Episode 51 - Emily M. Bender and 'AI' hype

Here are the show notes for Episode 55, in which Jacky and Dan talk to Dr Christian Ilbury, Lecturer in Linguistics and English Language in the School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences at The University of Edinburgh about: Being an online linguist Social media and language change - why it’s complicated Why ‘slang’ is an unhelpful word and why ‘internet vernacular’ is a better term for the kind of styles he is looking at Appropriation and diffusion Media discourses about young people, online language and technology His continuing work on MLE and why ‘MLE’ is still a useful term Christian’s University of Edinburgh profile: https://www.ed.ac.uk/profile/christian-ilbury Some appearances in the media that we mention: https://theconversation.com/theyre-serving-what-how-the-c-word-went-from-camp-to-internet-mainstream-210214  https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/apr/09/bait-ting-certi-how-uk-rap-changed-the-language-of-the-nation “You have quite a long history of British vernaculars being exported through British cultural forms,” says Christian Ilbury, a lecturer in sociolinguistics at the University of Edinburgh – from Scouse accents with the Beatles to Arctic Monkeys and the presence of industrial working-class accents in indie music. “Grime essentially became the vehicle in which we perceived MLE.” Those kids in suburban England, he says, “don’t speak this variety because of where they grew up. They’re using it to align with a cultural orientation that they appreciate.” https://linguistics-research-digest.blogspot.com/2019/10/  ‘Slay’, ‘yaas kween’, ‘squad’ – if you’re a keen social media, you might be familiar with some of these words. Originally from African American Vernacular English (AAVE) – a variety of English spoken by some Black Americans – these terms have quickly become part of the internet grammar. But, how and why have these terms entered our lexicon and what does the use of AAVE in internet communication mean? This and other questions are examined by Christian Ilbury in his recent paper. The episode of Lexis that we mention in which we interviewed Shivonne gates about MLE in East London:  https://open.spotify.com/episode/5leNPWkgQTMFzZ2UHRktnC  Christian’s book recommendation can be found here:  Homegirls: Language and Cultural Practice among Latina Youth Gangs. London: Blackwell. “In this ground-breaking new book on the Norteña and Sureña (North/South) youth gang dynamic, cultural anthropologist and linguist Norma Mendoza-Denton looks at the daily lives of young Latinas and their innovative use of speech, bodily practices, and symbolic exchanges that signal their gang affiliations and ideologies. Her engrossing ethnographic and sociolinguistic study reveals the connection of language behavior and other symbolic practices among Latina gang girls in California,and their connections to larger social processes of nationalism,racial/ethnic consciousness, and gender identity.” https://www.norma-mendoza-denton.com/books  Contributors Lisa Casey  blog: https://livingthroughlanguage.wordpress.com/ & Twitter: Language Debates (@LanguageDebates) Dan Clayton  blog: EngLangBlog & Twitter: EngLangBlog (@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 

Here are the show notes for Episode 54, in which Raj and Dan talk to Dr Florent Moncomble, Senior Lecturer in English Linguistics at University of Artois, France about what English and French have in common and all the discourses swirling around French that are also relevant to English, including: The role of L’Académie Française  Prescriptivism in French and English Complaints about decline, destruction, young people and migration and why they use the same language proxies as their English counterparts.  What French linguists are doing to address these misunderstandings and misrepresentations.  Florent’s links: https://linktr.ee/f_moncomble  Les Linguistes Atterrées: https://www.tract-linguistes.org/  L'Académie Française: https://www.academie-francaise.fr/  and a Guardian story about it: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/16/academie-francaise-denounces-rise-of-english-words-in-public-life  Bernard Cerquiglini on why English isn’t a real language:  https://www.lefigaro.fr/langue-francaise/actu-des-mots/la-langue-anglaise-n-existe-pas-un-linguiste-provoque-avec-humour-les-britanniques-20240311   https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/03/08/english-is-not-a-language-its-just-badly-spoken-french/ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-13181993/English-exist-badly-pronounced-French-linguist.html  Contributors Lisa Casey  blog: https://livingthroughlanguage.wordpress.com/ & Twitter: Language Debates (@LanguageDebates) Dan Clayton  blog: EngLangBlog & Twitter: EngLangBlog (@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 53 Here are the show notes for Episode 53, an episode aimed primarily at teachers, in which Jacky and Dan talk to Steve Collins (Head of English at Bishop Luffa School, Chichester) and Tim Marr (Visiting Professor at Icesi