RIP Brian Patten As a student in Liverpool I carried round a copy of The Mersey Sound until it was so dog-eared I had to buy another one

"There's artificial intelligence, and there's actual intelligence" is a _great_ tagline.

Philosopher John Searle has died.

Lost in translation - How Africa is trying to close the AI language gap

Three great days of papers at the Universite d’Artois in Arras! Thanks to @fmoncomble.tract-linguistes.org for organising and to my fellow plenaries @jessesword.com and Jonathon Green for great talks.

Excited to see this out! 'Applying Corpus Linguistics to Illness and Healthcare' - new #openaccess book, with @elenasemino.bsky.social @paulari.bsky.social @lukeccollins.bsky.social & @tonymcenery.bsky.social. @lancslinguistics.bsky.social www.cambridge.org/gb/universit...

ICYMI: 📰 The Leverhulme Trust September Newsletter is out! Read it on our website now: www.leverhulme.ac.uk/newsletter @mphiljill.bsky.social @ferreira-rr.bsky.social @manmetuni.bsky.social @sheffielduni.bsky.social

Our book 'Applying Corpus Linguistics to Illness and Healthcare' is out open access! We wrote it to share what we learnt in many years of research in @corpussocialsci.bsky.social, on topics such as communication about anxiety, dementia, cancer, obesity and vaccines. cambridgeblog.org/2025/08/appl...

In conversation with @elenasemino.bsky.social on #CorpusMOOC #healthcare #corpuslinguistics #communication 👉Find out more: edx.org/learn/social... @corpussocialsci.bsky.social

"In a landmark study, OpenAI researchers reveal that large language models will always produce plausible but false outputs, even with perfect data, due to fundamental statistical and computational limits." www.computerworld.com/article/4059...

Congratulations to my colleagues @elenasemino.bsky.social @chrishartlinguist.bsky.social @vaclavbrezina.bsky.social @juditkormos.bsky.social @jculpeper.bsky.social @paulari.bsky.social Alison Mackey & Jason Rothman for being in the Stanford/Elsevier top 2% of scientists list. I’m in good company!

Congratulations to my colleagues @elenasemino.bsky.social @chrishartlinguist.bsky.social @vaclavbrezina.bsky.social @juditkormos.bsky.social @jculpeper.bsky.social @paulari.bsky.social Alison Mackey & Jason Rothman for being in the Stanford/Elsevier top 2% of scientists list. I’m in good company!

University of Hawai’i at Mānoa is hiring for a tenure track assistant professor with expertise in second language corpus linguistics. Check out the position and apply on UH’s website: www.schooljobs.com/careers/hawa...

oops, I did it again 🎶 Call for papers for Corpus Pragmatics special issue "Speech Acts in English: Corpus Insights from Past to Present", ed. by @racheledf.bsky.social, Christine Elsweiler & me. Abstract submissions due: 1 November 2025 link.springer.com/collections/... #Pragmatics #Linguistics

Discourse of fear in strategic narratives: The case of Russia’s Zapad war games www.researchgate.net/publication/...

Week 1 on #CorpusMOOC: key techniques of data analysis #concordance #frequency 👉 Join us today for free! edx.org/learn/social...

I am so pleased to announce that I have been awarded a @ukri.org Future Leaders Fellowship www.ukri.org/news/ukri-an... to undertake the project 'A Multi-Dimensional Understanding of the Digital Far Right'.

Brilliant and timely reflection by @niallrcurry.bsky.social @tonymcenery.bsky.social @gavinbrookes.bsky.social on epistemology, knowledge-making, values, macroethics ... and GenAI "A question of alignment – AI, GenAI and applied linguistics" #corpuslinguistics www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

I am seeking a Postdoctoral Research Associate to work on the ESRC-funded project 'Writing Tasks at School and University'. The post is full-time and will run from 1st November 2025 to 31st January 2029. See below for a brief overview of the project. jobs.exeter.ac.uk/hrpr_webrecr...

It happened at last, the anonymous reviewer suggests that my manuscript would benefit from engaging with the works by Heyd

And also Susan Hunston’s latest, available as an open access PDF

After our very succesful Corpus Linguistics 2025 conference hosted by @robbielove.org at Aston, CL is going on tour! Our next conference will be Easter 2027 in Hong Kong at HK Poly U. In summer 2029 we return to Europe when @michamahlberg.bsky.social will host CL at Erlangen!

UCDavis Psych is hiring an Assistant Professor in Human Cognition or Cognitive Neuroscience 🧠✨ Come join a vibrant, collaborative dept and live in a fun college town near Sacramento, San Francisco, Napa, and Lake Tahoe. Applications due Oct.21. Please share widely! recruit.ucdavis.edu/JPF07300

🗣️💬 D - 2 weeks, and the final programme of the international F-word conference is out! We can't wait to welcome our guest speakers @jessesword.com, @tonymcenery.bsky.social and @misterslang.bsky.social along with all participants for 2½ days of discussion of this ULO (Ubiquitous Linguistic Object).

