I’ve been reflecting on the experience of writing a PhD. I wanted to write a post about it but wasn’t sure where to begin as a) surely everything that has been blogged has been blogged, b) where to stop. Two things came along which focussed
Well, we’ve known for a long time that you can’t really do linguistics in Casamance without doing sociolinguistics but it’s only been only quite recently that I’ve had to really get my hands dirty in applying sociolinguistic principles to conversational data. The concepts in question – that all language use is intrinsically situated and shaped … More the roles of languages in repertoires
This post runs parallel to the one I just published on our project site, about using the idea of prototypes to understand the linguistic situation at the Crossroads. I wanted to use this blog to talk about the thought process that led to this idea. As I mentioned on the other post, a lot of the … More building the prototype
I don’t believe in busman’s holidays. Once the blessed Out Of Office is activated I am checked well and truly out, and put various mind control techniques to good use banishing any thoughts of impending academic duties the moment they show their anxious, demanding little faces (top smug tip: these techniques are most effective when floating … More holiday snap
If it was functional typology that first got the linguistic fire burning (it is a thing! I remember the very day – coming across The Evolution of Grammar by Bybee, Perkins and Pagliuca while researching a term paper for Ollie’s typology course) it has been Cognitive Linguistics that has kept it alight. I used this theoretical approach … More ICLC 13, Northumbria University, Newcastle
ordinaryworkinglinguist 