Advertise on podcast: Lexis

Welcome to Episode 87 of Lexis in which Neil and Dan talk to Sam Hellmuth, Professor of Linguistics at University of York and Devyani Sharma, Professor of Language and Communication at University of Oxford about the 2026 York English Language Toolkit sessions at York.  We talk about: What the York English Language Toolkit is and what it’s designed to do.  What’s on this year. The Generations of London English takeover that’s happening this year. What the GLE project is and where MLE fits into this story. The synchronic and diachronic aspects of London English.  The new work that’s being featured and where it fits in.  The importance of real-time data in this project. Where the work on MLE has been going in recent years.  Recent debates and arguments about MLE and Black British English. York English Language Toolkit 2026: https://englishlanguagetoolkit.york.ac.uk/workshops  Generations of London English project page: https://generationsoflondonenglish.org/  Devyani Sharma’s university page: https://www.english.ox.ac.uk/people/professor-devyani-sharma  Sam Hellmuth’s university page: https://www.york.ac.uk/language-linguistic-science/people/sam-hellmuth/  Lexis is on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/lexispodcast.bsky.social  Contributors Lisa Casey  blog: https://livingthroughlanguage.wordpress.com/  Dan Clayton  blog: EngLangBlog & Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/englangblog.bsky.social  Jacky Glancey  Raj Rana Neil Hutchinson Amanda Cole Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/dramandacole.bsky.social  Matthew Butler  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 86 ⚠️🤬⚠️Contains swearing (obvs) and quite a lot of it…handled seriously and with academic rigour (🧐)⚠️🤬⚠️ Welcome to episode 86 of Lexis in which we go in mob-handed with 5 (count ‘em!) interviewers and Dr Chris Montgomery, Senior Lecturer in Dialectology in the School of English at the University of Sheffield. Lisa, Jacky, Dan, Amanda and guest interviewer, Neil Hutchinson ask him about his work on dialect and how this relates to his new project on regional swearing.  (We treat the subject with delicacy and restraint until about 46 minutes when it becomes something of a swearing free-for-all, in case you’re interested/want to turn it off.)  We talk about: Why swearing is interesting from a dialectology point of view How swearing varies regionally in terms of the terms that are used and what they mean How he is going about this research and how it came to happen Different methodologies and their pros and cons Dialect levelling and swearing: what needs to be done to measure this Attitudes to academic research on swearing  The inventiveness of swearing How you can contribute to this research Advice to students about investigating swearing Dr Chris Montgomery | English | The University of Sheffield  Your contributions can be made here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSef-QCBddaJ9blKczAv_mrV3pWDHIKuPJHzDNHZ7U1IK0Rcdw/viewform (🔞only sorry) Guardian article: From divvy to dinlo: index of insults aims to record Britain’s diverse dialects | British identity and society | The Guardian  BBC feature: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c78rr219457o  Independent article: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/english-swearing-sheffield-university-midlands-merseyside-b2958087.html  Telegraph: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/04/15/language-linguists-preserve-britain-swear-words-phrases-map/  and http://archive.today/2026.04.15-173308/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/04/15/language-linguists-preserve-britain-swear-words-phrases-map/  https://moderntoss.com/  Modern Toss explain the project here too: https://moderntoss.com/2/  https://www.urbandictionary.com/  Internet Archive version of Roger’s Profanisaurus; https://archive.org/stream/RogersProfanisaurusPreviouslyKnownAsSwearyMarysDictionaryOfFilth/Roger%27s%20Profanisaurus%20previously%20known%20as%20Sweary%20Mary%27s%20Dictionary%20of%20Filth_djvu.txt  Our previous interview with Dr Emma Byrne on swearing is here: https://spotifycreators-web.app.link/e/K6x7JGgCR2b  Our previous interview with Dr Robbie Love on changing swearing patterns in the UK is here: https://open.spotify.com/episode/5Kq96LDO9jpz0LrcxcBNDr?si=EZVW_Zh0QKGi45XddCdCJw  Lexis is on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/lexispodcast.bsky.social  Contributors Lisa Casey  blog: https://livingthroughlanguage.wordpress.com/  Dan Clayton  blog: EngLangBlog & Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/englangblog.bsky.social  Jacky Glancey  Raj Rana Matthew Butler  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 85 ⚠️⚠️⚠️We talk about some topics and forms of language - the language of incels and the manosphere, for example - that might be considered unpleasant and upsetting for some listeners⚠️⚠️⚠️ Welcome to episode 85 of Lexis in which Dan talks to Dr Rob Topinka, Reader