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Can Eastenders affect your language?
‘Stop saying ‘innit’! You sound like you’re in Eastenders!’How many times have you heard television being blamed for a decline in the language standards of young people? Sociolinguists have...
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C'mon, give us a smile
As we know from our everyday lives, a smile can indicate many things (amusement, irony and agreement, to name a few). However, Timo Kaukomaa, Anssi Peräkylä and Johanna Ruusuvuori were interested in...
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Give it me!
...or give me it!...or give it to me! ?IImagine you are Harry Potter facing Voldemort with the Philosopher`s stone in your hand. The Dark Lord is overwhelmed by a desire to get the stone, so he says,...
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Young, old or just ‘emerging’? How does age affect language change?
As times change so too do people’s life stages. Traditionally these were thought of as child > adolescent > adult, but this idea is now called into question with the addition of an ‘emerging...
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‘Have a global day!’
Is the world becoming more or less polite?As the global population grows, our world has somehow seemed to shrink. Walk down the main streets of London, Paris, New York or Tokyo and you will see many...
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Everybody loves somebody? In America, not in New Zealand
Happy Valentine's Day!Surprising as it may be, according to the study carried out by Alexandra D`Arcyand colleagues, a New Zealander would probably sing ‘Everyone loves someone’. The meaning is still...
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Learning the ropes with a metaphor
Every company or organisation has its own jargon and its own way of doing things as well as talking about them. If you are new to a company, it might take a while to get your head round work-related...
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Tweeting ‘sorry’: a guide to corporate apologies
Nowadays social networks have become ubiquitous and are used to communicate almost anything. For example, you can post a complaint about your leaking kettle directly to Argos` Twitter account and make...
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‘I thought’ I knew you so well…
Language is such a crucial part of our lives that the way we use it can even reveal something about our relationships with other people. Michael Sean Smith* explains that people come to a conversation...
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The truth about grammar books: do they actually influence language use?
Everyone is familiar with prescriptive grammars – books containing ‘the rules of correct language use’. But have you ever wondered whether these volumes have any actual impact on the way we speak and...
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It's her personality man's looking at
I don't mind how my girl looks.. it's her personality man's looking at London English has a new pronoun. Young people living in multicultural areas of the inner city use man as an alternative to I....
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Please excuse me while I use the Bathroom Formula.....
Everyday language is usually the most interesting to study. A perfect example of this is how we excuse ourselves when we need to use the bathroom/go to the toilet/powder our nose/visit the little...
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Do birds of a feather tweet together?
Do you think you would be able to guess the gender of the author of an anonymous tweet? David Bamman, Jacob Eisenstein and Tyler Schnoebelen found some distinct but complex differences in the way men...
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The Jenny Cheshire Lecture in Sociolinguistics 2014
Professor David Britain: "English in Paradise? A new variety in the Pacific"Friday 13th June 2013, 6.30pm, Maths Lecture Theatre, School of Mathematica Sciences, Mile End Campus, Queen Mary, University...
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Accent on accent
image of Language Diversity from Tobias Mikkelsonhttp://www.tobiasmik.dk"It is impossible for an Englishman to open his mouth without making some other Englishman hate or despise him" wrote George...
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(stereo) type your questions into Google
click to see this better!While searching for information on the web, Paul Baker and Amanda Potts noticed that Google’s auto completion algorithm was inadvertently reproducing stereotypes. Troubled by...
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Article 0
HAPPY HOLIDAYS! Dear Digest readers,The Digest team will be taking a break during August.This year has been especially busy for the Digest...
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Are you commercially aware?
Most people pay TV commercials as little attention as possible and use these as an excuse to make a nice cup of tea or quickly rearrange their sock draw. We tend to see TV ads as bothersome...
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Um, fill(er) words
Do conscientious people say I mean and I know more often?When we think of language we often think of neatly constructed sentences, but everyday casual conversation is peppered with hesitations,...
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Why passives should not be shunned
hmm…. can a passive be said to be sneaky?Scanning the pages of endless style guides, Geoffrey Pullum was startled at the amount of ruthless criticism devoted to the passive voice. Authors, journalists...
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