EngLangBlog

Here we go! Episode 81 is now up and it's one where we hand over the interviewing to two A Level English Language students, Freya and Miles. They interview @jessaiston.bsky.social about the language of and around neurodiversity. open.spotify.com/episode/6XCX...

The Pentagon says it’s ‘lethalitymaxxing’. Why has ‘incel’ slang crossed into the mainstream? With the rise of influencer Clavicular and ‘looksmaxxers’, sexist language from niche memes has infiltrated official government accounts and NYT headlines

The Pentagon says it’s ‘lethalitymaxxing’. Why has ‘incel’ slang crossed into the mainstream?

We've got a new episode coming very soon and it's a really special one that has been kicked off and then carried out by two A level Eng Lang students. It's all about the language of & about neurodiversity, especially autism, and it features an interview with @jessaiston.bsky.social
Coming soon!

Exactly! Like an unruly volcano.

I don't want to suggest that everything is just fodder for the analysis machine. People's lives, hopes and futures are affected by wars like these but if we want to understand how we're being told about these events and how they're being framed, we have the tools and we can teach them.

Are others case studies in the news values used by UK newspapers to represent whose lives are more valuable than others?

Some are more direct than others.

It seems like a good day to gather front pages and apply some critical discourse analysis. Agency springs to mind...

I’m a linguist with Tourette’s – here’s what I want people to understand after Baftas controversy I often feel that I live in my body alongside another person who wants to continually move and say things.

This can't have been easy to write, but who better to do it than a linguist with Tourette’s? A really excellent piece.
theconversation.com/im-a-linguis...

...or maybe not? One for discussion when we teach Language & Representation perhaps?

One commenter gave his own account of the same video clips that seemed totally at odds with how I saw what had happened and I did wonder how he had got there. Maybe we all see things through different lenses (me as much as anyone else), but there's still a kind of shared reality, isn't there?

It was then kindly shared by @perkinskeighley.bsky.social on LinkedIn and there was a real kickback from what appeared to be US conservatives (and assorted MAGA types) who saw the article as a shamefully biased interpretation of events.

Weaponizing Words: How the Trump Administration Used Language to Distort the Truth in Minnesota Government and media organisations used the power of words to shift moral responsibility for the ICE killings, argues linguist Dan Clayton

It got me thinking about the different ways we perceive, interpret & represent events through language. I wrote this piece for @bylinetimes.bsky.social a couple of weeks ago & talked about the ways in which language can be used to encode different versions of reality: bylinetimes.com/2026/01/29/w...

Here Samuel Bagg talks about how our social identity/ies can shape how we perceive and respond to events (so not that much about language per se at this stage). The discussion of the different responses to the video recordings of the shooting of Renee Good in the clip above is really interesting...

There's always been a dimension to A level Eng Lang study that nods towards psychology, and we used to include Loftus & Palmer in mark schemes about language, thought and representation.

YouTube video by 404 Media How Identity Literally Changes What You See (with Samuel Bagg)

I've been meaning to listen to/watch this @404media.co interview for a week or two; I have now and it's fascinating.
youtu.be/lNKOqp-rZL8?...

emagazine articles on English Language are carefully curated, to be both challenging & accessible to A Level students, cover the exam specification topics, offer fresh ideas & research & introduce them to linguists, research & up-to-date thinking. www.englishandmedia.co.uk/emc-magazine...

How rightwing rhetoric has risen sharply in the UK parliament – an exclusive visual analysis In the past five years, MPs’ attitudes in the House of Commons towards immigration have swung harder to the right than at almost any other time in the last century

A depressing picture of coarsening and dehumanising rhetoric. www.theguardian.com/politics/ng-...

Humans 40,000 y ago developed a system of conventional signs | PNAS As humans, we store and share information. This allows us to distribute knowledge necessary for survival and to coordinate large groups. Our homini...

Very interesting attempt to trace back the early evolution of a “system of conventional signs” (proto-writing system) 🧪✍️
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

More here as well:
bsky.app/profile/coli...

Strikes me as the kind of intro activity that would be helpful for A level English Language (and one that I've seen used in some form or other before):
bsky.app/profile/coli...

Yeah, I did wonder... 😂

The accent divide at Oxford: too northern for Oxford, too posh for home Tamar Okunhon discusses the finding your voice at Oxford, where it's easy to sound too northern at university but too posh for home.

A personal reflection on accent, class & identity from a student at Oxford.
www.oxfordstudent.com/2026/02/20/t...

Quite a lot of different things in here to ponder, dissect and discuss with A-level English Language classes. Features input from @tonythorne007.bsky.social & @christianilbury.bsky.social

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/02...

emagazine Language Conference in the North 2026 (Macclesfield) emagazine Language Conference in the North 2026 (23.2.2026, Macclesfield, Spring 2026)

Next Monday (23 Feb), I am one of the speakers at this @engmediacentre.bsky.social sixth form conference:

www.englishandmedia.co.uk/conferences/...

I'm looking forward to bringing #criticaldiscourseanalysis to schools!

Lack of diversity among curriculum drafters ‘deeply concerning’ Open letter with nearly 100 signatories calls for a ‘more diverse range’ of drafters to write the new national curriculum, warning there is a risk of ‘narrow’ content

The government should review those chosen to draft the new national curriculum because the list has a ‘deeply concerning lack of diversity’, according to an open letter with nearly 100 signatories

Here's a sneak peek at what's inside the latest issue of MediaMagazine, out now for web subscribers! Physical copies will arrive in schools later this month. englishandmedia.co.uk/emc-magazines/

So, we can all agree that reading, interacting and *languaging* together are very important, but we should also be cautious about how we respond to the screen time vs reading books discourse we see a lot of now. As I said, she may well be right and I agree with a lot of her points.

a) it's part of a campaign to promote a snack, b) she uses language 'gap' deficit language that has been widely critique by linguists & c) the 2023 report surveyed 800 teachers and their *perceptions* of what was happening. It didn't measure actual performance.

Children’s vocabulary shrinking as reading loses out to screen time, says Susie Dent Exclusive: Countdown lexicographer urges families to read, talk and play word games to help language development

I'm not saying Dent is necessarily wrong here and her points are way more balanced than the headline suggests, but...
www.theguardian.com/society/2026...