in Digital Media and Rhetoric at Birkbeck, University of London. We talk about:  Why language is important to politics What rhetoric is, its characteristics and what it’s designed to do How rhetoric works in online spaces The kind of rhetoric used to promote extremist views online Incels, red pills, maxxing and NPCs What happened to ‘woke’  The pitfalls of ‘free speech’ and language policing  Avoiding reactionary narratives and promoting progressive alternatives Why being ‘unbiased’ is not really an option Rob’s Birkbeck page: https://www.bbk.ac.uk/our-staff/9151496/robert-topinka  Rob’s ResearchGate profile: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Robert-Topinka The Guardian articles Rob has written: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/mar/22/racist-meme-nigel-farage-cameos-online-far-right https://www.theguardian.com/news/audio/2025/oct/20/boriswave-fighting-age-men-cultural-marxism-how-the-far-right-is-changing-how-we-speak  https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/ng-interactive/2026/jan/31/digital-politics-the-right-internet-digital-politics-extreme-political-ideas https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/ng-interactive/2026/feb/01/digital-politics-progressives-internet-the-left-online-world More on NPCs:  https://www.mentalfloss.com/language/slang/npc-meaning-and-history  A report on Clavicular’s interview in Australia: https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/clavicular-incel-60-minutes-andrew-tate-looksmaxxing-b2957021.html  ‘Are You Mogging Me Right Now?’ https://bsky.app/profile/theserfstv.bsky.social/post/3mjhr6v2lek2r   Lexis is on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/lexispodcast.bsky.social  Contributors Lisa Casey  blog: https://livingthroughlanguage.wordpress.com/  Dan Clayton  blog: EngLangBlog & Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/englangblog.bsky.social  Jacky Glancey  Raj Rana 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 84 of Lexis in which we have both an interview and a Lang in the News segment. Amanda and Dan talk to Dr Daria Bahtina, Continuing Lecturer in the Department of Linguistics at UCLA about a lot of things, including: Generational slang and online vernacular Whether any slang is ever truly ‘meaningless’ The rapid pace of slang generation, diffusion and disappearance in an online world What happens when slang leaves niche communities and gets picked up more widely Moral panics around slang and online vernacular The project work Daria does with her students and tips for A level English Language teachers and students about successful projects Guardian articles Daria is quoted in:  The Pentagon says it’s ‘lethalitymaxxing’. Why has ‘incel’ slang crossed into the mainstream? | Language | The Guardian (https://www.theguardian.com/science/2026/mar/01/incel-slang-mainstream-government-media) Slang terms like ‘six-seven’ have no definition. But they’re loaded with meaning | Matthew Cantor | The Guardian (https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/oct/30/six-seven-meaning-slang)  Daria’s UCLA pages: https://linguistics.ucla.edu/person/daria-bahtina/ Daria’s Languaged Life blog: https://languagedlife.ucla.edu/  The book Daria recommends: https://www.cambridge.org/highereducation/books/language-and-social-issues/5C1D0C2F61B4D0ADA69AE7024EF1E1E2#overview  Our Lang in the News segment returns too! Lisa, Jacky and Dan talk about stories in the media about slang, appropriation and appreciation, discussing articles from the Mail Online, The Guardian, the Mississippi Clarion Ledger (yes, it is real) and a new paper by two of our previous guests, Christian Ilbury and Rianna Walcott.  Articles: https://eu.clarionledger.com/story/news/2026/03/16/new-slang-67-what-does-lowkenuinely-mean-how-to-use-it/89180944007/  Christian Ilbury & Rianna Walcott - Gen Z Language? Y'all Mean AAVE’: The Appropriation of African American Vernacular English as ‘TikTok Language’ https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/josl.70024  https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/oct/30/six-seven-meaning-slang  Lexis is on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/lexispodcast.bsky.social  Contributors Lisa Casey  blog: https://livingthroughlanguage.wordpress.com/  Dan Clayton  blog: EngLangBlog & Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/englangblog.bsky.social  Jacky Glancey  Raj Rana Matthew Butler  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  Revealed: The slang words and phrases experts are calling to be BANISHED in 2026 - with '6,7' topping the list

