With the taboo on swearing loosening over the past few decades, will profanity lose its effectiveness in spoken language?
Academic rigour, journalistic flair
Articles on Language
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A unique mentoring project has helped school pupils learn the cultural, professional and personal benefits of languages.
A beautiful interactive SBS online documentary puts the spotlight on Marra, an Indigenous language spoken fluently by just three people.
The right-wing press is using a particularly out of date ideology to link language change and immigration.
Auto-translation software has been pretty frustrating to use. But news of vast improvements to Google’s translation software raises the prospect that websites will soon be browsable in any language.
Universities pay too little attention to the knowledge and experiences that students bring to their institutions from different cultures and backgrounds.
Family Court judge Peter Jackson has been widely praised for rendering his judgement in simple English.
Skepta’s Mercury Prize win has put grime – and youth culture – in the spotlight.
If we’re serious about freedom of speech, we need a more open and respectful discussion about words that cause insult and offence.
Humans have invented many technologies to survive better – spears, pots, calculators, even language. With language, however, the raw material used to fashion the technology is the human body itself.
India and Pakistan wanted to replace colonial English with national languages after independence. The process is still far from over.
Schools and universities in post-colonial contexts still operate within the logic of coloniality. This is starkly illustrated by their language policies.
The use of adjectives in English has caused an internet storm – here are the ‘rules’ explained.
When botany and linguistics collide: pumpkins are fruits and there’s technically no such thing as a vegetable. But try telling that to a five-year-old and see how far you get.
A “passion” was once thought of as a love or desire so irresistible as to take one to the threshold of death. What are we to make, then, of a passion for innovation or management consulting? What’s happening to our words?
Some argue that it would be impossible to understand an alien language, as it wouldn’t have the same grammar as humans use. But others are more optimistic.
500m posts are made daily on Twitter alone. Policing them is no easy task.
Our mixed feelings about ageing are clearly revealed in the language we use to talk about it.
For centuries, written communication was tinged with formality and finality. But since the emergence of casual forms like texting, using proper grammar can be fraught with misinterpretation.
What impact can offensive language have? Is it really a case of ‘political correctness gone mad’?
Top contributors
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Senior Lecturer in Linguistics, Monash University
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Professor of Linguistics, Monash University
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Course coordinator, The University of Queensland
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Associate Dean and Professor of Psychology, University of Memphis
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Professor of English Language and Literature, University of Oxford
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Professor of Linguistics, University of York
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Associate Professor in Linguistics, Macquarie University
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Associate Professor in Language, Literacy and TESL, University of Canberra
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Professor of Linguistics and English, Florida International University
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Professor of African Language Studies, University of the Western Cape
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Postdoctoral research fellow (Forensic Linguistics/ Language and Law), University of the Western Cape
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Professor, Charles Darwin University
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Professor of Communication and Journalism, Texas A&M University
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Director, Office of Scholarly Communication and Publishing, University of Pittsburgh
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Professor of Linguistics