University, Cali, Colombia) about the ideas in their book, Language Awareness at School: A Practical Guide for Teachers and School Leaders, published in May 2023 by Routledge, including: The importance of language education across the curriculum Why language matters to each of them Why zero tolerance approaches and deficit models help no one  Why debates about English teaching keep appearing in cycles every few decades What can be done to revive the prospects of English Language across the secondary and A-level stages and into university and teacher training. The book: https://www.routledge.com/Language-Awareness-at-School-A-Practical-Guide-for-Teachers-and-School-Leaders/Marr-Collins/p/book/9781032062334  Contributors Lisa Casey  blog: https://livingthroughlanguage.wordpress.com/ & Twitter: Language Debates (@LanguageDebates) Dan Clayton  blog: EngLangBlog & Twitter: EngLangBlog (@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 52 Here are the show notes for Episode 52, a migration discourses bumper episode, in which we feature two interviews. First off, Dan and Raj talk to Professor Charlotte Taylor of the University of Sussex about: Why corpus linguistics can refresh the parts other approaches cannot reach Discourses around migration and the metaphors that are often used - water, commodity and them/us Why discourses around migration are usually about immigration  Why nostalgia is such a powerful theme Whether the discourses around migration are worse now than they have been in the past Tools for students analysing language discourses We also talk to Ana Gavalas of the Migrants’ Rights Network about: The work of their organisation and why it matters The ‘Words Matter’ campaign they have been running Why migration is linked to wider struggles Why challenging dangerous migration myths involves critically engaging with language. Charlotte Taylor’s University of Sussex page: https://profiles.sussex.ac.uk/p329327-charlotte-taylor Open access paper: Metaphors of Migration Over Time https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0957926521992156  Charlotte Taylor on Twitter: https://twitter.com/_ctaylor_  Dan’s article on the language of migration: https://bylinetimes.com/2022/12/16/swamping-cockroaches-invasion-how-language-shapes-our-view-of-migration/  The Migrants’ Rights Network: https://migrantsrights.org.uk  Words Matter campaign: https://migrantsrights.org.uk/projects/wordsmatter/  Contributors Lisa Casey  blog: https://livingthroughlanguage.wordpress.com/ & Twitter: Language Debates (@LanguageDebates) Dan Clayton  blog: EngLangBlog & Twitter: EngLangBlog (@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 51 Here are the show notes for Episode 51, in which Dan and (new Lexis team member) Raj talk to Professor Emily M. Bender of the University of Washington about: Why ‘Artificial Intelligence’ is not really the right term at all How Large Language Models work and why we should be sceptical of many of the claims made for them The biases inherent in LLMs and what to do about them Whether ‘neural networks’ and language processing can shed any light on child language development The discourses around ‘AI’: from booster to doomer.  Emily M. Bender’s University of Washington page: https://faculty.washington.edu/ebender/  A great interview from 2023: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/ai-artificial-intelligence-chatbots-emily-m-bender.html Time Magazine on the ‘machine-learning myth buster’: https://time.com/collection/time100-ai/6308275/emily-m-bender/  Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000 podcast: https://www.dair-institute.org/maiht3k/ Emily’s book recommendations:  ‘Babel’, R.F. Kuang: https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/babel-or-the-necessity-of-violence-an-arcane-history-of-the-oxford-translators-revolution-r-f-kuang/6627642?ean=9780008501853  ‘A Memory Called Empire, Arkady Martine: https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/a-memory-called-empire-winner-of-the-hugo-award-for-best-novel-arkady-martine/219166?ean=9781529001594  Other links from the interview Jess Dodge’s work: https://jessedodge.github.io/  Batya Friedman & Helen Nissenbaum, Bias in Computer Systems (1996): https://nyuscholars.nyu.edu/en/publications/bias-in-computer-systems  Some further reading:  Police worried 101 call bot would struggle with 'Brummie' accents https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-68466369 BBC News - 'Journalists are feeding the AI hype machine' https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-68488924  Bias against African American English  Paper: https://arxiv.org/abs/2403.00742  Register article: https://www.theregister.com/2024/03/11/ai_models_exhibit_racism_based/  An Al-Jazeera opinion piece about AI and borders:  https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2023/4/20/ban-racist-and-lethal-ai-from-europes-borders  Contributors Lisa Casey  blog: https://livingthroughlanguage.wordpress.com/ & Twitter: Language Debates (@LanguageDebates) Dan Clayton  blog: EngLangBlog & Twitter: EngLangBlog (@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 