Welcome to episode 83 of Lexis, another student-led episode, which this time features Oli, an A Level student at the Dubai British School interviewing Dr Sarah Hopkyns, with some help from Dan. Sarah is a Lecturer in TESOL and International Education at the University of St Andrews, Lecturer (Teaching) in Intercultural Communication at the Institute of Education, UCL and Visiting Research Fellow at the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies. We talk about:  What we mean by ‘The Gulf’ and the Gulf nations What makes them interesting from a linguistic point of view The types of English spoken in the Gulf and whether we can talk about ‘Gulf English’ The role of Arabic in the region Translanguaging, multilingualism and reconceptualising how we think about doing language in the world Translingual practice as a real world manifestation of how people use language resources to communicate Attitudes to English use and English as a threat to local language and identity You can find Sarah’s university page here: https://research-portal.st-andrews.ac.uk/en/persons/sarah-hopkyns/  Her ResearchGate profile is here: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Sarah-Hopkyns  We discuss some of the following: Nizar Habash and David Palfreyman’s ZAEBUC corpus of Arabic-English: https://aclanthology.org/2022.lrec-1.9/  ‘The Pact We Made’ by Layla AlAmmar https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/the-pact-we-made-layla-alammar/82be48b15ed150fc  Blair Fussell’s 2011 work based on ‘Gulf English’: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/231752461_The_local_flavour_of_English_in_the_Gulf  Thanks to Oli and his teacher, Sumayya Kazi for making this episode happen and for all the work put into it.  Lexis is on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/lexispodcast.bsky.social  Contributors Lisa Casey  blog: https://livingthroughlanguage.wordpress.com/  Dan Clayton  blog: EngLangBlog & Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/englangblog.bsky.social  Jacky Glancey  Raj Rana Matthew Butler  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 82 of Lexis, in which Raj, Dan and (guest interviewer and friend of the pod) Amanda Cole talk to Dr Rianna Walcott, Assistant Professor of Communication at the University of Maryland, and Associate Director of the Black Communication and Technology (BCaT) Lab. We discuss her 2023 PhD, A Tweet at the Table - Black British Identity Expression on Social Media. We talk about: Black community, identity and self-expression on social media Black Twitter Sociolinguistic work on Black British English and MLE Language online and offline Black feminist thought and its influences on this project and more Rianna’s current work You can download the thesis here (and the most language-focused part is chapter 5): https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/en/studentTheses/a-tweet-at-the-table  Rianna’s website is here and you can find some of the other papers and links mentioned: http://www.riannawalcott.com/  The Black Communication and Technology (BCaT) Lab is here: https://www.bcatlab.org/  Lexis is on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/lexispodcast.bsky.social  Contributors Lisa Casey  blog: https://livingthroughlanguage.wordpress.com/  Dan Clayton  blog: EngLangBlog & Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/englangblog.bsky.social  Jacky Glancey  Raj Rana Matthew Butler  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 81 of Lexis, a special student takeover edition which features Freya and Miles from Eltham Hill School in South London in conversation with Dr Jessica Aiston, postdoctoral research assistant in Linguistics at Queen Mary University of London (and who previously appeared on episode 50 talking about critical discourse studies). The episode is all about the language of, and around, neurodiversity, including: Why this episode exists and why Freya and Miles wanted to record it What we mean by ‘neurodiversity’ and other helpful definitions The neurodiversity paradigm Terms, labels and the history behind these The pros and cons of certain labels The importance of autistic people having agency in the terms being used  Semantic reclamation and euphemism cycles Person-first and identity-first terms The importance of autistic people centering themselves and being centered in linguistic research Using the lens of CCritical Discourse Analysis for exploring discourse around autism and neurodiversity Jess’s current work on the Autism in Affinity Spaces project Jess has supplied the following references based on the topics raised in the show: Kenny, L., Hattersley, C., Molins, B., Buckley, C., Povey, C., & Pellicano, E. (2016). Which terms should be used to describe autism? Perspectives from the UK autism community. Autism, 20(4), 442-462. https://doi.org/10.1177/1362361315588200  Botha, M., & Cage, E. (2022). "Autism research is in crisis": A mixed method study of researcher's constructions of autistic people and autism research. Frontiers in Psychology, 13, 1-22. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1050897  Botha, M., Hanlon, J., & Williams, G. L. (2023). Does language matter? Identity-first versus person-first language use in autism research: A response to Vivanti. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 53, 870-878. