Episode 45 - Alex Baratta and accentism

Lexis

Show notes for Episode 45

Here are the show notes for Episode 45, in which we talk to Dr Alex Baratta, Senior Lecturer in Language, Linguistics & Communication, Manchester Institute of Education, University of Manchester about:

• Accents, accents… and more accents!

• Teacher accents and ‘professionalism’

• Social connotations and stereotypes of accents - good and bad

• Why one accent isn’t ‘better’ than another and why exposure to accents might be the way to overcome accentism

In our regular Lang in the News segment we talk about how formal greetings and sign-offs might be becoming a thing of the past and why that’s the fault of… well, pretty much everyone that Daily Mail readers don’t like. We also have a quick chat about the European-wide attempts to make language more inclusive, the first round of WOTY2023 and we big up Rob Drummond’s book, You’re All Talk.

Alex Baratta’s University of Manchester page:

https://research.manchester.ac.uk/en/persons/alex.baratta

Some of the articles, books and research we mentioned:

https://theconversation.com/teachers-with-northern-accents-are-being-told-to-posh-up-heres-why-88425

http://blog.policy.manchester.ac.uk/british_politics/2017/06/putting-an-accent-on-things-the-need-to-clarify-speech-expectations-for-british-teachers/

https://www.bera.ac.uk/blog/clarifying-accent-standards-for-british-teachers

Understanding all kinds of English accent can improve empathy and learning – and even be a matter of life and death

Yours Sincerely is dead…

The Guardian:

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2023/sep/13/yours-sincerely-is-dead-so-how-should-you-sign-off-an-email

And in the Mail:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12510471/Is-end-sincerely-Old-phrases-die-decade-language-formal-research-finds.html

Attempts to promote inclusive language in European languages

What’s in a word? How less-gendered language is faring across Europe

#WOTY2023

‘AI’ named most notable word of 2023 by Collins dictionary | Artificial intelligence (AI) | The Guardian

AI named word of the year by Collins Dictionary - BBC News

Opinion piece about new words https://archive.ph/kv2UQ

Rob Drummond’s new book: https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/you-re-all-talk-why-we-are-what-we-speak-rob-drummond/7512151?aid=4868&ean=9781914484285

Contributors

Lisa Casey

blog: https://livingthroughlanguage.wordpress.com/ & Twitter: Language Debates (@LanguageDebates)

Dan Clayton

blog: EngLangBlog & Twitter: EngLangBlog (@EngLangBlog)

Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/englangblog.bsky.social Jacky Glancey

Twitter: https://twitter.com/JackyGlancey

Matthew Butler

Twitter: https://twitter.com/MatthewbutlerCA

Music: Serge Quadrado - Cool Guys

Cool Guys by Serge Quadrado is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. From the Free Music Archive: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/serge-quadrado/urban/cool-guys