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')

Great public engagement initiative by our PGRs, making CA accessible to very young audiences.

We've just got a new episode in the can which will come out very soon. It's our annual preview of the @yorktoolkit.bsky.social teacher CPD event. Coming soon! Get signed up here if you haven't already: englishlanguagetoolkit.york.ac.uk/workshops

Here are the three of us with our poster on the phonetic organisation of laughter, which kept us engaged in lively conversations for two hours (he said, hoarsely).

Kristian Skedsmo giving a brilliant talk about other repair initiation in Norwegian Sign Language and Norwegian. Not just fascinating material, but a masterclass in the skills of presenting complex things.

Rod Gardner presenting work on multi unit turns in languages of northern Australia at LingCologne. The quotes come from Schegloff’s lectures… so inspiring!

Do I know any DOTE users who have experience of subtitling in Dote, and then export subtitled movies? Would you be willing to help one of my students? Thanks.

Yet again the UK shoots itself in the foot, by proposing to make it harder for international students to come to the UK.

Join us on 21st May 12.30pm in the Treehouse for the finals of the HRC Doctoral Competition. A great chance to be inspired by all the wonderful work being done by doctoral researchers across the faculty. Check your emails for the Google Form to sign up to attend 🏆

Now emancipated from its paywall. www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-v...

The deadline for abstracts to the York Conference on Conversation Analysis has been extended to next Monday. The guest speakers are Paul Drew and Lorenza Mondada, so it promises to be an intellectually stimulating event!

I’ve just been listening to this — it’s wonderful! Highly recommended

We are excited to welcome Professor Lorenza Mondada as an invited speaker at #YorCCA2025! Her video-based research on multimodality has transformed our understanding of how social interaction draws on language, gesture, gaze, body posture, objects, and multisensorial practices.

"...time constraints, a lack of funding, and a lack of institutional training opportunities prevent many researchers from learning or maintaining language skills, which could have consequences for the integrity and impact of UK research."

🇫🇮🇫🇮 Suomen kielen päivä 🇫🇮🇫🇮 Finnish language day 🇫🇮🇫🇮 and Mikael Agricola day, today, 9 April 🇫🇮🇫🇮

Crept into a crêperie and crept out again (let’s see who gets the reference!). I had the Hercule, so named because it contains poireaux (leeks).

Submissions are now open for the HRC PhD Poster Competition 2025 and there are cash prizes! Don't forget to make your submission, it is open to all PhD students studying at Arts and Humanities departments/schools/units 😊 www.york.ac.uk/hrc/support-...

As a Quaker I feel deeply shocked and violated by this.

My afternoon has been brightened listening to calls to cows, goats and sheep from around Finland. With thanks to Anni Jääskeläinen in Helsinki for the link. yle.fi/a/20-108884

The early bird fees for our online course on the Phonetics of Talk-in-Interaction are now available until May 2nd. The course is now half full and places are going fast! Looking forward to welcoming you for three days of phonetics and interactional analysis. york.ac.uk/phonetics-talk

A very large gathering of interactionalists here in Germany for the 24th Workshop on conversation research, on the theme of responsive behaviour. First paper: a keynote by Tom Koole from Groningen in the Netherlands, on inviting responses. Pr

Haus der Musik, Stuttgart. Fantastic range of musical instruments including a flute which is also a walking stick, a piano with a a built in sewing box, and a kind of harmonica made with spinning glass plates and played with wet fingers. So much imagination!

Our department together with the UoY CPD team will be hosting two courses led by Prof Bart Defrancq (Ghent University): - AI and CAI Tools for Interpreters - March 24 and 25 www.york.ac.uk/business/cpd... - AI and CAI Tools for Interpreter Trainers - March 27 and 28 www.york.ac.uk/business/cpd...

I'm at the Institut für Deutsche Sprache in Mannheim for a few months as a visiting researcher. Today I'm sharing some work in progress on how the phonetic and prosodic organisation of laughter helps people in conversation coordinate entry to and exit from laughter.

YorVoice is a project with internal funding at York, one of three ‘Sparks’ projects. Great interdisciplinary collaboration — here, Linguistics, Arts and Creative Technologies, and the local hospital.

Special issues of Phonetica coming up on the theme of Human-AI interaction. Details from the link! www.degruyter.com/journal/key/...

Snowdrops in the breeze, University of York campus

Dear #EMCA community, I'm very happy to announce the foundation of a small study group devoted to Conversation Analysis in Peru, composed primarily of undergraduate and graduate students eager to understand the technicalities of naturally occurring social interaction.

Spectrogram of a bit of wheezy laughter. I was *not* prepared for the pitch trace (in blue) that this generated! With @marinanc.bsky.social

We are pleased to announce the next talk in our online series, celebrating our recently-graduated PhDs: Dr Rose Rickford "Using conversation analysis as part of multi-method qualitative research into organisations: an inductive approach" March 13th, 2 pm To register: sites.google.com/york.ac.uk/c...

I'm running an on-line course on the phonetics of talk-in-interaction in June with @marinanc.bsky.social. More information from this link: www.york.ac.uk/business/cpd...

Being Director of the Humanities Research Centre for six years was the most fun I've ever had at work. Not only did I get to work with a brilliant, creative and supportive team, but I also saw the marvellous breadth of work in arts and humanities at York (and beyond).

Last night I went to listen to the Hallé and Angélique Kidjo in Manchester. She sang Ife Songs, which Glass composed with her, drawing on his knowledge of phonetics. I love these music-phonetics crossovers!

A series of videos on multimodal transcription by my colleague at York, Kobin Kendrick

A fully funded PhD Studentship on multimodal analysis of caregiver/patient interaction in my lab #LLL at #Universitéd'Orléans ! 🎓🎥🏥 #EMCA #Multimodality #Healthcare #CommunicativeDisability #MedicalResuscitation

These courses are always a lot of fun to teach, because they bring together people from around the world to talk about phonetics and conversation. Come and join us this June!

Re-reading David Abercrombie from 1963, "Conversation and spoken prose". Visionary! "[Conversation] contains the most natural, the most frequent, and the most widespread occurrences of spoken language... The other uses of spoken language are adaptations or specialisations of this basic category."

1/14 The Princess of Wales today suggests that child mental health prevention is a healthy way forward by supporting the development of social and emotion skills. This is a thread to ask what research is going on in this space www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Very exciting to see this development for our department!

Fully funded 4-year PhD with me at VU Amsterdam #emca workingat.vu.nl/vacancies/ph...