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-020-04858-w  Cage, E., Crompton, C. J., Dantas, S., Strachan, K., Birch, R., Robinson, M., Morgan-Appel, S., MacKenzie-Nash, C., Gallagher, A., & Botha, M. (2024). What are the autism research priorities of autistic adults in Scotland? Autism, 28(9), 2179-2190. https://doi.org/10.1177/13623613231222656   Botha, M., Chapman, R., Giwa Onaiwu, M., Kapp, S. K., Stannard Ashley, A., & Walker, N. (2024). The neurodiversity concept was developed collectively: An overdue correction on the origins of neurodiversity theory. Autism, 28(6), 1591-1594. https://doi.org/10.1177/13623613241237871   Jess’s paper on the importance of inclusive linguistics research: Aiston, J., Koteyko, N., & van Driel, M. (2025). Discourse-based approaches to autistic focussed interests: Understanding shared focus, mutual accommodation, and multimodal expression, Applied Linguistics https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/amaf006  The project website for Autism in Affinity Spaces can be found here: https://autisminaffinityspaces.org/  Jess on ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Jessica_Aiston  Jess’s work on CDS featured on this episode of Lexis: https://spotifycreators-web.app.link/e/6XMKoRtp90b  She has written two pieces for emagazine on CDS and the language of the manosphere: https://www.englishandmedia.co.uk/emc-magazines/#emagazine  Also featured on BBC’s Word of Mouth show with Michael Rosen: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002js96  Big thanks to Freya, Miles and their teacher El Power at Eltham Hill for instigating this episode and for all the work around it.  Lexis is on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/lexispodcast.bsky.social  Contributors Lisa Casey  blog: https://livingthroughlanguage.wordpress.com/  Dan Clayton  blog: EngLangBlog & Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/englangblog.bsky.social  Jacky Glancey  Raj Rana Matthew Butler  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 80 of Lexis in which Dan and guest interviewer Ben talk to Dr Matthew Hunt, Lecturer of Sociolinguistics, University of Southampton about voice pitch, including: What it is and how we measure it What it ‘means’, including its ‘social meaning potential’ The judgements that we make about pitch and why these matter Gendered perceptions of pitch His work on domestic violence cases and the role of pitch in perceptions of ‘victimhood’ Gender and football commentaries Advice to A Level students on exploring pitch and its role ⚠️Content warning⚠️ We discuss domestic violence and abuse in broad terms in part of this episode.  Journal of Sociolinguistics paper on the effect of pitch variation on perceptions of domestic abuse victims: https://doi.org/10.1111/josl.12723 The second paper, ‘Gender Penalty? Linguistic Discrimination and Perceptions of Female Football Commentators’ is with Gender & Language and currently in press. We will update the link once it is published.  Matthew’s website: https://matthewhuntlinguistics.home.blog/  Matthew’s University of Southampton page: https://www.southampton.ac.uk/people/626sz2/doctor-matthew-hunt  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

⚠️Content warning⚠️ We discuss mental health, self-harm and suicide as part of this episode.  Welcome to episode 79 of Lexis in which Raj & Dan talk to Dr Charlotte Entwistle, Leverhulme Early Career Research Fellow in Psychology, University of Liverpool. We discuss: Her path from A levels to research How language analysis can be used in psychology What language reveals about our minds and how they work The linguistic patterns associated with different personality traits Language and mental health Why we need to be cautious about making connections between language and personality The practical applications of this work The article in The Conversation that we discuss is here: https://theconversation.com/people-with-personality-disorders-often-use-language-differently-our-research-reveals-how-271109 Charlotte’s university page is here: https://www.liverpool.ac.uk/people/charlotte-entwistle

Welcome to episode 78 of Lexis in which Raj & Dan talk to John Kelly, former head of content at Dictionary.com, previous contributor to Merriam-Webster and Oxford Dictionaries, emoji lexicographer for Emojipedia, and school teacher. We discuss: How WOTY decisions were made at Dictionary.com Whether we should celebrate WOTY for getting us talking about words, or be cynical about it as a marketing exercise What makes a WOTY stick around What qualities a good WOTY should have The sketchier WOTYs that we've seen 2025’s crop of WOTY nominations - what we’ve seen so far and what might be to come WOTY as a barometer of the times ‘Fascism’ as John’s WOTY/etymology of the year and why an old word is pertinent again.  