How to use critical discourse analysis in your research: 2-day, in-person workshop for PhD students & early career researchers. 15 & 16 January 2026 Sheffield, UK Details: www.discourseacademy.org/event-detail...

I may not have chosen the best coffee mug for listening to Teun van Dijk talking about ideology... I won it at a Christmas raffle a few years ago 🤷🏼‍♀️

The (short) book to go with the talk:

I had to remind myself of the meaning of two phrases today: "F0 variation" (#phonetics, marking student assignments) and "time series research" (#economics, discussing a grant application). Never a dull Monday!

Words & Actions podcast alert: @linguadigitalis.bsky.social, Matt Drury and I have recorded the first episode in a six-part series "The language of...". First up: language of emotion. To follow: the language of food, waste, nature, music and water. wordsandactionspodcast.wordpress.com

How to use critical discourse analysis in your research - an in-person, 2-day workshop for PhD and early-career researchers in Sheffield. 15 & 16th January 2026. With: Tom Bartlett, Michael Farrelly, @kranertmichael.bsky.social, Jane Mulderrig. Booking open! www.discourseacademy.org/event-detail...

I am quoted in this article (paywall, sorry) about the phrase "AI factories". In academic terms, I would call it a semi-metaphor. I think the illustration captures that quite nicely. @washingtonpost.com www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2...

A position paper on critical language awareness by @linguadigitalis.bsky.social and others from Groningen and Cape Town www.frontiersin.org/journals/com...

A colleague, prospective student and I are applying for a project involving healtcare professionals in aesthetic medicine. Ahead of the first video call with them, I feel very self-conscious about my face. I wonder if they worry about their accent or grammar.

14yo son: "Mum, what's the most boring book you ever read?" It's a strong field, but the winner must be Habermas' Theory of Communication Action. An important work, but riveting it ain't.

The (short) book to go with the talk:

My 14yo son assures me that he is "cooking" in his Spanish lessons. Opposed to being "cooked" (and metaphorical "cooking [koge]" in Danish), this is a good thing. You learn something every day.

Saying "sorry to bother you" does not give anyone license to make a nuisance of themselves. It's like "no offence but", and neither works pragmatically. "I don't wanna badmouth the kid, but he's a horrible, dishonest, immoral louse. And I say that with all due respect." (Broadway Danny Rose)

Featuring @jessaiston.bsky.social from the @mantrap.bsky.social team

New Word of Mouth podcast with @michaelrosenyes.bsky.social and @jessaiston.bsky.social on language and the ‘manosphere’ www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/... #linguistics

I am working my way through a book I have been asked (and, perhaps foolishly, accepted) to review. Pages upon pages of #neuroscience down to the electrochemical detail and engineering diagrams of computational modelling. Non-academic friend: "Are you getting paid for this?" I wish.

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...

An early start today, with an interview on @voiceofislamuk.bsky.social, about how to admit mistakes in private, in the workplace and in public life. voiceofislam.co.uk/the-breakfas... They are on digital radio, online and Soundcloud and have a range of interesting programmes.

To say that something is an "honour" or that something is "humbling" has become a bit of a cliche. But I felt both honoured and humbled when a very bright MA student from France told me today that my work is the reason why they are in higher education. I hope I can live up to it.

When metonymy goes wrong

After finishing teaching my course on discourse and cognition at the Braga summer school, I sat in on the 2nd part of Dirk Geerarts' course on structuralism - formalism - cognitivism. A refresher on the difference between X-bar theory, categorial grammar, HSPG etc. I remain unconvinced.

We are at the "What is language? Do languages exist?" stage of the Braga summer school in cognitive linguistics. Good question to confront once in a decade or so

@genderedform.bsky.social Do these look familiar as gender-neutral forms in Italian?

I am *really* fed up with researchers working with US college students as participants (most over-researched group ever) and then claiming the results of their study are representative of "people" or "English" or whatever universalising word they choose. News flash: There is a world outside the US.

Tomorrow, I am off to a few days in beautiful Braga (Portugal), to teach a course on discourse and cognition. It feels pleasantly indulgent to go away when others are back to school (sorry, teachers!). ffcs.braga.ucp.pt/pt-pt/braga-...

I never realised that Ronald Reagan had such a smooth voice and diction. But then he was an actor of course. Not Oscar material, but an actor nonetheless #wato

The Women and Equalities Select Committee @commonswec.parliament.uk has accepted our team's evidence as part of it's public enquiry into 'Misogyny: the manosphere and online content' Read our submission below committees.parliament.uk/work/9089/mi...