50 Here are the show notes for Episode 50, in which Jacky and Dan talk to Dr Jessica Aiston of QMUL about: Critical Discourse Analysis and Critical Discourse Studies  Why CDA/CDS are such useful approaches for A Level English Language students  Some of the most useful elements of the CDA toolkit and why they’re helpful The work that Jess has done on the representation of women by men in the manosphere Using critical discourse approaches with social media data The ethics of using social media data The work that Jess is currently doing on ‘autism in affinity spaces’ Jess’s QMUL page: https://www.qmul.ac.uk/sllf/language-centre/people/academic/profiles/aiston.html  Jess on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/jessaiston.bsky.social  Crompton's paper on the telephone game: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1362361320919286 Damian Milton on the double empathy problem:https://www.autism.org.uk/advice-and-guidance/professional-practice/double-empathy Autism in Affinity Spaces project website: https://autisminaffinityspaces.org/ Information about the survey: https://autisminaffinityspaces.org/our-survey-is-now-live/ - Contributors Lisa Casey  blog: https://livingthroughlanguage.wordpress.com/ & Twitter: Language Debates (@LanguageDebates) Dan Clayton  blog: EngLangBlog & Twitter: EngLangBlog (@EngLangBlog) Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/englangblog.bsky.social  Jacky Glancey  Twitter: https://twitter.com/JackyGlancey 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 49 Here are the show notes for Episode 49, in which Jacky and Dan talk to lawyer, community activist and author, Ife Thompson, about: Black British English  Linguistic justice in schools, courts and the rest of the world Anti-Blackness in discourses about language in the media Drill lyrics and the criminalisation of Black cultural expression Why we should give Black people their flowers for lexical innovation and their huge influence on British English  Why MLE is the wrong term to be using… BLAM (UK): https://blamuk.org/  https://www.runnymedetrust.org/blog/is-it-that-deep-the-impact-of-policing-black-british-language-speakers-in-british-schools “When Black students’ language is suppressed or outrightly banned in classrooms they begin to absorb messages that imply Black language is incorrect and unintelligent, this can cause them to internalise anti-Blackness. Students who internalise negative ideas about their language and culture may develop a sense of inferiority and lose confidence in their own abilities, and school in general. “The linguistic stigma of BBE also encourages the inappropriate and racially discriminatory discipline of Black children. In 2021, this was evidenced when a South London school with a large proportion of Black students introduced a language ban that included BBE vocabulary and semantics. Children could be reprimanded and punished for speaking in a way most natural and culturally significant to them, fuelling the practice and policies of UK schools criminalising Blackness.” BLAM on MLE: https://blamuk.org/2022/06/22/blam-uk-condemns-the-recent-anti-black-language-racism-from-uk-white-owned-media-outlets/  “The misidentification of Black British English as MLE minimises the cultural value and influence of Black heritage in modern-day Britain.” Ife in conversation with Johanna Gerwin: ttps://londontalksresearch.co.uk/2023/01/20/black-british-english-as-a-label-for-multicultural-london-english/  Our interview with Johanna about London English: https://open.spotify.com/episode/42lkwg3h0k9PjWtJFkJDbU?si=tHWJWE6XTLK1K3bOMLTzCQ  Art Not Evidence campaign: https://artnotevidence.org/  Garden Court Chambers on the Art Not Evidence campaign: https://www.gardencourtchambers.co.uk/news/art-not-evidence-launches-campaign-to-stop-rap-lyrics-being-used-as-evidence  “One day we will ask ourselves how on earth the state was ever allowed to get away with using rap music as evidence to prosecute Black defendants in serious crime cases. Making music isn’t evidence of crime but the prosecuting of it is. As a result, the state creates unsafe convictions, perpetuates racist stereotypes and restricts artistic expression. This has got to stop.  Join Art Not Evidence to help liberate rap from the legal system.” The Manchester 10 case: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/jul/01/fury-in-manchester-as-black-teenagers-jailed-as-result-of-telegram-chat  The first episode of Black British English podcast:  https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/the-black-british/can-uk-slang-be-a-language-wEfv74rgexA/  Ife on Twitter: https://twitter.com/fufuisonme/status/1741037657084276882/photo/2  Contributors Lisa Casey  blog: https://livingthroughlanguage.wordpress.com/ & Twitter: Language Debates (@LanguageDebates) Dan Clayton  blog: EngLangBlog & Twitter: EngLangBlog (@EngLangBlog) Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/englangblog.bsky.social  Jacky Glancey  Twitter: https://twitter.com/JackyGlancey 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 48 Here are the show notes