John’s blog is here: https://mashedradish.com/  ‘Fascism’ is here; https://mashedradish.com/2025/11/04/fascism-etymology-of-the-year-2025/  He is also on Bluesky here: https://bsky.app/profile/mashedradish.bsky.social  Some of the WOTY choices we discuss are covered in the articles and posts below:  https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2025/12/rage-bait-2025-oxford-word-internet-language-defense/685143/?gift=h5ssLVeyARshEXLqfVq5YwEAlKAoVnByCEZqdOsZdV8&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share https://theconversation.com/2025s-words-of-the-year-reflect-a-year-of-digital-disillusionment-270769 https://time.com/7334730/word-of-the-year-2025-cambridge-collins-dictionary-oxford-merriam/  https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/04/learning/what-teenagers-are-saying-about-6-7-and-the-era-of-brain-rot.html  https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cewjxqvqzgyo   https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/articles/z9xbh4j   https://www.bylinesupplement.com/p/brain-rot-what-the-oxford-word-of  https://www.bylinesupplement.com/p/the-words-that-define-our-enshittifed  https://bsky.app/profile/hooved-mammal.bsky.social/post/3m7ntojukdc2y  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 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 77 of Lexis in which Raj & Dan talk to Lynne Murphy, Professor of Linguistics at the University of Sussex about a flurry of recent news stories about children’s adoption of American vocabulary (and even accents). We discuss: What these stories are about and whether we can even tell if this 'Americanisation' is happening The main themes in them and their precursors in previous panics about ‘Americanisation’  The discourses within and behind these stories What motivates them and how to approach them critically  How British English is also making its way into American English Lynne is author of ‘The Prodigal Tongue: the Love–Hate Relationship between British and American English’ , and the Separated by a Common Language blog.  You can also find her on Bluesky and other social media platforms under the name Lynneguist. Bluesky here: https://bsky.app/profile/lynneguist.bsky.social  The stories we discuss are here: The Times and Sunday Times feature itself: http://archive.today/9UM7W  ‘Trash-talking children are sounding like Americans, say teachers Garbage, candy and apartment are Americanisms that are growing more popular among younger pupils’ Kristina Murkett’s op-ed for The Telegraph,  ‘The Americanisation of British English reveals this dark thing about our society Many parents are happy to allow their children consume videos made by companies that have no obligation to care for them’ http://archive.today/cZ4kF  The Telegraph article links to this absolute stinker of a piece by Simon Heffer from 2024 too, ‘Americanisms are poisoning our language’ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/authors/americanism-english-language-simon-heffer/    A more sensible take from Charlotte Crips in The Independent, ‘Mom, can we take the elevator?’ Why I’m fine with my daughter speaking Americanese’ https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/features/americanism-english-children-b2857680.html  But some quite mixed responses to that piece from their readers: https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/americanisms-english-language-british-b2859043.html  We mention Ben Yagoda’s book, Gobsmacked https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/gobsmacked-the-british-invasion-of-american-english-ben-yagoda/7669284?ean=9780691262291&next=t  and the Guardian featured an extract from it here: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2024/sep/26/other-british-invasion-how-uk-language-conquered-the-us  A new one (possibly the worst of the lot) was published in The Spectator between recording the episode and publishing it. You can read the archived version here: https://archive.ph/2025.11.24-063603/https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/how-to-save-the-kings-english/  And we’ve been here before, obviously… Matthew Engel:  ‘Say no to the get-go! Americanisms swamping English, so wake up and smell the coffee’ (here, along with some teacher resources and student responses that Jacky and I put together years ago and the actual article: https://filestore.aqa.org.uk/resources/english/AQA-ALEVEL-ENG-HUB-SPR19-PAPER2-BOOKLET.PDF )  Mark Liberman’s response to Engel on Language Log in 2011: https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=3290  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

