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A recent study by Maciej Baranowski found that one of the traditional features of Manchester speech, the ‘hoarse’-‘horse’ contrast has all but disappeared in Southern Manchester, but it can still be observed in some North Manchester speakers. You heard it here first: Manchet reported on this in early February. Other media outlets have now picked […]
July 16, 2020 by manling
Comments Off on Strycharczuk et al.’s Frontiers paper sparks controversy
LEL’s Pat Strycharczuk and colleagues: Manuel López-Ibáñez, Georgina Brown and Adrian Leemann have a new paper out in Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence, titled “General Northern English. Investigating regional variation in the North of England with machine learning”. The paper’s barely been out for 24h, but it has already generated a lot of controversy, if 1.1k […]
January 6, 2020 by manling
Comments Off on Nini on Victoria Derbyshire programme
LEL’s Andrea Nini appeared on Victoria Derbyshire programme today to comment on the Ayia Napa case. The case concerns a British teenager convicted in Cyprus for public mischief after she retracted previous allegations of rape against 12 Israeli men. The defence argued that the retraction note had been written under duress and, in fact, dictated […]
October 17, 2019 by manling
Comments Off on Lingzine makes its debut
Manchet has acquired some formidable competition in the form of Lingzine, a zine focused on linguistics, and run by LEL graduates and students. The first edition is out now, featuring articles on speech recognition, animal communication, Irish travellers and the observer paradox, and more. Check out the online version here, and stay tuned for more!
July 15, 2019 by manling
Comments Off on Postcard from Julio
Julio is in sunny Spain, where he has kept busy spreading the gospel of language diversity. He has been consulted about multilingualism and code switching by just about every media outlet in the country, and he has collected enough newspaper cutouts with his face on to wallpaper his office once he’s back.
June 20, 2019 by manling
Comments Off on Matras in The Guardian
Yaros Matras has been quoted by The Guardian earlier this week, commenting on the controversial use of language tests by the Home Office in asylum cases: “There’s been suggestions from academics and activists that the use of language analysis is a political way of excluding people. I’ve certainly found there is that risk because there’s […]
June 13, 2019 by manling
Comments Off on Linguistics experts tackle the curse of Jeremy Hunt’s name
You never know when linguistic expertise may be required. It could be aliens attempting contact with Earthlings, or it could be Victoria Derbyshire dropping the c-word on air. In doing so, she joined a long list of journalists mispronouncing the name of the Conservative leadership candidate, Jeremy Hunt. Why does this keep happening? In this […]
February 6, 2019 by manling
Comments Off on Tune in to bilingualism with Villa-García
Julio Villa-García was interviewed by the Spanish Radio and Television Corporation today. The interview was about the Spanish language around the world, language acquisition and bilingualism. You can enjoy Julio’s radio voice here.
January 3, 2019 by manling
Comments Off on Julio is the news
Julio Villa-García, our most telegenic LEL colleague, visited the University of Oviedo this week. Oviedo is Julio’s alma mater. He gave a talk, and was interviewed by multiple radio stations and newspapers in Spain about the application of linguistics and careers abroad.
November 1, 2018 by manling
Comments Off on How to have a quality chat
Improving parent-child communication could be a walk in the park. Thea’s latest study, joint with Joanna Melville (Oxford) and Merideth Gattis (Cardiff), compared parent-child conversations in natural environments and in indoor environments. The evidence suggests that the quality of the conversations is enhanced in the great outdoors. You can find the original paper here , or […]
Manchet 
April 4, 2023 by manling
Comments Off on Baranowski’s paper sparks a media frenzy