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Language and social reality are mutually reinforcing; as a result, natural language processing (NLP) presents a unique opportunity to shift social reality at scale, advancing social justice by promoting linguistic justice. We provide an overview of how language and bias are intertwined and implications for building NLP tools that actively advance equity and inclusion. Then, we present a framework for centering inclusion and social justice in NLP design at four overlapping layers of linguistic structure. As I often tell my students, there are two ways you can use your will in the world, one is violence and the other is language. If we accept that lanaguage is a source of power, then we can't also say that it doesn't matter. I am old. I l have lived through people losing their minds over Chairwoman or Chairperson or Chair. There will be pushback, much of it will be bad faith, but we can only push forward as every moral case demands. New technology, like Natural Language Processing and AI will require fresh engagement.

#AI #linguistics #artifcial intelligence #NLP

A very productive quick chat today that brought up two interesting ideas. 1. Young people seem to have more complicated emotional lives now because they're much better equipped to talk about it, or even talk abouit it at all. But the question was, does this also, to some extent, some of the time, induce the feelings? Like a great aunt that would read medical stories all the time and believed that she had all these diseases, when, perhaps, it was something else. How does 'depressed' work as a clinical term or as a generalised term for being sad. Are we more precise now, or less precise in a clinical sense? Which led to me to a further thought, is there a Sapir-Whorf effect on metal health and how ee see our inner life?

2. In thirty years we've move from the transition of, with emails and messaging, the formalised written style to a more spoken style in writing. But now it seems most of our communication, in life at work, is written. Words are often stripped from context and interpreted in our own mind state at the times and this calls for even more advanced application of social skills in writing. For ESL students, writing can't be seen as the realm of spelling an grammar but as a demanding and sophisticated social space.

#language #ESL #linguistics #mental health

xjmlm

deadmomjokes

What I love about this, though, is that the little nails will become an outline of where the water was. It will trace the shape, show someone later what was there once upon a time. It will be a testament to how much this guy wanted to capture the amazing things he saw and experienced, and though it will never truly keep it, it will hold a memory, something that in itself is beautiful and worthy of experience. We cannot describe the indescribable, but we can trace its outline, give some idea of what we experienced.

official-linguistics-post

official linguistics post

#calvin and hobbes #neurodiversity #adhd #study

nevver

Nope, Roz Chast

#no

blackswaneuroparedux

Everywhere I go, I’m asked if I think the universities stifle writers. My opinion is that they don’t stifle enough of them. There’s many a best seller that could have been prevented by a good teacher.

- Flannery O'Connor

#flannery o'connor #quote #literature #education

Amazing resource of early 21st century literacy teaching research just filtering itself in about now.

#linguistics #literacy

How minimizing language hurts women’s careers, how to stop apologizing unnecessarily, and what to say instead.

#linguistics #language

#linguistics #politeness #language

sociolinguo

Gija people are known across Australia and globally for their striking artwork. Now, after decades of painstaking work, the beauty of their language is there for all to read.

“Gija elder Shirley Purdie likes the naughty words in her ancient language.

She admits they can be used to keep misbehaving children in line.

“Funny sort of words … a bit sweary … that say, ‘you’re no good’.”

The senior Indigenous artist and respected elder in the community of Warmun is one of a dwindling generation who speaks Gija fluently.

The words spoken to her as a child on Mabel Downs Station are now part of a Gija language dictionary.”

#linguistics #Indigenous languages #swearing

linguisticdiscovery

Learning to chill about language

A review of linguist Valerie Fridland’s new book, Like, literally, dude: Arguing for the good in bad English:

No need to, like, apologize for scattering one’s speech with words and phrases that, you know, signal an effort at ‘cognitive retrieval.’

Grab a copy here!

Like, Literally, Dude: Arguing for the Good in Bad English - Kindle edition by Fridland, Valerie. Download it once and read it on your Kindl

#English #linguistics #language

Generate random words, nouns, verbs, adjectives, letters, phrases, sentences or numbers to brainstorm and create new ideas at Random Word Ge

Handy!

#esl #language #pronunciation

Please note: this post was written in collaboration with Steve Smith of www.frenchteacher.net 1.Introduction A point that I have often made

sociolinguo

Gawker is running a competition, tournament style, to see which accent will be crowned "America's Ugliest." In the running are 16 cities in the US, and...

“Anticipating some reactions to this post, no, I’m not some grey humorless lump. But just because something is framed as a game doesn’t make it fun, and it doesn’t make it funny. For example, take Gawker’s paragraph about New Orleans:

New Orleans is a steaming, fetid stew of aural bile, home to everything from the deep Cajun bayou accent to the Yat dialect, which derives from Irish, French, German, and even Italian into one completely incomprehensible mess. You need only watch this clip on the number of ways residents pronounce the city’s name and neighborhoods and read this excellent article on the hodgepodge of New Orleans’ accents to see how varied, and uniformly ugly, it all is.

Hilarious stuff. Even if there was some intrinsic humor to that paragraph, instead of just raw nastiness, it would be important to reflect on who we’re making fun of, and why. And on that count, I think the fella who compiled the Yat dictionary summarizes it well:

Keep reading

depsidase

stubborndodecahedron

I need more of these

zenyeetaa

tag your favorite combo, mine’s “poop goblin”

roach-works

dirt hat is cracking me up because it's very funny to say but no one, apparently, has ever said it

teratocybernetics

'wankgoblin' is great how has nobody used that

saxifraga-x-urbium

well i’m fucking using it now

sociolinguo

Linguists Ben Zimmer and Nicolle Holliday discussed the history of colloquial slang within the English language, noting which has staying power.

“Linguists Ben Zimmer and Nicolle Holliday discussed the history of colloquial slang within the English language for Wired. The knowledgable pair note the origins of known slang terms, how some become very popular but fizzle out, and how others have remarkable staying power.”

#slang #register #linguistics

Sendit, Yolo, NGL: anonymous social apps are taking over once more, but they aren't without risks

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