Corpus linguistics for safeguarding children online 🔓 Out now with @crkennedy.bsky.social as part of a special issue on Corpus linguistic approaches to tackling online crime edited by the brilliant @wrightdw.bsky.social @livunienglish.bsky.social www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Important language news! www.theguardian.com/money/2025/s...

📚 New paper with Alan Partington "Lexical Priming: Evolution, evaluation, extension" out in the International Journal of Corpus Linguistics @ijcl.bsky.social! You can find it here 👇 tinyurl.com/mjwmdvyd I'm very grateful to the editors, reviewers and colleagues for their valuable feedback 🙏

🚨 Call for Papers! 🚨 we are excited to launch the Call for Papers for the Corpora and Discourse International Conference 2026. Deadline 16 November 2025. Submit your abstracts here: wp.lancs.ac.uk/cad-2026/cal.... Please share widely! #CADS2026

New jobs here! I'm on the Advisory Board of this Leverhulme Trust-funded project investigating 'The long-term impact of New Labour’s social and economic policies', and there are two Research Fellowship posts available: jobs.nottingham.ac.uk/vacancy.aspx...

Review: Typology: Otto Jespersen; Brett Reynolds, Peter Evans; Olli O. Silvennoinen (2025)

Conference coming up in Xi'an this autumn on corpus-based inter-disciplinary research. Nice mix of plenaries and workshops - abstract due by 15th September: sfs.xjtu.edu.cn/info/1243/82...

Designed for the AI age, our new online course teaches real-world language analysis from one of the world’s leading corpus linguistics teams. Watch the trailer and sign up: www.edx.org/learn/social...

NEW – Guest post: Is climate change making UK droughts worse? ✍️ Jamie Hannaford, @wilsonchan.bsky.social, Lucy Barker, Stephen Turner ➡️ Read here: buff.ly/boBB8nU

Check it out - the corpus MOOC is back (15th September) on a new platform (edX) exploring new topics, including AI. One thing has not changed - it is still free to access 😁 Find out more here: www.edx.org/learn/social...

Delighted to say I'm part of a new project funded by @leverhulme.ac.uk I'm working with colleagues in Lancaster and Hong Kong to look at UK & Chinese digital newspaper archives to explore how the Chinese wrote about Britain (and vice cersa) in the 19th century. Thanks to Leverhulme & our reviewers!

How do you decide whether or not to use AI tools in your research? One approach is to judge the extent to which they align with the values that underpin your research - in this open access paper we look at this question of alignment. www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

How do you decide whether or not to use AI tools in your research? One approach is to judge the extent to which they align with the values that underpin your research - in this open access paper we look at this question of alignment. www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Amazing to see these problems at the ONS - they used to be a touchstone of credibility and integrity. Their on-going problems are, however, a useful reminder of the crucial importance of the data on which modelling is based - as true in Linguistics as in Economics. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Delighted to share this corpus with fellow researchers. Enjoy! And many thanks to Anne O’Keeffe and others who have worked on developing it over the years. @calsul.bsky.social @unioflimerick.bsky.social

I’m not sure if I’d go for an outright ban, but we do need to be more aware that this kind of language is essentially a marketing ploy, and one that I suspect is particularly aimed at users with low technological literacy.

Fab talk today by @tonymcenery.bsky.social on challenges around the use of #AI in/for #appliedlinguistics. Insightful as usual. :) Thanks @lancslinguistics.bsky.social & @danagablas.bsky.social #corpuslinguistics

🎙️ Elena Semino, Distinguished Professor of Linguistics and English Language at Lancaster University joins host Dr. Joe Bianco to discuss the subtle and surprising ways that language 🗣️ and humor 😂 shape health experiences 💙.

#Linguistics 2 new additions in my #corpus toolbox, geared towards the study of the meta-discourse of press coverage: the Guardian and Figaro Comments Corpus Builders can be used to collect corpora of article comments from those two online newspapers. 1/3

Another job here at Michigan - this one in Linguistics! Part of a cluster of hires with a focus on Cognitive Science and AI. Happy to chat to interested folks. apply.interfolio.com/171006

My PhD student Yue Li is looking for L1 speakers of Chinese and Spanish for her online English experiment! Please see below for details!

Super proud of my first Cambridge Elements, joint work with my long-term collaborator Francesca Strik-Lievers: "Linguistic Synesthesia: A Meta-Analysis" www.cambridge.org/core/elements/abs/linguistic-synesthesia/C6B019926C53001D1D698CB0C46F80C6/ Quick summary of the take home message in thread ⬇️

🔎 Decoding slang meaning and forensic linguistics 🔎 @timgrant123.bsky.social and @drniccimacleod.bsky.social discuss how important slang is in forensic linguistics casework in the Season One Series finale of Writing Wrongs. You can listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or any podcast platform

Missed out on #CL2025? Four of our wonderful plenary talks are now available to watch on demand! YouTube links on conference website and in replies: www.cl2025.co.uk/home

Check it out - the corpus MOOC is back (15th September) on a new platform (edX) exploring new topics, including AI. One thing has not changed - it is still free to access 😁 Find out more here: www.edx.org/learn/social...