Linguistics

An irresistible history of the OED reveals that English is a global language in its sources, its reach and its ownership.

Corpus linguistics – using computers to analyse texts – can spot patterns and nuances that might otherwise go unnoticed.

Language, geography, age and other factors can all affect how fast a person talks. But sometimes, these perceived differences are only in the listener’s head.

Long treated as a sign of anxiety or a delaying tactic, ‘filled pauses’ are a linguistic trick to signal that what you are about to say might be complicated.

The idea a language should grow simpler if people need to learn it as adults has an intuitive appeal. But an analysis of more than 1,200 languages shows this doesn’t quite stack up.

Bilinguals may struggle with hangman but they excel at remembering and categorising objects.

How politicians have cynically used metaphor to imply meaning through language.

The word shows that language isn’t static, it evolves to reflect developments in a society.

Jumping in too quickly with ‘Oh yes, that happened to me’ can end up saturating conversation and make your friend feel they were never heard in the first place.

People with a common history – often due to significant geographic or social barriers – often share genetics and language. New research finds that even a dialect can act as a barrier within a group.

Similar techniques used to identify criminals have been employed to unmask anonymous authors. But they aren’t foolproof.

We humans like to think that our language is original, but we absorb large amounts of it from others and liberally repeat and remix what we hear – just as language AIs do.

It came about through sustained contact with native Spanish speakers who directly translated phrases from Spanish into English, a form of linguistic borrowing called ‘calques.’

Researchers have identified ways to have more productive conversations – even when you’re talking to someone who holds an opposite view.

Diasporic placemaking is often a story of connections and hidden stories. It is also a complicated story about who owns public spaces and who decides who gets to use it.

Called your ‘inner voice,’ it develops along with your reading skills.

The oath of allegiance is meaningless on several counts.

Through characters such as Bazza McKenzie, the late comedian promoted Australian vernacular – the witty, the crude and both – to new audiences.

A new, extensive database of language grammars from around the world indicates an alarming trend of global language loss.

The aggressive efforts of social media platforms to police language have spawned a new lexicon meant to evade censors.

Large language models can’t understand language the way humans do because they can’t perceive and make sense of the world.

Learning how online misogynists use language can help teachers and parents intervene in radicalisation.

English is spoken by over a billion people around the world, often at the expense of local languages.

The language question in Ukraine goes back centuries. It is deeply rooted in the history of old empires and Ukraine’s position as the borderland between the West and the East.

Beliefs about language are never just about language. They reflect institutional power dynamics.

Despite increasing use of non-English languages demonstrating broader acceptance of linguistic diversity in a globalized world, films sometimes suggest associations between ‘foreignness’ and villainy.

Phrases like ‘I suppose’ and ‘I would argue’ can project a lack of confidence when speaking.

The events of Jan. 6, 2021, have been called an insurrection. The same word has often been used to describe the mostly forgotten rebellions against plantation owners by enslaved people.

The extraordinary Chinese writing system has over 4,000 core complex characters – and they’ve been getting more complex over time.

There’s a lot to the pronunciation of the word ‘no’ in an Australian accent.