The Department is hosting an African Linguistics Workshop featuring new research from staff and students. Special guest Prof Enoch Aboh (Uni of Amsterdam) joins the session following his Robert Le Page Lecture. 13 March at 09:30 in AEW/106. Read the programme: www.york.ac.uk/langu...

I go into the bread shop, and the woman after me says: have you got any [ˌsaɪəˈbatə]?

What can you do with a degree in Language and Linguistics? Join us to hear from alumni working in teaching, marketing, and the Civil Service. Discover how they used their degrees to shape their careers. 5 February 2026, 15:00–17:00, B/T/019 Register here: tiny.cc/LLSalumni

Are you a current MA/PhD student, or a recent PhD graduate? York's annual conference on Conversation Analysis is open for abstracts. Keynotes and workshops in CA skills by me and @ana-ostermann.bsky.social Ana Cristina Osterman.

Excellent overview of current theory, and hopefully interesting for colleagues in #CA. "it is not always clear how posited categories are realised in spontaneous speech... but existing studies suggest that caution is needed when we assert the generalizability of laboratory data."

It's a sign of the times that the Journal of the IPA will no longer be published in print. It's a sign of my age that I will miss receiving the yellow and black volumes and lining them up with the issues I've collected since 1998. Browsing electronically isn't the same pleasure.

What excellent news! No one's life was better for not being able to take part in this scheme.

We are excited to have Professor Richard Ogden (@richardogden.bsky.social) as an invited speaker at #YorCCA2026! His research combines phonetics and CA to explore how phonetic detail shapes social action. His work deepens understanding of turn-taking, stance, and non-lexical vocalisations in talk.

The first ever monolingual Irish dictionary has been launched www.rte.ie/news/ireland...

YorkCCA is York's annual CA conference organised by PhD researchers at the University of York and affiliated with the Centre for Advanced Studies in Language and Communication @uoycaslc.bsky.social. Next year's conference is 17-18 July. The other invited speaker is me!

We have a CA pathway in our MA Applied Linguistics at York. Includes dedicated modules on CA, multimodality, and institutional interaction (taught by Merran Toerien). Applications open for 26-27. Find out more www.york.ac.uk/study/postgr...

This year we launched an #EMCA study group in Peru 🇵🇪, mainly composed of undergraduate students, called Secuenciando. As the year comes to an end, Secuenciando has officially wrapped up its second season — this time focused on sequence organization! (1/3)

Delighted that our module The Language of Turn and Sequence was renamed The Language of Turn and Sequins by Zoom's captioning system.

I survived my first teaching term in Oxford! To celebrate, I've made some updates to the praatpicture library! 🥂

A couple of signs in Trondheim. Good to see the inclusion of Sámi, something that can’t be taken for granted.

Just one of many great sessions at Nordisco in Trondheim this week.

Words matter. Language matters. Languages matter. @spencerhazel.bsky.social on how universities cut their language degrees, AND stress the importance of language, AND use language poorly and offensively in communicating their decisions ("marketing-infused slop"). #AcademicSky #Universities

I love this YouTube channel. This episode combines home cooking from an old Canadian cookbook with the linguistic and cultural subtleties of writing a recipe in English and French. youtu.be/GYkxduAIhT8?...

What a joy this book is. I wish it had been available years ago when I was taking classes

Our paper @sarabogels.bsky.social covering our pre-registered multi-year research is now finally out in Cognition. We show that in conversations people reduce their multimodal signals non-linearly; the steeper this non-linear drop-off the more communicative success. www.wimpouw.com/files/Bogels...

Since January 2022, we (me, 93% Club & SS) have been working a project that tackles accent bias in Higher Education, focusing on the 'elite' institution where we're based. Today, we're launching the project website which brings together all our work: accentbias.ed.ac.uk

Michael Slavinsky is the founder of Languages For All, a charity which exists increase the number of modern language students at A-level and degree level from state schools. He will talk about how school collaborations! Free but booking required: leedscityoflanguages.leeds.ac.uk/events/webin...

This kind of precision timing is pragmatically strange. Not 5 to 2, not 2pm. Does arriving at 1359 count as late, and I will be denied boarding? This is exactly the sort of point Harvey Sacks made in his Lectures. People don't aimlessly use numbers like this in real life!

A postdoctoral researcher position (languages and conversation analysis) open in Oulu! #EMCA oulunyliopisto.varbi.com/en/what:job/...

In Aix en Provence today for the PhD exam of Kübra Bodur, whose PhD is all about phonetic reduction. Excellent work all round! Afterwards, there was a table of wonderful home-made Turkish food that she and her family had made.