When this is your conference site for the day - at the conference "Business communication within and across culture", giving an invited talk on intercultural and intersectional business communication.

See the link for a call for contributions for the conference "Critical language awareness for #sustainability, #solidarity and #inclusion", in Ghent, 25-26 Feb 2026. The themes are language, discourse and social or ecological (in)justice. Due date: 1 Oct 2025 clades.prd.ugent.be/en/call-cont...

I've recently returned from my second trip to China and have captured some of what I learned in this blog post: lnkd.in/eyGvWufA

I learned a lot from the talks I attended today, from traditions of discourse studies around the world to multimodal discourse analysis of official TikTok channels and Chinese approaches to studying language and masculinity.

Many thanks to the considerable number of participants at the 11th NDCC conference who postponed their dinner after a long day in hot rooms with no air con to hear me talk about corpus-assisted discourse studies. Really interesting questions!

I am in Changchun (NE China) to give a workshop on corpus-assisted discourse studies at the 11th conference on New Discourses of Contemporary China. Nice to meet colleagues again!

The undergraduate class I taught at Xidian Uni, with a team of two co-teachers, a teaching assistant and a student helper (what a luxury!). Impressive effort that the students put into their presentations on intercultural discourse and pragmatics 🙏🏽

Were there any talks or posters about AI and business discourse/corporate communication at #cl2025?

A video snippet of me talking about the book on gender-based separatism that I wrote with @alexiconartist.bsky.social and @jessaiston.bsky.social @mantrap.bsky.social www.instagram.com/reel/DLaQd6u...

@alexiconartist.bsky.social (with Maka Julios-Costa) talks about the @mantrap.bsky.social research in terms of prognostic critique, remining us of the important point that intervention is *not* the same prescriptivism

I'm at a two-day event on critical discourse studies and have realised that the genre of a response to an academic presentation is as yet not clearly defined. There has been everything from examiner-style criticism to storytelling, vaguely coherent ramblings and structured commentary.

The online manosphere poses a real threat to society Our response published today in @theguardian.com www.theguardian.com/society/2025...

A few days ago, I received a message from a linguist in Afghanistan. Very educated English of course, a former Dean. Now confined to her home with no life prospects in her country. There are things I cannot even imagine. 😢

I don't know what you call a visual mondegreen, but I just misread 'survivors' as 'supervisors'. Make of that what you will. It reminds me of the time, in the week before a book deadline, when I wrote 'hysterical' instead of 'historical discourse analysis'. 🤪

For six years' worth of research on the language of the manosphere, see www.markmcglashan.org/projects/man... @mantrap.bsky.social

"[MGTOW] been described as misogynistic, but Ofcom’s interviewees insisted it was not because it was about choosing to live without women, not hating them." Fun fact: there is rather a lot of woman hating source: I literally wrote a book about this group

When your team's work - based on six years of research - gets cited but the core message is ignored, because 38 men say it's no big deal 😡 @mantrap.bsky.social www.theguardian.com/society/2025...

Linguistics at Lancaster ranked 2nd in the UK and joint 1st for graduate prospects in the 2026 Complete University Guide. www.thecompleteuniversityguide.co.uk/league-table...

BlueSky is very much about academic exchange and announcements for me, but for one time only, I am blurring boundaries to announce that my website is now live at www.languageconsulting.uk

In September, I will once more visit beautiful Braga (Portugal), to teach a course on discourse and cognition at this summer school: ffcs.braga.ucp.pt/en/braga-sum... 2-5 September, open to postgrad students and post-docs, 150 euros, apply by 27 August

Not to distract rom the seriousness of the issue, but this ambiguous noun phrase caught my eye today: climate change as "a burning world issue" - a topic triggered metaphor or a literal description?

The 19th @lancslinguistics.bsky.social postgraduate conference takes place on 19 & 20 June, with four keynotes, 15 papers and 23 (!) posters. It's an international event, with presenters from across the UK as well as Switzerland, Portugal, China and Pakistan. wp.lancs.ac.uk/laelpgconfer...

Me to my 14yo son, while analysing some fiendishly complicated #metaphor data: "Son, if you want to keep your sanity, don't become a metaphor researcher." Son: "That should be easy to avoid." You would think so. And yet I started on metaphor 23 years ago and never found my way back...