Welcome to episode 76 of Lexis which features Raj & Dan (and guest interviewer & friend of the pod, Amanda Cole) talking about gender and exclamation marks in digital communication with Yidan (Dani) Yin, Assistant Professor in the Department of Management and Organization at the Smeal College of Business, Penn State University and Dr Cheryl Wakslak, Associate Professor of Management and Organization at USC Marshall. Their JESP (Journal of Experimental Social Psychology) paper (with Gil Appel): Nice to meet you.(!) Gendered norms in punctuation usage can be found here and is a fascinating read:  https://www.researchgate.net/publication/397148363_Nice_to_meet_you_Gendered_norms_in_punctuation_usage  We pick up on some of the media coverage of their paper and also reference Deborah Cameron’s blog about the paper and its coverage.  Financial Times coverage: https://archive.ph/cCOiL  The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/oct/28/exclamation-marks-why-do-women-use-them-three-times-as-much-as-men  London Evening Standard: https://www.standard.co.uk/comment/exclamation-marks-female-gender-norms-punctuation-b1255212.html  Harvard Business Review: https://hbr.org/2025/09/dont-overthink-your-use-of-exclamation-points  Deborah Cameron’s blog: https://debuk.wordpress.com/2025/11/06/enough-already-punctuation-silly-women-and-soundbite-science/  We also mention Gretchen McCulloch’s thoughts on the full-stop: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-49182824  Dani Yin: https://sites.google.com/view/yidan-yin  Cheryl Wakslak: https://www.marshall.usc.edu/personnel/cheryl-jan-wakslak  And then in our Lang in the News segment, Lisa, Jacky and Dan discuss more media tales of the woes of inclusive language and discuss some of these stories:  ‘Man the phones’ is offensive, insurers told Trade body accused of ‘pandering to woke dogma’ after issuing language guide advising against use of everyday terms http://archive.today/dLoSb  Health trust breached equality commitments over gender neutral language https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c9wvrl084g7o  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

Welcome back to Lexis. This is episode 75 and it’s a bumper edition. We pick up on a recent survey of teachers by Teacher Tapp about teachers’ accents and run with it… We talk to teacher, Arun Sharma about his experiences, we interview Alex Baratta, Amanda Cole and Rob Drummond and we discuss the survey results in more detail and cover some other stories about accents in the news.  Teacher Tapp’s blog about this: https://teachertapp.com/articles/how-teachers-feel-about-their-accents/  Teacher Tapp: https://teachertapp.com/  The stories we discuss in Lang in the News: http://archive.today/2025.09.23-223722/https://www.thetimes.com/life-style/sex-relationships/article/it-only-took-a-term-at-oxford-for-my-grimsby-accent-to-go-posh-z52g9pqfh  https://archive.ph/2025.10.05-173953/https://www.thetimes.com/uk/science/article/why-actors-are-ditching-queens-english-for-their-old-regional-accents-rtr29rcdt  https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cyv638r2dglo?app-referrer=deep-link 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

Welcome to Episode 74 of Lexis. Jacky and Dan talk to Dr Laura Smith-Khan, Senior Lecturer - School of Law, University of New England, Australia about… How she got into the linguistics of law Where and how law and language overlap Clarity, accuracy and the power dynamics in legal language Migration, borders, refugees and the law Assessing ‘credibility’ and some of the processes of refugee law Critically assessing media discourses around migration Laura Smith-Khan’s university profile: https://www.une.edu.au/staff-profiles/law/Dr-Laura-Smith-Khan_Profile Laura is part of the Law and Linguistics Interdisciplinary Research Network - more here: Law and Language – Sharing research, news and events related to law and language as well as the Language on the Move research group - blog and podcast https://www.languageonthemove.com/author/laura/  Some of the studies and research mentioned in the show: Legal literacy in a linguistically diverse society – Language on the Move  Learning to speak like a lawyer – Language on the Move Trust and suspicion at the airport – Language on the Move Refugee credibility assessment and the vanishing interpreter – Language on the Move   The post we discussed about judges, clarity and distance: How Judges Think About Language – Language on the Move   The Bluey episode mentioned is Bluey Season 3, Episode 49 | The Sign and the episode’s impact on people looking up road rules received attention from the QLD government and the media, eg What are the rules around children sitting in the front seat of a car? And is it safe? - ABC News   Reading Challenges with lists of recommended books (2025 has yearly links back to 2018): Language on the Move Reading Challenge 2025 – Language on the Move   Category – Language on the Move (posts organized by topic) Authors – Language on the Move (full list of contributors, each with a short bio and link to posts)   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

Welcome to Episode 73 of Lexis. Dan talks to Sam Hellmuth, Catherine Laing, Lauren Harrington and Salina Cuddy about the forthcoming York English Language Toolkit event for A Level English Language teachers.  You can sign up here:  https://englishlanguagetoolkit.york.ac.uk/workshops  Previous workshops and case studies are here:  https://englishlanguagetoolkit.york.ac.uk/case-studies  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