDC555B1DFCCF0446E5C Ian Cushing on Twitter: https://twitter.com/ian_cushing Language in the News Scrabble ‘bans’ slurs: US Scrabble bans racist and LGBTQ slurs from tournaments Scrabble community mulls banning racial and homophobic slurs Slaves and masters: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-53050955 Master bedroom ‘banned’: Estate agents banned from saying 'master bedroom' due to concerns over slavery and sexism links Nitty gritty - is it a racist term? 'Nitty gritty' on Sky Sports' banned list of words due to supposed links to slavery Where does the phrase nitty gritty come from - and why has Sky Sports banned it? It's not just the n-word in the woodpile - from 'no can do' to 'hooligan' we reveal English's hidden racism Police forbid politically incorrect phrases | UK news 
 Contact us @LexisPodcast.  Subscribe: Lexis Podcast | Podcast on Spotify Contributors Matthew Butler  Twitter: https://twitter.com/Matthewbutlerwy Lisa Casey  blog: https://livingthroughlanguage.wordpress.com/ & Twitter: Language Debates (@LanguageDebates) Dan Clayton  blog: EngLangBlog & Twitter: EngLangBlog (@EngLangBlog) Jacky Glancey  Twitter: https://twitter.com/JackyGlancey Music: Freenotes

Here are the show notes for Episode 4 where Jacky, Dan, Lisa and Matthew talk about - sacking headlines: who’s been sacked and who’s doing the sacking? - TikTok teens and K-Pop stans trolling Trump - and talk to Dr Shivonne Gates about Multicultural London English and how language is used by teenagers to express their social identities. You can find the links to the stories and research we’ve mentioned in this programme, below. Some of Shivonne Gates’ work mentioned in the interview: Voices and Practices in Applied Linguistics: Diversifying a Discipline Why the Long FACE?: Ethnic Stratification and Variation in the London Diphthong System Shivonne’s book recommendation: https://wordery.com/homegirls-norma-mendoza-denton-9780631234906 Headlines: The Guardian Rebecca Long-Bailey sacked from Labour shadow cabinet by Keir Starmer – UK politics live Daily Mail Starmer reignites Labour civil war Story of Trump’s Tulsa Rally being trolled by Tiktok users: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/21/style/tiktok-trump-rally-tulsa.html Contact us @LexisPodcast.  Subscribe: Lexis Podcast | Podcast on Spotify Contributors Matthew Butler Twitter: https://twitter.com/Matthewbutlerwy Lisa Casey blog: https://livingthroughlanguage.wordpress.com/ & Twitter: Language Debates (@LanguageDebates) Dan Clayton blog: EngLangBlog & Twitter: EngLangBlog (@EngLangBlog) Jacky Glancey Twitter: https://twitter.com/JackyGlancey Music: Freenotes

Show notes for Episode 3 Here are the show notes for Episode 3, where Jacky, Dan, Lisa and Matthew talk about - the language of subtitles: turning non-standard into Standard English? - the changing meanings and interpretations of gestures: taking a knee and what it might mean - and talk to Professor Devyani Sharma of QMUL about accents, identity and how to deal with accent bias… among other things! You can find the links to the stories and research we’ve mentioned in this programme, below. Accent Bias in Britain project (QMUL) website: https://accentbiasbritain.org/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/accentbias Teach Real English! (QMUL) http://www.teachrealenglish.org/ Devyani Sharma’s staff page: Devyani Sharma - School of Languages, Linguistics and Film A Level English numbers up for first time in 7 years: Provisional Entries for GCSE, AS and A level: Summer 2020 exam series Professor Dick Hudson’s site has mapped the trends in A Level English over the years: https://dickhudson.com/trends-english/ Marcus Rashford interview with the BBC: Marcus Rashford talks food poverty, his childhood and campaigning for free school meals A Twitter thread on the potential ‘linguicism’ of ‘correcting’ subtitles: https://twitter.com/DrVanjaK/status/1272603255932170245 BBC subtitling guidelines: https://bbc.github.io/subtitle-guidelines/ Dominic Raab on ‘taking a knee’: Dominic Raab's obliviousness to taking a knee feels eerily like a government ploy to enrage black people Changing meaning of OK gesture https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-48293817 Trolling, hoax or attempt to disguise hate symbol? https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-48293817 Contact us @LexisPodcast.  Subscribe: Lexis Podcast | Podcast on Spotify Contributors Matthew Butler Twitter: https://twitter.com/Matthewbutlerwy Lisa Casey blog: https://livingthroughlanguage.wordpress.com/ & Twitter: Language Debates (@LanguageDebates) Dan Clayton blog: EngLangBlog & Twitter: EngLangBlog (@EngLangBlog) Jacky Glancey Twitter: https://twitter.com/JackyGlancey Music: Freenotes

Here are the show notes for Episode 2, where Jacky, Dan, Lisa and Matthew talk about - the language used to report political protests, demonstrations and movements around the Black Lives Matter campaign - the language of the placards on the recent BLM London demonstration - and talk to Dr Rob Drummond from Manchester Metropolitan University about youth language, accents and how linguists can educate the public about language issues. You can find the links to the stories and research we’ve mentioned in this programme, below. Rob Drummond Website: http://www.robdrummond.co.uk/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/RobDrummond Accentism project: http://accentism.org/ Manchester Voices: https://www.manchestervoices.org/ Lisa’s blog on the BLM placards: https://livingthroughlanguage.wordpress.com/2020/06/15/the-language-of-protest-signs-blm/ Ben Zimmer on riots, rebellions and uprisings: https://time.com/5849163/why-describing-george-floyd-protests-as-riots-is-loaded/ Language in Conflict blog: http://languageinconflict.org Newspaper headlines: The Mail on Sunday: https://www.thepaperboy.com/uk/the-mail-on-sunday/front-pages-today.cfm?frontpage=60256 https://www.thepaperboy.com/uk/the-mail-on-sunday/front-pages-today.cfm?frontpage=60315 The Guardian: https://time.com/5849163/why-describing-george-floyd-protests-as-riots-is-loaded/ The Observer: https://www.thepaperboy.com/uk/the-observer/front-pages-today.cfm?frontpage=60316 Some others you might find interesting: https://twitter.com/BoswellsMediaSt/status/1270013908225527809 Contact us @LexisPodcast.  Subscribe: Lexis Podcast | Podcast on Spotify Contributors Matthew Butler Twitter: https://twitter.com/Matthewbutlerwy Lisa Casey blog: https://livingthroughlanguage.wordpress.com/ & Twitter: Language Debates (@LanguageDebates) Dan Clayton blog: EngLangBlog & Twitter: EngLangBlog (@EngLangBlog) Jacky Glancey Twitter: https://twitter.com/JackyGlancey Music: Freenotes