Lexis

Welcome to Episode 72 of Lexis. Raj and Dan talk to Professor Karrin Vasby Anderson, Department of Communication Studies, Colorado State University, USA about:Communication studies - what kinds of communication are studied and howPower and politicsToxic masculinity & TrumpGender and politicsThe ‘double-bind’ for women in politicsThe Presidential debates of 2016 and 2024Language, demagoguery & healthy democracies. Karrin’s University of Colorado page: https://www.libarts.colostate.edu/people/karrin/ The article in The Conversation about Trump and Zelenskyy that we discuss: https://theconversation.com/how-trumps-compulsion-to-dominate-sabotages-dealmaking-undermines-democracy-and-threatens-global-stability-251210 Some of the other articles that Karrin has written that we would recommend: https://theconversation.com/americas-dad-vs-the-manosphere-walz-vance-debate-highlights-two-versions-of-masculinity-240319 https://theconversation.com/kamala-harris-effectively-baited-donald-trump-during-the-debate-drawing-out-his-insecure-white-masculinity-238850 https://theconversation.com/biden-crashes-trump-lies-a-campaign-defining-presidential-debate-232672 ‘Toxic femininity’: https://theconversation.com/the-movie-barbie-has-put-the-phrase-toxic-femininity-back-in-the-news-heres-what-it-means-and-why-you-should-care-205884 Anti-feminist backlash in politics: https://theconversation.com/watch-more-tv-to-understand-the-backlash-against-the-women-in-the-running-for-vice-president-143725 And the book that she recommends: https://theexperimentpublishing.com/catalogs/spring-2020/demagoguery-and-democracy/ Lexis is on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/lexispodcast.bsky.social 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

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

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

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

Show notes for Episode 64 Here are the show notes for Episode 64, in which Raj and Dan talk to Katie Mansfield, PhD Researcher at The University of Sheffield & Lecturer in Education at The University of Gloucestershire about: Her research on working-class children, non-standard English and style shifting at school Combining approaches from linguistics and psychology to develop a suitable methodology Working memory, executive function and style shifting School and government policies on standard English and how they affect classroom practice, especially for working-class students How her A-Level study prepared her for degree and post-graduate work in linguistics Katie’s previous work on representations of Meghan Markle in the UK press Katie’s ResearchGate profile: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Katie-Mansfield University of Sheffield Alumni profile: https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/english/undergraduate/alumni-profiles/katie-mansfield A discussion of the research methodologies used in this PhD project: https://beonlineconference.com/do-differences-in-working-memory-and-executive-functioning-affect-the-use-of-standard-english-in-working-class-childrens-speech/ The Meghan Markle research: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/363693792_The_Architecture_of_Racism_Sexism_and_Misogyny_A_Critical_Discourse_Analysis_of_the_Representation_of_Meghan_Markle_by_the_British_Press Lexis is on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/lexispodcast.bsky.social Contributors Lisa Casey blog: https://livingthroughlanguage.wordpress.com/ & Twitter: Language Debates (@LanguageDebates) Dan Clayton blog: EngLangBlog & Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/englangblog.bsky.social Jacky Glancey Twitter: https://twitter.com/JackyGlancey Raj Rana Matthew Butler Twitter: https://twitter.com/MatthewbutlerCA Music: Serge Quadrado - Cool Guys Cool Guys by Serge Quadrado is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. From the Free Music Archive: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/serge-quadrado/urban/cool-guys

Show notes for Episode 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