Easily-distracted Australian professor of linguistics @UniBirmingham, UK.Hearing person interested in sign languages.Opinions my own.He/him.🇦🇺🇲🇹🇪🇺🏳️🌈
Birmingham, England
- Tweets 49,030
- Following 6,572
- Followers 14,431
- Likes 87,690
My mum passed away unexpectedly yesterday morning. I’m about to board my saddest ever journey home to Sydney.
Our last text message was joking about her lack of enthusiasm for the coronation of Australia’s new monarch. We laughed a lot in our 57 years together. 💔
ALT Singapore Airlines A380 at Heathrow Airport
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Non-linguist *meets a linguist*
Linguist's brain:
don’t say it
don’t say it
don’t say it
don’t say it
don’t say it
don’t say it
don’t say it
don’t say it
don’t say it
don’t say it
don’t say it
Non-linguist: 'How many languages do you speak?'
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The govt of my home state in Australia stopped #Trump from building a Sydney casino due to 'mafia connections'. Now he's US President. How? nitter.app/kkeneally/status/89756…
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I'm delighted to be promoted to Professor of Linguistics. I want to acknowledge I would not be here without the support of so many in the Australian and British deaf communities, and I commit to using my position to make academia a better place for deaf students and colleagues.
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At age 22 I was confused and unhappy. I dropped out of university.
I went back and graduated from my BA at 24.
Finished a part-time PhD at 37.
First permanent post at a university at age 45.
Anna is right.
I didn`t start my academic career until I was 30.
I didn`t obtain my PhD until I was 35.
At 20, I thought my life was over🎗️
At 42, I know it`s just the beginning & I signed the contract for my permanent position (tenure track/ assistant professor).
It is never too late to start.
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Would you use ‘close’ to describe still, muggy weather? Are you a speaker of a British English variety?
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Yes I’m a middle aged academic, but I only graduated with my PhD at age 37, was doing postdocs in my 40s and got my first permanent academic position aged 45. I wish I was more confident about my career choices when I was younger, but it took me longer than some to get here.
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I remember as a child reading that Maltese, my father’s first language, was considered a variety of Arabic by some scholars. I told my grandfather, and he got very angry, replying ‘Haqq Alla, (= #%$! God!) it is not Arabic!’
This was my first lesson in language ideologies.
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Truly bizarre to share this news at this difficult time, but I am delighted to announce I have been awarded an ERC Advanced Grant for my project 'The dynamics of sign language grammar: Morphology, language change, iconicity, and social structure in signing communities' #ERCAdvG
📣ERC Advanced Grants results are out! €450 million in funds for 185 researchers.
Full details: bit.ly/2xAPWbm
#ERCAdG 🇪🇺#EUfunded
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I'm a #signlanguage linguist. You know me from my greatest hits, including 'ah, no, sign language is not universal', 'no, sign languages are not based on spoken languages' and 'oh wait, have you ever wondered how it is you managed to believe both those things AT THE SAME TIME?!'.
Hi, I'm an internet linguist. You may know me from my greatest hits "No, texting isn't ruining the English language." "No, emoji aren't either." "Actually, what's going on with punctuation is very subtle and interesting!" and "Oooh, show me an example?"
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Such mixed feelings here.
The hearing world is simply not prepared to accept deaf people as just a different way to be human, is it?
UK toddler has hearing restored in world first gene therapy trial dlvr.it/T6czMY
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Shout out to all of you struggling today.
I’m not ill, I have a good job, I have people who care for me, but I’m not ashamed to say I’m finding this all very, very hard.
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Breaking news: babies can learn language. 🤣
Six-month-old infants with no previous experience with a sign language can extract rules from dynamic linguistic signs in a way that parallels how they process speech signals
nature.com/articles/s41598-0…
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So (hearing) millennials avoiding talking to people on a phone, preferring to text or email, is a definitely a thing isn't it?
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Languages can be seen, heard, felt. They are signed, written, drummed, spoken. They are multimodal/multichannel: e.g., spoken elements co-occur with visible bodily actions.
Inclusive language is accurate language: if you're talking about spoken language(s) only, please say so.
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'Sign language is the natural language of deaf children only when it is the natural language of the home'
Signed languages are the natural languages of deaf people, because they emerge spontaneously wherever deaf people exist. They are part of what it means to be human.1/3
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Please stop circulating this. Deaf communities do not benefit from signing gloves (nature.com/articles/s41928-0…), and the technology does not do what it claims to do. Despite the creators' good intentions, it's all just ableist as hell, centring signing deaf people as the problem.
