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The Spoken BNC2014 project features in the Daily Mail
The recently announced collaboration between Cambridge University Press and CASS, the Spoken BNC2014 project, has made headlines in the Daily Mail. The article, entitled, “No longer marvellous – now we’re all awesome: Britons are using more American words because traditional English is in decline”, describes the preliminary findings of the project, which is in its…
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In memory: Professor Geoffrey Leech
It is with great sorrow that we report the death on 19th August of Professor Geoffrey Leech. Geoff was not only the founder of the UCREL research centre for corpus linguistics at Lancaster University, he was also the first Professor and founding Head of the Department of Linguistics and English Language. His contributions to linguistics –…
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Gypsies, tramps and thieves? UK national newspaper depictions of Romanians and Bulgarians analysed
British tabloid newspapers repeatedly associated Romanians – but not Bulgarians – with criminality and anti-social behavior during 2012-2013, a comprehensive new “big data” report by Oxford University’s Migration Observatory shows. The report Bulgarians and Romanians in the British national press was undertaken by CASS Challenge Panel Member William Allen and Dora-Olivia Vicol at the Migration Observatory at Oxford University.…
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How to be a PhD student (by someone who just was), Part 3: Towards the viva
After successfully defending my viva early this year, I’ve been sharing some of the lessons I learned over my 38 months as a PhD student. In this installment, I talk about powering through your final year and preparing for your viva. If you missed the previous entries, click through to read Part 1 (Preparing for the…
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New working paper on “Changing Climate and Society: The Surprising Case of Brazil” now available
Why is Brazil unique when it comes to climate change? Brazil is a major emerging economy and it is the sixth-largest emitter of greenhouse gases. However, its fossil fuel-based emissions are low by global standards. Brazil has been innovative in developing some relevant low carbon ways of generating energy and pioneered significant transport innovations. It…
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A Journey into Transcription, Part 2: Getting Started
training: MASS VERB: The action of teaching a person or animal a particular skill or type of behaviour. So how to begin? With experts as our guides (and thankfully no animals in sight!)… The Context: The first week was to be dedicated to training. We began by watching a short video clip of a Trinity examination in…
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Reflections from the CASS student challenge panel member, part 3
Pamela Irwin, this year’s CASS student challenge panel member, is looking back on her past year of research. This is part 3 of her reflections — need to catch up on the others? Click here to read part 1, or here to read part 2. Lately, I have been examining sociolinguistics and its related sub-disciplines as part of…
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Reflections from the CASS student challenge panel member, part 2
Pamela Irwin, this year’s CASS student challenge panel member, is looking back on her past year of research. This is part 2 of her reflections — did you miss part 1? Click here to catch up. As my research is predicated on a realist ontology, I have been concerned that it is at odds with…
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A Journey into Transcription, Part 1: Our Approach
To Transcribe: VERB: to put (thoughts, speech, or data) into written or printed form origin: mid 16th century (in the sense ‘make a copy in writing’): from Latin transcribere, from trans- ‘across’ + scribere ‘write’ In September 2013 we applied for the post of Audio Transcriber in the CASS Office in the Department of Linguistics…
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Reflections from the CASS student challenge panel member, part 1
Each year, one student from an outside institution is appointed to ‘challenge‘ CASS with concepts from their own novel research. Pamela Irwin, the 2013/2014 student challenge panel member, is beginning to wrap up her ‘term’, and has put together a series of reflections on the process. Read the first entry below. I am a mature…
CASS Briefings
CASS: Briefings is a series of short, quick reads on the work being done at the ESRC/CASS research centre at Lancaster University, UK.