(Socio-) Phonetics in the news
The Fresh Air interview of David Thorpe and Susan Sankin makes me look forward to Thorpe’s film, “Do I Sound Gay?” But Sankin’s suggestions that… Read More »(Socio-) Phonetics in the news
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variation
Arana: Good sociolinguistic conclusion despite questionable examples
Gabriel Arana recently published a defense of creaky voice at The Atlantic. He notes that recent criticism of young women’s use of creaky voice, or… Read More »Arana: Good sociolinguistic conclusion despite questionable examples
Variation in inflectional morphology
“Variable or non-standard realizations of inflectional morphology in English” sounds rather dry and academic, but the placement of suffixes within compound words or phrases can… Read More »Variation in inflectional morphology
The birth of a shibboleth
Record fans insist that the plural of ‘vinyl’ to mean “a vinyl record” is the zero-plural ‘vinyl’. This irregular form serves as a shibboleth for… Read More »The birth of a shibboleth
John McWhorter on Talk of the Nation
Yesterday John McWhorter discussed the recent call by the DEA to hire “Ebonics translators” on Talk of the Nation. He did a good job describing… Read More »John McWhorter on Talk of the Nation
North American English Dialect Survey
From Claire Bowern: Some colleagues at the University of Auckland and I are conducting a survey on North American English and trialling the use of… Read More »North American English Dialect Survey