Developed by two 19-year-old students, these gloves translate sign language into sound.
[📹 LemelsonMIT]
nitter.app/IntEngineering/status/…"
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Just read the news of @AnneliesKusters promotion to (full) professor. Annelies is the first deaf professor in the UK in the field of Deaf Studies and sign language research. So very well-deserved! Congratulations!
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I just love linguistics merch. @lingthusiasm
ALT Adam holding a white mug with red bouba and kiki symbols on it.
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A colleague here on Twitter has come out as bi and another as trans today.
Although it’s well intentioned, non-LGBT+ folks please don’t respond with ‘you don’t really need to do this: I don’t mind if you’re bi.’
Coming out *is* important and it’s a huge step for many of us.
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After 16 months of limited contact with anyone apart from my boyfriend, I slipped today over the first lunch I've had with university colleagues in months, and called one of them 'babe'.
Shoot me now.
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Linguists, a friendly Friday morning reminder that language ≠ spoken language.
If your dataset only includes spoken languages, please just say so.
Let's make linguistics a little more accurate and inclusive. Thanks.
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She can’t even bring herself to use the language trans people prefer for themselves (‘trans identified’).
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Take it from me, as a gay man who struggled for years for parental acceptence, and as a linguist, who’s seen language deprivation in deaf children and adults, parents don’t always know best for their children. Often they need advice, support, education and sometimes intervention.
"Parents know best for their children."
When asked about protests over LGBT classes, Tory leadership candidate Esther McVey told #Sunrise parents should have "final say on what they want their children to know".
Teachers are in tears as the row worsens: po.st/7vsnwi
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I came out as gay at age 14 to my parents. They didn't believe me.
I came out again aged 19, then I left home.
I'm 58 now. Still gay af.
Listen to LGBT+ kids. When they tell you who they are, believe them. #NationalComingOutDay
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We should have a museum of language in the UK, and it should be based here in Birmingham. As a community that suffers from awful accent prejudice, having it here in Brum would send a nice clear signal about the value of sociolinguistic diversity.
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Very cool video!
Manual babbling has been known about for quite some time so this isn't surprising for sign language researchers, but this is a great example of it.
(Note too 'hearing impaired' is not a term that most deaf and hard of hearing people use to describe themselves)
Here’s one of the most fascinating child development videos I’ve ever shared.
As your baby learns language, they begin by approximating the examples you set.
After a period of early experimentation with sound (including cries, coos and gurgles), infants begin babbling - making speech-like sounds (which often include components of conventional speech) that are - nonetheless - not yet conventionally meaningful.
This babbling phase is a precursor to the use of formal words. And it happens in all languages.
Including sign language.
This video shows an infant (who, by the way, is not hearing impaired) “babbling” to her deaf grandparents.
As they sign to her, she responds in kind, using her hands to approximate the signed communication that they are modeling.
It’s a whole serve and return conversation, just as if they were conversing verbally.
If you’ll watch carefully, you’ll note distinct turn taking.
And - interestingly - that with her grandparents she largely avoids vocalizations, in favor of gesture.
What a treat to see this rich example of bilingual language development.
This fascinating video was shared to TT by mara_mccullough.
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As a gay man, I will name this as I see it: this is nothing more than conversion therapy for deaf children.
Let deaf children be deaf!
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My cousin in Sydney sent me a video of two rainbow lorikeets eating her sandwich.
I miss the in-your-face-ness of Australian birdlife.
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Back to campus training: Thanks @unibirmingham but I can’t say I find the graphic about imagining a tiger between me and a colleague/student very useful, given my limited experience of such arrangements. 🤣
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I’m passionate about linguistics and believe in the value of the work I do. I also believe there is much work to be done to make the discipline realise its potential.
Sometimes it all seems trivial in the face of challenges like climate change though, yes? It’s not just me right?
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Happy #PronounsDay! My pronouns are he/him/his. A reminder that the World Atlas of Language Structures suggests many of the world's languages, unlike English, make no gender distinctions in independent third person pronouns. wals.info/chapter/44
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Vale William Labov.
Inspired by a colleague on X, my favourite Bill Labov quote is:
“I have resisted the term *sociolinguistics* for many years, since it implies that there can be a successful linguistic theory or practice which is not social.”
Thank you for everything, Bill.
