Articles

Universal language and Universal Grammar

Mireia Llinas-Grau looks at Zamenhof’s and Chomsky’s motivations and concerns

Learning a second language

Gabriela Valenzuela on why some people speak a foreign language more proficiently than others

Planet Word

Ann B. Friedman on establishing a language museum

Mind your grammar

Daniel Van Olmen, Marta Andersson, Jonathan Culpeper and Riccardo Giomi explain how impoliteness is embedded in the structures of language

Regular features

  • Language in the news
    The King’s speech

  • Letters from a linguist
    Did Tommy Cooper’s fez really come from Morocco?

  • Diary of a linguist
    The language around us

  • Lives in language
    Victoria Alexandra Fromkin (1923-2000)

  • Meet the professionals
    Writer Danny Bate

  • Infographic
    The Digital Language Divide and the top 10 most used Sign Languages

  • Kill the joke
    Funny names

  • The word hoard
    Runes

  • Languages of the world
    Urartian

  • Giving voice a voice
    Speaking out!

  • A clash of symbols
    [q] tips

  • What has rhetoric ever done for us?
    Character and style

  • Linguistic horizons
    Experimental pragmatics

  • Language games
    Glarking Hackish

  • Reviews
    Jesse Sheidlower (editor) – The F Word; Ben Yagoda – Gobsmacked!