We're delighted to announce the next speaker in our Language and Communication research seminar series.
Robert Lawson, from Birmingham City University, will be giving a talk called:
'Haven't We Been Here Before? Revitalising Applied Sociolinguistics'
Abstract:
Given how well-placed sociolinguists are to address issues of linguistic inequality and injustice, it is perhaps no surprise that sociolinguistics has a long history of applying research findings for the improvement of human well-being. What is surprising, though, is how this body of work has very rarely been articulated under the umbrella of Applied Sociolinguistics, a term introduced in the 1960s but one which has made very little headway within the broader discipline. In this talk, I present an overview of the revitalisation of Applied Sociolinguistics and consider some of the key opportunities and challenges faced by the field. I also discuss how Applied Sociolinguistics can contribute to widening the scope of the 'impact agenda' and how we can productively embed this growing priority into our research.
Speaker:
Robert Lawson is Senior Lecturer in Sociolinguistics at Birmingham City University and former Fulbright Scottish Studies Scholar. His ESRC-funded PhD at the University of Glasgow focused on the relationship between language, masculinity and identity in Glasgow, while his more recent work has examined language in the media and the role of traditional and social media in reporting language issues. He has publications in a number of major journals, including the Journal of Sociolinguistics, Gender and Language and English World-Wide, and is editor of Sociolinguistics in Scotland (Palgrave, 2014) and Sociolinguistic Research: Application and Impact (with Dave Sayers, Routledge, 2016).
Time and place:
2pm, Tuesday 19 April 2016, C127, Hendon campus, Middlesex University
Further info:
Haven't We Been Here Before? Revitalising Applied Sociolinguistics
Hope to see you there!
Billy
The recent talk by Sylvia Shaw was a big success. We only just managed to squeeze everybody in. We didn't plan it this way, but the book the talk was based on was published on the same day:
It's co-authored with Deborah Cameron. Of course, Sylvia could only present some highlights but what she told us about was fascinating and suggested lots of directions for further research. There were lots of interesting questions afterwards.
Meanwhile, another book co-authored by a Middlesex colleague, Alan Durant, has just come out:
Both books will be very useful for students on our programme and anyone interested in language in real-world situations.
We're planning to host discussions of books more regularly and to invite authors to join in the discussion. So we're planning to start with these two.
More soon!
Billy
We are most excited that Sylvia Shaw will be the speaker in our next Language and Communication research seminar at Middlesex next Tuesday, 15th March 2016. The talk is open to all. There's more info here:
http://lecturelist.org/content/view_lecture/15185
Sylvia has carried out lots of research on language, gender and politics, including an ESRC-funded project on gender, language and participation in the devolved parliaments of the UK, a contribution to this pamphlet on the 2015 election, contributions to a student book for AQA AS/A Level English Language, and a soon to be published book co-authored with Deborah Cameron on party leaders' performances in the televised 2015 election debates. She is working right now on a book called "Women, Language and Politics' for Cambridge University Press.
Hope to see you next Tuesday!
Billy Clark
BBC — Can a new app foster empathy?
There is a lot of interest in linguistics and related areas these days on how things other than words contribute to meanings and on how users who don't have much more than words (in twitter, email, etc.) try to achieve the kinds of effects they can get from prosody (pitch movement, etc.), gesture, facial expressions, and so on. This has usually focused on things like the use of font sizes, emoticons, hashtags, and abbreviations like lol. Alongside this, of course, there have been technologies which make use of images as well as words (snapchat, instagram, etc.)
The new app which Biz Stone is launching sounds like another interesting example. I love the idea that you can only start a post with a superlative. This is surely to do with encouraging positivity, which I think is an excellent idea. Of course, humans will no doubt use it for negative as well as positive messages . . .
I'm very pleased to have recently joined the executive committee for the MLA Division on Linguistic Approaches to Literature.
We have two calls for papers out for panels at next year's conference in Austin (7-10 January 2016). I think the topics are great so hope we have a good number of submissions (submissions due by 6th March).
The MLA only allows very short calls for papers but we think it's clear what we're looking for with these:
CFP (MLA 2016) Syntax and Poetry
How do poets employ and challenge the conventions of syntax for poetic effect? Papers providing a stylistic exploration of the syntax of poetry. 300-word abstract by 6 March 2015; to Don Hardy ([email protected]).
CFP (MLA 2016) Lexical and Syntactic Experimentation in Postmodernist Literature
Papers that approach lexical and syntactic experimentation in Postmodernist Literature from a linguistic perspective. 300-word abstract by 6 March 2015; to Don Hardy ([email protected]).
Let me know ([email protected]) if you have any questions about this.
You might also want to follow the MLA Convention on twitter:
https://twitter.com/mlaconvention
We're really pleased that next week's Talk About Language session will be a conversation/Q&A and informal discussion with the writer, director, accent coach and phonetician Geoff Lindsey. (Note the time and place for this one: Thursday 12th February, 3-4.30pm, Vine Building, Room V104)
Geoff's main area of linguistic expertise is in phonetics and phonology. He has also worked as an accent coach ('accent reduction' is the slightly misleading term often used for this), written and directed film (including his short film The Clap and the feature film The Flying Machine for which he also arranged Chopin's music) and written for TV (including for The Bill and Eastenders).
Geoff has recently been working with the phonologist Péter Szigetvári on a free online pronunciation dictionary which aims to provide more accurate transcriptions than those used in most dictionaries.
Geoff's blog Speech Talk is one of our favourite resources and often referred to in class. We recently discussed his posts on using General British (GB) as a term to replace Received Pronunciation (RP) and on why British/English speech is often seen as an 'accent of evil' We also recently listened to Geoff and Stephen Fry talking about intonation.