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My thoughts when hearing people are disappointed there's no universal #signlanguage: yes, it's SO sad because the millions of people who all speak English all get along with each other so well, don’t they, and if more people spoke it, it would solve all the world’s problems, yes?
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Super ironic that sign languages, so admired for their beauty and expressiveness and used to hot house the linguistic development of hearing kids, are dismissed and devalued by health professionals and educators, and seen only as languages of last resort for deaf children.
Super ironic that Black English speech is dismissed and devalued as being linguistically broken, and at the same time is one of the richest sources of lexical innovation in English
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Repeat after me: #signedlanguages use more than just the hands and are not signed equivalents of spoken language lexicogrammar. Also: did you ask any #deaf people if they felt this should be a research priority?
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Happy International Day of Sign Languages! #Auslan #BSL #ASL #IDSL2021 #IDSL @Eng_Lang_UoB @unibirmingham #IWDP2021
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Happy International Day of Sign Languages. I’d like to thank Deaf people from Australia, the UK and around the world for teaching me your beautiful languages. #IDSL2018 #SignLanguagesDay
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BREAKING: UK Government sued over lack of sign language interpreter at COVID briefings | The Limping Chicken limpingchicken.com/2020/12/1…
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Interesting language ideologies at work here.
It's 'all languages' versus 'sign language'? So (1) sign languages are not included in 'all languages' and (2) 'sign language' (in the singular), and not 'sign languages' (in the plural) is used, in contrast with 'all languages'.
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Being active on Linguistics Twitter, I'm exposed more than I ever was to the disappointment of many who never get the offer of an academic job. It's brutal out there: over the last year, too many scholars I admire have given up trying to apply for university posts.
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I have just posted apologies to my students for delays in uploading online teaching material. I have struggled to concentrate on work. I don't know how everyone else is coping, but I have found the drastic changes to all our lives hugely challenging, and this is only the start.
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Very sad news. But this needs to be worded with care to avoid creating a misleading impression. Koko did not learn sign language. Koko mastered a number of modified American Sign Language signs: it’s not the same thing. @olliemilman @guardian
Oh no - Koko, the gorilla that learned sign language, has died at 46 cbsnews.com/news/koko-gorill…
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Please if you take your laptop with you to the loo while waiting for an online seminar to start, remember to turn your camera off. 😳
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Repeat after me, colleagues: European SPOKEN languages.
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I am honoured to have been elected a Corresponding Fellow. I owe everything to my many collaborators and colleagues, deaf and hearing, who have supported me throughout my career. I’m in amazing company, elected alongside colleagues like Jenny Green and @FelicityMeakins.
Election to the Australian Academy of Humanities is the highest honour for achievement in and contribution to the humanities in Australia and today, 37 new members have been elected to the Fellowship. Welcome, and congratulations! humanities.org.au/news/annou…
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I admire your work enormously, fellow academic.
I stopped following you, however, when I noticed all your likes of gender critical material on Twitter.
I'm sorry, because we've met in person and I enjoyed your company.
But this gender critical stuff is tearing my community apart
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Heartbroken. We have lost a ground-breaking scholar, an amazing advocate for deaf and disabled communities and steadfast ally to LGBT folk.
I learned so much from Jon, and he has left us with such a powerful legacy. Condolences to his family and friends.
Many of you know that @jmhenner (Jon Henner) has been giving the finger to cancer for the last 6 years. I'm heartbroken to tell you that Jon left this mortal coil Monday, August 14th at 7:16am.
Details about where to send condolences will be posted in the next couple of days.
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My Fitbit just ‘auto-recognised’ a few minutes of using British Sign Language as a short ‘swimming’ session, and gave me a calorie count.
I’m dead. 😂
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Gender critical thinking seems to share a lot with linguistic prescriptivism. It’s all about what should or should not be, and not actually acknowledging the diversity of human behaviour.
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'Cis/cisgender' is only a slur for people who do not wish to recognise trans people exist.
I never used the term 'hearing person' about myself until I learned a signed language. Imagine if we said this was a slur (i.e., we're not hearing, we're just 'normal')?
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On #mentalhealthday2019, I want to acknowledge all those academics who, like me, moved alone to take up a new job in another part of the world. I did this in Jan 2016, and that year I experienced the worst loneliness and depression of my life. Let's look out for each other more.
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Sociolinguists, not only do we need to educate the public better about language variation and change, but we also need to talk to more of our fellow linguists. It seems some typologists are not aware of what sociolinguistics can teach us about social meaning and language change.
