All we learnt about English accents at school was that there were two main ones, British and American – and a third one spoken by our teachers! When you go and live in the UK or the US, however, you discover that there are tens of very different accents grouped together as ‘British’ or ‘American … Continue reading
Every September for most of the past decade has me wondering what my new Licence 3 students at CELSA will be like. I imagine them — or you — too, wondering what English classes will be like here. Shall I start with the good news or the bad news? Of course I’m not going to … Continue reading
It’s an interesting question: By removing a word from our lexicon, can we change the way we perceive things? That’s the premise behind a new campaign called ‘Ban Bossy.’ Created by LeanIn.Org, a non-profit founded by Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, the campaign is intended to encourage girls to lead by removing the negative stigma associated … Continue reading
An article from yesterday’s Live Science to think about today, from Wynne Parry, Senior Writer: “When a team of scientists set out to evaluate the emotional significance of English words, they expected most would fall at the center of the scale, at neutral, while equal shares trailed out to the positive and negative ends of … Continue reading
The Economist discusses a report from Time published in Language — there’s metatextuality for you! “FROM Time comes a report of a delightful study published in Language. Why does it seem like some languages are spoken faster than others? The answer is that speed depends on the average amount of information packed in a single syllable. It takes … Continue reading
