Media

Lauren Gawne recaps last night’s Linguistics in the Pub, a monthly informal gathering of linguists in Melbourne to discuss topical areas in our field.

This month’s Linguistics in the Pub meet-up in Melbourne focused on a topic relevant not only to those involved in language documentation but to all linguists – How can we engage the general public in what we do. Although the discussion was ostensibly lead by Ruth Singer and myself, everyone was able to bring their experiences to the discussion and this summary includes the wisdom of all those who attended, and even someone who didn’t.

We started out by looking at communicating with the public using the blogosphere. Blogging has been a useful tool for academics looking to reach a broader audience due to the relatively small overhead compared to other forms of media and the general voraciousness of the internet-reading public. We started off by discussing the more general linguistics blogs out there. While those such as Language Log and Johnson have large readerships they do focus heavily on English, and largely on debates around English usage and pedantry. Fully (Sic) in Australia has a much broader and inclusive focus and should be used more by linguists who wish to share their work in a way that is inclusive, accessible but not ‘dumbed down.’

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