Sociolinguistics

The Unseen Rules of Texting Tone

A period can feel aggressive, while an exclamation point is the new digital smile. We decode the new, unwritten rules…

4 months ago

Covert Prestige: Why We Admire ‘Bad’ Language

We're all taught to admire 'proper' speech, but we're often drawn to non-standard dialects and slang. This phenomenon is known…

4 months ago

The First Language Ban: The Story of the Acadian Expulsion

The Acadian Expulsion of 1755 was far more than a military maneuver; it was one of North America's first major…

4 months ago

Reading a City: The Dialects of Lima

To listen to Lima is to hear the story of Peru itself. The capital's Spanish is a vibrant urban sociolect,…

4 months ago

Is Castilian Spanish the ‘Original’?

Many Spanish learners are told they must learn "Castilian" Spanish, the supposedly "pure" or "original" form of the language. This…

4 months ago

Llanito: The Code of Gibraltar

Discover Llanito, the fascinating linguistic code of Gibraltar that fluently mixes Andalusian Spanish and British English, often within a single…

4 months ago

Chavacano: The Spanish Creole of Asia

Journey to the Philippines to discover Chavacano, a unique Spanish-based creole that blends the vocabulary of colonizers with the grammatical…

4 months ago

Why Mandarin Will (or Won’t) Become the Next Global Language

With China's economic might and over a billion native speakers, is Mandarin destined to replace English as the world's lingua…

4 months ago

What Countries Speak Mandarin? The Answer May Surprise You

When you think of Mandarin, you probably think of China. But the world's most spoken language is also an official…

4 months ago

Mandarin vs. Cantonese: Can They Really Not Understand Each Other?

Mandarin and Cantonese are often mistakenly called "dialects" of the same language, but can their speakers actually understand each other?…

4 months ago

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