Veracity and register in fake news analysis This article addresses two fundamental methodological challenges in linguistic fake news research: how to reliably classify news texts as real versus fake and how to control for register variation whe...

Can we infer deceptive intent from fact-checker labels? And what if what fact-checkers consider “false” today turns out to be “true” tomorrow?

We explore these and other methodological questions in our new paper with Bashayer Baissa & @jwgrieve.bsky.social:

www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi...

Show flyer for new podcast called Writing Wrongs which is now available to subscribe to with a trailer on podcast platforms. Logo is a blood spattered typewriter. The first episodes will be released 7th March with other others to follow 1st Friday of each month. Episodes advertised are - Timothy Evans a Case for Forensic Linguistics - An interview with Kate Summerscale author of The Peepshow - Impostors Tending to the Wild with Dr Isobelle Clarke - Foreyginsic Lingeyguistic A murder In Eggs Latin - Romance Fraud The linguistic Crime Scene with Dr Elisabeth Carter - The Disputed Confessions of Darnell Rusan with Dr Marlon Hurt - They Said She Said The Ayia Napa Rape Case with Dr Andrea Nini - a Questions and Answers episode Podcast email address is WritingWrongs@aston.ac.uk

Very excited to announce what @DrNicciMacLeod.bsky.social and I have been working on for the past few months (with a brilliant production team behind us).

You can subscribe now and listen to our trailer wherever you get your podcasts.

#forensiclinguistics
#linguistics
#truecrime
#academicsky

I have made a screenshot of the image in my book (ebook format), I have also included a map of "meow"

I assume I’ve shown you this back on Twitter at some point…

Thanks! @danaroemling.bsky.social

Thanks!

My paper with @bodowinter.bsky.social and @jwgrieve.bsky.social was published in the Journal of Linguistic Geography today. 🎉
It’s a tutorial on how to use R & ggplot2 to visualise linguistic map data.

doi.org/10.1017/jlg....

New tutorial paper published today with PhD student @danaroemling.bsky.social and @bodowinter.bsky.social

Visualizing map data for linguistics using ggplot2: A tutorial with examples from dialectology and typology

doi.org/10.1017/jlg....

I hope people find it useful!

Thanks, Tim!

You could never intrude, Tony!

But don’t get me wrong, I’m glad you picked that up, Tony. Generally I spell in BrE these days but I still like to mix it up depending on topic and audience. I feel as a Canadian it’s my prerogative.

Thanks!

I am very aware. It should all be in AmE

Seems like important lessons could be learned here. Whether they will be, or treated as woke collateral in the culture wars, is another matter.

Thanks!

Excited to share that our new paper has been published in Frontiers in AI!

Frontiers | The sociolinguistic foundations of language modeling

New paper out today in Frontiers in AI!

The sociolinguistic foundations of language modelling

We argue sociolinguistics provides a foundation for understanding LLMs and addressing many challenges

www.frontiersin.org/journals/art...

doi.org/10.3389/frai...

techxplore.com/news/2025-01...

Assistant Professor in Digital Media and Communications (Language and New Media) (Research and Education) - School of English, Drama and Creative Studies - 104941 - Grade 8 The post holder will contribute high quality teaching to our suite of successful programmes which includes the BA in Digital Media and Communications launched on the University’s Edgbaston campus in S...

Two new Assistant Professorships in our department

Language and New Media:

edzz.fa.em3.oraclecloud.com/hcmUI/Candid...

Intercultural Communication:

edzz.fa.em3.oraclecloud.com/hcmUI/Candid...

Snark-less post: The workshop on online abuse and harms (woahworkshop.bsky.social) is now here! Follow along for online abuse related notifications and announcements!

The Sociolinguistic Foundations of Language Modeling In this paper, we introduce a sociolinguistic perspective on language modeling. We claim that large language models are inherently models of varieties of language, and we consider how this insight can...

Maybe you’ll like this paper of ours. This is the preprint. Now in review.

arxiv.org/abs/2407.09241

CL2025 - Call for papers Abstract submission is now open here

Call for papers:

Corpus Linguistics 2025 #CL2025
Birmingham, UK
First week of July 2025

Submissions welcome for papers, posters, thematic panels and pre-conference workshops!

www.cl2025.co.uk/call-for-pap...

Hi Bluesky: the department of Linguistics and Communication at the University of Birmingham is now on Bluesky! Who else from our department is here? @jeannettel.bsky.social @matteofuoli.bsky.social @adamcschembri.bsky.social @bodowinter.bsky.social @gregwoodin.bsky.social

Sure!

Did one!

Not listed and should be? Let me know 🙂

go.bsky.app/AT6KX6X

Hello fellow forensic linguists, I thought I'd create a little space for us all. I'm new here so let me know if I've not seen you and need adding ❤️

go.bsky.app/Jtyb67V

Full house for @bodowinter.bsky.social’s department talk tonight!

The Sociolinguistic Foundations of Language Modeling In this paper, we introduce a sociolinguistic perspective on language modeling. We claim that large language models are inherently models of varieties of language, and we consider how this insight can...

This is our answer

arxiv.org/abs/2407.09241

New paper on the language of fake news with Bashayer Baissa and Matteo Fuoli

doi.org/10.1177/1750...

Mapping the United Swears of America Swearing varies a lot from place to place, even within the same country, in the same language. But how do we know who swears what, where, in the big picture? We turn to data – damn big data. With g…

FTA: @stancarey.bsky.social uses @jwgrieve.bsky.social's map to see who swears how where across the USA stronglang.wordpress.com/2015/07/28/m...

Harald Baayen presenting

Full house for Harald Baayen at University of Birmingham!