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So announcements are made in both spoken and written English, but nobody complains.
Add in BSL, a different language that provides access for deaf people, and somehow it’s a problem.
Edinburgh station has video screens playing out the departures in ‘British sign language’ right above the boards where it’s written in English that deaf people can, presumably, read.
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I came out age 14 to my parents. I had known I was gay for some time already. This was in 1980. Male homosexuality was illegal in my home state of NSW, Australia, at the time. My parents told me I was too young to know anything, and took me to a psychiatrist. #ComingOutDay 1/5
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Only at university did I meet other LGBT+ people, and began slowly to accept and even celebrate who I was. I came out to friends and again to my parents at age 19, and moved out of home soon after.
When young people tell you who they are, believe them and support them. 5/5
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Possibly unpopular opinion: I love wugs, but I’m a bit over how they appear to be such a mascot for the field of linguistics. After all, they reflect a focus on the acquisition of form, and on English, which hardly represents the diversity of the field.
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If a hospital couldn’t move me when I was copping homophobic abuse from a straight male patient back in 2010 when the NHS was less stretched for resources, I don’t know they’re going to manage any of this now!
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Yes, sign languages are beautiful but did you know hearing parents are told not to sign with their deaf children by hearing professionals and have to fork out thousands of £ of their own money to learn to sign and to talk to their own kids? #SignLanguageWeek
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After my interview this morning, the Head of the College of Arts and Law here at @unibirmingham is recommending that I be promoted from lecturer to reader! I can't keep it to myself, even though it's not official until April. Hooray! :-)
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Every linguist should read one of these:
Baker, A., et al. (2016). The linguistics of sign languages: An introduction.
Hill, J.C. et al. (2019). Sign languages: Structures and contexts.
Wilkinson, E. & Morford, J.P. (2024). Understanding signed languages.
#linguistics
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Happy #SignLanguageWeek. I'm off to Leeds University today to give a talk about sign language linguistics. Perfect timing!
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Both are fine. It’s actually language policing that is the problem here.
Social media users have criticised the Princess of Wales's use of "William and me" instead of "William and I". Catherine is actually correct, however, but most Britons aren't aware of this
Think "William and me" is correct: 22%
Think "William and I" is correct: 56%
Think both are correct: 13%
Think neither is correct: 4%
yougov.co.uk/topics/society/…
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Singular 'they' voted word of the decade by US linguists theguardian.com/world/2020/j…
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Wow, now it’s being posted by the university. 👍
No, no pressure. Not feeling nervous at all. 😬 😂 @DJ_Gibbs
How is sign language?
Join our @Eng_Lang_UoB Professor @AdamCSchembri for his inaugural lecture on campus
🗓️ Thurs 14 March
🕕 6-7pm
👉🏼 Register for the event here: birmingham.ac.uk/schools/eda…
ALT Prof Adam Schembri on campus at the University of Birmingham
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Just got my invitation for a vaccination appointment for this coming Friday!
Right now, I'm SO pleased to be 55 years old. 🤣
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I would hope you’d make an exception when you need to help your sign language interpreters prepare.
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Over ten years living in the UK have failed to teach me that washing machines in kitchens isn’t weird.
See also light switches outside bathrooms.
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I will keep repeating this until I become #THATguy, but #linguists, if you talk about the #languages in a region, or the number of language families, please remember to include #signlanguages. If you can't, then please use spoken languages when you generalise. Thanks!
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I guess I shouldn't be surprised that second year English Language and Linguistics students are still describing themselves or others as 'not having (much of) an accent' in our first seminar today.
Sociolinguistics this semester with me will soon fix that. 🤣
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I am really not comfortable with reimbursement culture for early career researchers. It’s fine for more senior academics with greater financial security to pay for a big expense up front and then seek reimbursement from their employer later, but others no.
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Content warning: shocking ignorance about sign languages and deaf people in the post, the quote tweets, and comments.
Right wingers punching down at inclusion is sadly not a new low.
It's absolutely nuts that the deaf are a like 1% of the population and get maybe a fifth of the screen. Don't we already have a closed caption option? Do we really need to be distracting everyone with someone waving their hands in the air?
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I’m happy to discuss criticism of my work, but there’s a difference between trolling and debating. Dismissing over 500 deaf participants in our research, and my many signing deaf academic collaborators, as ‘fake’ will earn a block from me every time. I don’t apologise for that.
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