The Department of Linguistics and English Language in Lancaster is turning 50 in 2024. To mark the occasion, we are inviting everyone to join us in a series of community events and public lectures.
Come celebrate the joys of Linguistics and English Language with us and find out about our wide range of research.
Speaker: Dr Isobelle Clarke
Date and Time: October 24 18:00
Venue: Faraday Lecture Theatre, Lancaster University
Anti-science discourse has been studied through the optic of particular governments (Carter et al., 2019) or specific topics, such as anti-vaccination (Davis, 2019), anti-genetically modified organisms (Cook et al. 2004), stem cell research (Marcon, Murdoch and Caulfield, 2017), and climate denial discourse (Park, 2015). This research often details the development and content of the anti-science position and discourses. Yet, little is known about how the discourses compare across topics. Are there anti-science discourses that are shared across topics or does the discourse vary with the topic? In this talk, I will present the results of the common discourses which are shared between texts from website known to promote pseudoscience and conspiracy on the topics of stem cells, climate change, vaccination and genetically modified organisms.
Register for the shared anti-science discourses
Speaker: Professor Patrick Rebuschat
Date and Time: November 14 18:00
Venue: Faraday Lecture Theatre, Lancaster University
Migration is making Europe increasingly multilingual, and the United Kingdom is committed to promoting this linguistic diversity for reasons of cultural identity, social integration and cohesion. In this lecture, we will focus on multilingualism at the individual level. What does recent research in linguistics, psychology and neuroscience tell us about the multilingual mind and brain? And: How can we use these insights to support successful multilingual development in children and adults? We will conclude with a Question and Answer session and general reflection on the topic.
Register for the Science of Multilingualism to attend
Speaker: Dr Sam Kirkham
Date and Time: December 5 18:00
Venue: Faraday Lecture Theatre, Lancaster University
If you stepped into a time machine and travelled to England 500 years ago, the voices around you would be almost unrecognisable. In this talk, we'll examine the science of how and why accents change, shaping the way we speak today. We'll go deep into this mystery, spanning physical shifts in the speech organs, the brain dynamics that underpin accent change, and how we can track accent variation across thousands of people. By understanding these patterns, we gain insights into the dynamic nature of language and how our voices connect us to our past and to each other. Join us to uncover the hidden forces shaping the way we speak.
Register for Evolving accents: unravelling the mysteries of sound change to attend
Speaker: Professor Paul Baker
Date & Time: June 26th 18:30
Venue: Margaret Fell Lecture Theatre, Lancaster University
Polari was a secret form of language, developing across the 19th and 20th centuries among a queer subculture that newspapers of the time referred to as the "twilight world of the homosexual". In the 1960s Polari became famous when it was used in a popular BBC radio comedy series called Round the Horne but by the 1980s it had all but vanished. Paul Baker has researched Polari for the last 30 years and he tells the fascinating and hilarious story of its rise, fall and rediscovery, charting its fortunes alongside tumultuous changes in British LGBTQ+ representation and visibility. He also reveals some of the secrets behind the words, so you'll learn how to tell your lallies from your luppers. Troll along and vada the palarying screeve-omee for some bona cackle.
Date: April 11th (Thursday)
Venue: More Music, Morecambe
As part of Campus in the city 2024 take a tour of language and its wonders: From historical Lancashire to the digital world, from the depths of the mind to the tip of your tongue!
The influence of language is all around us: from the way we speak and hear, to how we think and interact with other people (and even machines). Linguistics and English Language is celebrating 50 years in Lancaster and invites you to come on a linguistic journey with us through games, displays and demonstrations. You can see how your own tongue moves when you speak, and enjoy a multimedia experience of how accents and dialects have changed over the years in Lancashire. Put your mind-reading skills to the test, and challenge yourself to see if you can tell a voice you hear is human or machine!
