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I write like… a new more sophisticated stripper name?
Making connections between ourselves and other people no matter how arbitrary, is an incredibly popular communal as well as private activity. The many algorithms for generating one’s stripper, mobster...
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Why Chomsky doesn’t count as a gifted linguist
Somebody commented on the Language Log saying “of course [...] Chomsky was a massively gifted linguist” http://j.mp/9Q98Bx and for some reason, to use a Czech idiom, the handle of the jar repeatedly...
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RaAM 9 Abstract: Of Doves and Cocks: Collective Negotiation of a Metaphoric...
Given how long I’ve been studying metaphor (at least since 1991 when I first encountered Lakoff and Johnson’s work and full on since 2000) it is amazing that I have yet to attend a RaAM (Researching...
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Pseudo-education as a weapon: Beyond the ridiculous in linguistic prescriptivism
Teacher in primary school in northern Laos (Photo credit: Wikipedia) Most of us are all too happy to repeat clichés about education to motivate ourselves and others to engage in this liminal ritual of...
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The complexities of simple: What simple language proponents should know about...
Update Part of this post was incorporated into an article I wrote with Brian Kelly and Alistair McNaught that appeared in the December issue of Ariadne. As part of that work and feedback from Alistair...
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Framing and constructions as a bridge between cognition and culture: Two...
I just found out that both abstracts I submitted to the Cognitive Futures of the Humanities Conference were accepted. I was really only expecting one to get through but I’m looking forward to talking...
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How we use metaphors
I was reminded by this blog post on LousyLinguist that many people still see metaphor as an unproblematic homogeneous concept leading to much circular thinking about them. I wrote about that quite a...
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Storms in all Teacups: The Power and Inequality in the Battle for Science...
The great blog Genealogy of Religion posted this video with a somewhat approving commentary: The video started off with panache and promised some entertainment, however, I found myself increasingly...
View ArticleBinders full of women with mighty pens: What is metonymy
Metonymy in the wild Things were not going well for Mitt Romney in early autumn of last year. And then he responded to a query about gender equality with this sentence: “I had the chance to pull...
View Article5 things everybody should know about language: Outline of linguistics’...
DRAFT warning Sorry, I accidentally published an early draft prior to any rereading – more of a stream of consciousness, really. I made some quick fixes but at least one more read through will be...
View ArticleLinguistics according to Fillmore
While people keep banging on about Chomsky as being the be all and end all of linguistics (I’m looking at you philosophers of language), there have been many linguists who have had a much more...
View ArticleWhat is not a metaphor: Modelling the world through language, thought,...
The role of metaphor in science debate (Background) Recently, the LSE podcast an interesting panel on the subject of “Metaphors and Science”. It featured three speakers talking about the interface...
View ArticleWhat does it mean when words ‘really’ mean something: Dismiss the Miss
Send to Kindle Listen to this Post A few days ago, I tweeted a link to an article in TES: What Miss really means < It’s always worthwhile re-examining ingrained inequalities http://t.co/GKhjc4VgUP...
View ArticleAnthropologists’ metaphorical shenanigans: Or how (not) to research metaphor
Send to Kindle Listen to this Post Over on the excellent ‘Genealogy of Religion’, Cris Campbell waved a friendly red rag in front of my eyes to make me incensed over exaggerated claims (some)...
View ArticleWhat language looks like: Dictionary and grammar are to language what...
Send to Kindle Listen to this Post Background Sometimes a rather obscure and complex analogy just clicks into place in one’s mind and allows a slightly altered way of thinking that just makes so much...
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