for Episode 48, in which Lisa, Jacky and Dan talk to Dr Frazer Heritage of Manchester Metropolitan University about: Representation of gender in video games What’s changed in the representation of gender and sexuality in video games since the 1980s Language methods for analysing representation Analysing how incels construct representations of gender  Dealing with difficult data Frazer’s staff profile at MMU: Dr Frazer Heritage | Manchester Metropolitan University Some of Frazer’s work for Manchester Game Centre: Language, Equality, and Gaming – LEG project Frazer’s website: Frazer Heritage  Contributors Lisa Casey  blog: https://livingthroughlanguage.wordpress.com/ & Twitter: Language Debates (@LanguageDebates) Dan Clayton  blog: EngLangBlog & Twitter: EngLangBlog (@EngLangBlog) Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/englangblog.bsky.social  Jacky Glancey  Twitter: https://twitter.com/JackyGlancey 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 47 Here are the show notes for Episode 47, in which Dan talks to Fiona McPherson of the Oxford English Dictionary about: Word of the Year 2023 What makes a good word of the year Previous winners (and losers)  What new words can tell us about the world Some of the best articles and updates about #WOTY2023 can be found here:  ‘AI’ named most notable word of 2023 by Collins dictionary | Artificial intelligence (AI) | The Guardian AI named word of the year by Collins Dictionary - BBC News  Rizz named word of the year 2023 by Oxford University Press - BBC News  Got rizz? Tom Holland memes propel popularity of 2023 word of the year | Social trends | The Guardian  Dictionary.com’s 2023 Word Of The Year Is… The Cambridge Dictionary Word of the Year 2023 The Collins Word of the Year 2023 is… Oxford Word of the Year 2023 Word of the Year 2023 | Authentic | Merriam-Webster Macquarie Dictionary Blog Cozzie livs: light-hearted term for cost-of-living crisis named Macquarie dictionary word of the year | Language | The Guardian  » Nominate the 2023 Words of the Year American Dialect Society   Japan chooses ‘tax’ as kanji of the year amid concern over cost of living    Opinion pieces about new words The Collins word of the year shortlist shows we’re more self-obsessed than ever Hallucinating AIs and What The Words Of The Year Lists Reveal About our Modern World  Rizz: I study the history of charisma – here's why the word of the year is misunderstood Thread on Twitter responding to the ‘manosphere’ links Who's got 'the rizz'? Apparently, just men I get the need for ‘rizz’, but ‘influencer’ should be banned for ever Contributors Lisa Casey  blog: https://livingthroughlanguage.wordpress.com/ & Twitter: Language Debates (@LanguageDebates) Dan Clayton  blog: EngLangBlog & Twitter: EngLangBlog (@EngLangBlog) Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/englangblog.bsky.social  Jacky Glancey  Twitter: https://twitter.com/JackyGlancey 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 46 Here are the show notes for Episode 46, in which Lisa, Jacky and Dan talk to Paul Kerswill, Emeritus Professor, Department of Language and Linguistic Science at the University of York about what has driven his interests in linguistics, but mostly about Multicultural London English: What it is How it developed How it’s used now How it’s been reported on (and why it’s not ‘Jafaican’) The discourses and metaphors around it What it might sound like in the future Paul’s University of York page: https://www.york.ac.uk/language/people/academic-research/paul-kerswill/  Some of the presentations and papers Paul Kerswill has produced on MLE: https://englishlanguagetoolkit.york.ac.uk/case-studies/who-made-mle https://englishlanguagetoolkit.york.ac.uk/case-studies/jafaican  and the full paper of this workshop is here: https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/93713/1/17_Kerswill_corr.pdf  Some links to early reporting on MLE, MEYD and more: https://englishlangsfx.blogspot.com/search?q=MEYD  Some of Tony Thorne’s reflections on MLE (he denies coining the term ‘MEYD’ though!): https://language-and-innovation.com/?s=MLE  We talked about Accent Bias Britain too: https://accentbiasbritain.org/  Here’s a York English Language Toolkit session on this too:  https://englishlanguagetoolkit.york.ac.uk/case-studies/accent-bias-britain  And previous episodes of Lexis in which we’ve discussed MLE: Shivonne Gates: https://open.spotify.com/episode/5leNPWkgQTMFzZ2UHRktnC?si=wh-4nKMmTpm7Q5on2x2wIQ  Matt Hunt Gardner: https://open.spotify.com/episode/7GBFEsLSNKYEpvX2yHIanO?si=_h-_-ROcRpm1llQLiLoSJw  And we talk about recent reporting on MLE in this episode’s Lang in the News: https://open.spotify.com/episode/0cdODEHoWHIWLfd0gh6xSw?si=pwjAKwHbRyea0jxUBugbiA  Contributors Lisa Casey  blog: https://livingthroughlanguage.wordpress.com/ & Twitter: Language Debates (@LanguageDebates) Dan Clayton  blog: EngLangBlog & Twitter: EngLangBlog (@EngLangBlog) Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/englangblog.bsky.social  Jacky Glancey  Twitter: https://twitter.com/JackyGlancey 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