Episode 81 - Jessica Aiston & Eltham Hill School students on the language of neurodiversity

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 itWhat we mean by ‘neurodiversity’ and other helpful definitionsThe neurodiversity paradigmTerms, labels and the history behind theseThe pros and cons of certain labelsThe importance of autistic people having agency in the terms being used Semantic reclamation and euphemism cyclesPerson-first and identity-first termsThe importance of autistic people centering themselves and being centered in linguistic researchUsing the lens of CCritical Discourse Analysis for exploring discourse around autism and neurodiversityJess’s current work on the Autism in Affinity Spaces projectJess 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 ContributorsLisa Casey blog: https://livingthroughlanguage.wordpress.com/ Dan Clayton blog: EngLangBlog & Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/englangblog.bsky.social Jacky Glancey Raj RanaMatthew 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 itWhat it ‘means’, including its ‘social meaning potential’The judgements that we make about pitch and why these matterGendered perceptions of pitchHis work on domestic violence cases and the role of pitch in perceptions of ‘victimhood’Gender and football commentariesAdvice 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.12723The 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 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

⚠️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 researchHow language analysis can be used in psychologyWhat language reveals about our minds and how they workThe linguistic patterns associated with different personality traitsLanguage and mental healthWhy we need to be cautious about making connections between language and personalityThe practical applications of this workThe article in The Conversation that we discuss is here: https://theconversation.com/people-with-personality-disorders-often-use-language-differently-our-research-reveals-how-271109Charlotte’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.comWhether we should celebrate WOTY for getting us talking about words, or be cynical about it as a marketing exerciseWhat makes a WOTY stick aroundWhat qualities a good WOTY should haveThe sketchier WOTYs that we've seen2025’s crop of WOTY nominations - what we’ve seen so far and what might be to comeWOTY 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=sharehttps://theconversation.com/2025s-words-of-the-year-reflect-a-year-of-digital-disillusionment-270769https://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 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 RanaMusic: 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 happeningThe main themes in them and their precursors in previous panics about ‘Americanisation’ The discourses within and behind these storiesWhat motivates them and how to approach them critically How British English is also making its way into American EnglishLynne 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 teachersGarbage, 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 societyMany 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 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 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 toldTrade body accused of ‘pandering to woke dogma’ after issuing language guide advising against use of everyday termshttp://archive.today/dLoSb Health trust breached equality commitments over gender neutral languagehttps://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c9wvrl084g7o 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 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-linkLexis 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 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 lawWhere and how law and language overlapClarity, accuracy and the power dynamics in legal languageMigration, borders, refugees and the lawAssessing ‘credibility’ and some of the processes of refugee lawCritically assessing media discourses around migrationLaura Smith-Khan’s university profile: https://www.une.edu.au/staff-profiles/law/Dr-Laura-Smith-Khan_ProfileLaura is part of the Law and Linguistics Interdisciplinary Research Network - more here: Law and Language – Sharing research, news and events related to law and languageas 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 MoveTrust and suspicion at the airport – Language on the MoveRefugee 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 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 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 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 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