How much precious academic and professional support time and energy goes into making applications, whose success rate is essentially that of a lottery -- not to mention evaluating them. It's hard to see how this is properly 'strategic' or beneficial.

Good thing then that this week's White Paper fails to recognise modern languages as a key skill for young people.

"Languages" appears twice. Here's one: "language students could have conversations with artificial intelligence, building confidence and breadth". Bit naive. Conversations about what? What did you think of the film? What's the best pastry you sell? Can you help me find a good place to eat nearby?

Congratulations to Katariina Harjunpää and Beatrice Szczepek Reed on this lovely collection of papers on interspecies interaction, for which Leelo Keevallik and I wrote a commentary. www.sciencedirect.com/special-issu...

🎉 - Pleased to announce a new journal 📔 - Registered Reports in Linguistics (RRLing) journals.ed.ac.uk/rrling/index The first linguistic journal dedicated to Registered Reports. We accept submissions from all areas in linguistics and language research.

I'm really pleased to be running a workshop on the phonetics of talk in interaction at ICCA in Edmonton next year.

#EMCA alert! The 25th Conference on Discourse and Conversation Analysis is taking place 25-27 March 2026 in Mannheim, Germany. The theme is Technology Use and Social Interaction, and it has a fantastic lineup of keynote speakers and workshop leads! www.ids-mannheim.de/aktuell/vera...

It's that time of year when many start thinking about applying for PhDs. If you're applying for a UK PhD position, here is a blog post I wrote a while back that might be helpful #cognition #psychscisky #neuroskyence #psychjobs

Banned as particularly vulnerable: languages and linguistics, which is what my department is all about.

New powers to further restrict protest are unnecessary, undermine our rights to freedom of expression and ability to practice our religion freely.

'We also recently came across your other research paper, "," and shared it with our community of scientists.' .... who, I am sure, are excited about its successor, ";".

It's the 25th Arbeitstagung zur Gesprächsforschung / Conference on Discourse and Conversation Analysis in Mannheim, 25-27 March 2026. I'll be running a phonetically-oriented workshop -- details to be confirmed! www.ids-mannheim.de/aktuell/vera...

Since today is the #EuropeanDayOfLanguages, let's not forget that you are not required to keep your languages separate, pure, intact or in any way feel inadequate about your way of using your own language/s. And don't let anyone take away your co-ownership of the languages you have.

Our paper on how phonetic resources help to coordinate laughter draws on cases of joint laughter from conversations in English, Spanish and Finnish. Here's a summary of some of our findings (which rely heavily on Chafe, 2007), along with acoustic records of a laughter bout in Spanish.

Our paper with @marinanc.bsky.social and Jürgen Trouvain on Phonetic features in the management of laughter has just come out in Interactional Linguistics #phonetics #EMCA doi.org/10.1075/il.2...

A very thoughtful thread for those in the UK universities on the REF pause

From a visit to the Scottish National Gallery in Edinburgh last week: a great little Gaelic glossary for English speakers, compiled by schoolchildren. Each entry shows a picture from the gallery and some key words for it. Brilliant!

Here's an article by our Head of Department at York arguing for languages on the curriculum in the UK. As a polyglot I usually take it for granted that I can operate (with varying degrees of competence!) in several languages; I experience that as real wealth. www.ciol.org.uk/languages-uk...

Very excited to announce this faculty search at Rutgers! Looking for a wonderful new colleague to join us in Communication #EMCA #LSI @ica-lsi.bsky.social @lansi2024.bsky.social jobs.rutgers.edu/postings/258...

If you'd like to attend the Sign Language Contact Variation and Change conference on Thursday 21 and Friday 22 August (this week!) make sure you have registered here! The Zoom link (including interpretation into English) will be sent to those who have registered. sites.google.com/view/slcvc-w...

In the current JIPA there's an obituary for John Kelly -- phonetician at York 1972-1998, and my PhD supervisor. The piece contains some of John's typically detailed and astute observations, the kind that form the core of Kelly & Local (1989), Doing Phonology. www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

I've strayed into another language family, and made Finnish the subject of this month's post. Under the surface though, it's a piece about prehistoric languages, and how millennia-long linguistic contact can make foreign languages seem more familiar. dannybate.com/2025/08/03/y...

As many scholars are using Ai to help w/ their writing, I suggest doubling down on finding your own creative & distinctive style. As Ai 'slop" becomes increasingly obvious your personal, emotionful & idiosyncratic approach will standout & cut through against conformative & boring prose.

Let’s hope this intervention and others help to change minds

It's great fun teaching this short course -- and I always learn something from the data (this time, noticing voicing and aspiration on the release of [d] sounds in turn-final productions of 'oh my god')