Come along for a fascinating discussion of a range of topics about how English and other languages are pronounced and why your dictionary is probably misinforming you about how English is pronounced.
All welcome.
The talk will take place from 3 to 4.30pm(ish) in room V104, Vine Building, from 1.30 to 3pm on Thursday 12th February.
Directions and campus map are available here: http://www.mdx.ac.uk/get-in-touch/directions-london
The full programme is at: http://billydug.typepad.com/londonlanguage/talk-about-language-2014-2015.html
Contact me with any queries and to ask for further information:
Billy Clark [email protected]
We're really pleased that our speaker in next week's Talk About Language session will be Mai Zaki from the American University of Sharjah. The title of her talk is:
'Like or Else!' The Pragmatics of Arabic Religious Posts on Facebook
Mai is a former Middlesex PhD student. She completed her PhD ('Relevance theory and reference: a corpus-based approach') in 2011.
Here is her abstract:
How are Arabic religious posts formulated on Facebook? Why are they formulated in that way? And how are they relevant to the audience? In this talk I will be discussing some of the features of Arabic religious posts on Facebook within the framework of pragmatics and Relevance Theory. Linguistic features, such as the use of conditionals, imperatives and negation, are all manipulated by the speaker to increase the “likeness” of such posts on Facebook. At the intersection between religion, language and cyber-media, Arabic religious posts on Facebook reflect an interesting way of communicating religious messages through pictures and text which seek to be relevant, and sometimes ‘too relevant’, to the audience.
All welcome.
The talk will take place from 1.30 to 3pm(ish) in room V103, Vine Building, from 1.30 to 3pm on Tuesday 3rd February.
Directions and campus map are available here: http://www.mdx.ac.uk/get-in-touch/directions-london
The full programme is at: http://billydug.typepad.com/londonlanguage/talk-about-language-2014-2015.html
Contact me with any queries and to ask for further information:
Billy Clark [email protected]
We're really pleased that our speaker in next week's Talk About Language session (please note the different day, time and place for this one: Friday 23rd January, 1.30-3pm, VG07, Vine Building) will be Bas Aarts from University College London.
Bas is Director of the Survey of English Usage, one of the most important and well-established research centres focusing on corpora in linguistic research. He has edited and published lots of important work on language and linguistics, and held a number of key roles, including being Vice-President for the Profession for the International Society for the Linguistics of English. The Survey of English Usage has also been involved in a number of very successful impact-focused projects, including the development of apps which help with understanding key concepts in grammar and projects which help teachers and students working on grammar at school, most recently the 'Englicious' project which provides resources for work at primary school.
The title for Bas's talk is:
Online Resources for Grammar Teaching
And here's how he describes it:
In this talk I’ll be discussing how large language databases (corpora) can be used to explore the English language, such as its present-day structure and usage and how these developed over time. I will also look at how corpora can be used to teach grammar and other linguistic concepts in schools.
All welcome.
As mentioned above, the talk will take place at 1.30-3pm in room VG07, Vine Building, from 1.30 to 3pm on Friday 23rd January. Directions and campus map are available here:
http://www.mdx.ac.uk/get-in-touch/directions-london
The full programme is at:
http://billydug.typepad.com/londonlanguage/talk-about-language-2014-2015.html
Contact me with any queries and to ask for further information:
Billy Clark [email protected]
We're really pleased that our speaker in next week's Talk About Language session (Tuesday 2nd December, 1.30-3pm, room V103, Vine Building) will be Marina Lambrou from Kingston University. Marina is a Middlesex graduate (our second graduate speaker this year) and did her doctoral research here too (another former PhD student, Mai Zaki, will be talking in February).
Marina's title is:
Disnarration in fact and fiction: tellability and characterisation in an analysis of Tobias Wolff’s short story, Bullet in the Brain.
And here's her abstract:
Why are stories where something almost happened, where, for example, near misses, deaths, or events that could or might have happened, seen as reportable as much as those events that actually occurred? This dimension of storytelling, called disnarration (Prince (1988, 2003) is defined as ‘The elements in a narrative that explicitly consider and refer to what does not take place i.e.. ‘X didn’t happen’; ‘Y could have happened but didn’t’ (Prince, 2003: 22). Here, the focus would still be on the unfolding events or complicating action even if the resolution is not what would be expected (Labov and Waletzky, 1967). If we understand that telling and exchanging personal narratives are a means for individuals to represent and shape their lives through their experiences, then the alternative, hypothetical scenario of what might have been, communicates what could have been serious and even life changing. For individuals who tell these types of experiences, they are also able to construct and reconstruct their identity using a number of linguistic devices, such as ‘self–aggrandizement’, which is ‘designed to place the narrator in the most favorable possible light’ (Labov and Waletzky,1967. In media stories, disnarration would still fulfil the criteria of newsworthiness (Bell, 1991; Galtung and Ruge, 1965, 1973) because the emphasis is on tellability and the possible consequences e.g. ‘Near miss reported between passenger jet, airplane’ (Star-Telegram, 28.5.2014). What of fictional accounts of disnarration where the emphasis is not on what happens but on what does not, specifically, what the protagonist, Anders does not remember at a critical moment. This paper explores these questions with an analysis of Tobias Wolff’s short story, Bullet in the Brain, to understand the device of disnarration in fiction and its effects on plot and characterisation. It also looks at identifying the linguistic devices that signal disnarration.
All welcome.
The talk will take place at 1.30-3pm in room V103, Vine Building. Directions and campus map are available here:
http://www.mdx.ac.uk/get-in-touch/directions-london
The full programme is at:
http://billydug.typepad.com/londonlanguage/talk-about-language-2014-2015.html
Contact me with any queries and to ask for further information:
Billy Clark [email protected]