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...

The “surrender” thing and the endless war metaphors were always in poor taste. But when they were first made, war had not returned to Europe and NATO was not hanging by a thread. So forgive me if I no longer have any patience whatsoever with people who pretend that UK and EU are enemies. Pathetic.

Today I am a guest at a CLADES project symposium. After each presentation in the morning, there was time to talk in small groups instead of having a Q&A. I found myself "professing" less and reflecting more. www.rug.nl/rudolf-agric...

The UK-EU summit has triggered the well-known 'betrayal', 'surrender' and 'sell-out' metaphors in some British media. I have compiled research on the language of #Brexit here: docs.google.com/document/d/1... Please send updates

This is @linguadigitalis.bsky.social enthusiastically facilitating a round table of a different kind - loved it!

And now it's my turn, to provide an overview of the @mantrap.bsky.social project - happy to share slides on request!

This is happening today, @mkrzyzanowski.bsky.social is about to start his talk

If you think you're having a bad day, listen to Sarah Montague on #wato interviewing Sebastian Gorka, an arrogant thug advising Trump. I admire and feel for her in equal measure.

We had a super day yesterday at the @lancslinguistics.bsky.social Research Colloquium with colleagues sharing a diverse range of research conducted in connection with Linguistics and English Language at Lancaster.

At few places would a departmental-internal event attract ca. 75 participants, but at @lancslinguistics.bsky.social it does. Talks on discourse analysis, sociolinguistics, L1 and L2 acquisition, language testing and corpus linguistics

Tomorrow, I will give an internal presentation at Lancaster. Speaking for the Voices of Supporters team, I'll talk about the discourse of supporters and opponents of #populist parties across Europe. Curious what colleagues work on, given how large and diverse @lancslinguistics.bsky.social is.

This ⬇️ is a hybrid event, so do follow the link to register for the finale to the TaalX lecture series - looking forward to seeing you there!

I am reviewing a paper and am once more struck by the clear and concise writing style of #accounting scholars. All that training for job market papers really makes a difference.

Good to be part of @mantrap.bsky.social 😊