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Andrew Smith

@andrewdmsmith.bsky.social
516 followers 347 following 16 posts

Linguist at Stirling University. Cànanaiche. Cognitive linguistics, language evolution, grammaticalisation, metaphor, Gàidhlig, languages, Scottish and UK politics, football (Burnley/ East Stirlingshire/ groundhopping), music, maps, cats, other stuff.

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Reposted by Andrew Smith
Deep Baltic @deepbaltic.bsky.social · 08/06/2026
Lithuanian and Latvian are the two main surviving members of the unusual Baltic family, but have had quite different influences in recent centuries – people who have learnt both languages (whether native Balts or foreigners) reflect on their similarities and contrasts deepbaltic.com/2026/06/08/h...
deepbaltic.com
How Do the Two Main Baltic Languages Differ? Locals and Foreigners Speak
Latvian and Lithuanian are the two major surviving languages from the highly idiosyncratic Baltic family – a third member, Old Prussian, fell out of use in the 18th century. Some consider variants lik...
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Dr Keighley Perkins @perkinskeighley.bsky.social · 14/05/2026
A new study led by researchers at @cardiffuni.bsky.social has used a modified version of Minecraft to explore how symbolic communication might have evolved. 🔗 tinyurl.com/kjy5ce8y 🧵👇 #langsky #linguistics #language
tinyurl.com
Minecraft study sheds new light on how language may have evolved
Cardiff University researchers have used Minecraft to explore why early humans may have started inventing shared signals
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Stefan Hartmann @stefanhartmann.bsky.social · 26/04/2026
Out now: The full proceedings volume of this year's #Evolang @evolangconf.bsky.social - 575 pages full of interdisciplinary research on the origins and evolution of language! doi.org/10.17617/2.3...
Cover of the Evolang 2026 proceedings. The text reads "The Evolution of Language. Proceedings of the 16th International Conference. Editors: Stefan Hartmann, Marta Sibierska, Marlen Fröhlich, Yannick Jadoul, Mathilde Josserand, Theresa Matzinger, Katie Mudd, Jonas Nölle, Michael Pleyer, Sławomir Wacewicz, Przemysław Żywiczyński"
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Martin Haspelmath @haspelmath.bsky.social · 22/04/2026
Version 1.0 of the Grammaticon is now online! This has been in the making for over eight years. Quite a few of the entries are still preliminary, but I hope to expand and improve it over the coming months and years. Comments are welcome! An intro text is here: dlc.hypotheses.org/4316
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𝚃𝚊𝚛𝚊𝚜 𝙶𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚌𝚘𝚎 🚇 @taras-grescoe.com · 18/12/2025
#Rome has two new metro stations! This week, Line C opened the Porta Metronia and Colosseo-Fori Imperiali stations, which double as museums of Imperial Rome. #Roma #transit Here's an eye-opening plunge into Colosseo-Fori:
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Michael Pleyer @symbolicstorage.bsky.social · 25/11/2025
🚨NEW PUBLICATION ALERT!🚨 The 'Design Features' of Language Revisited (w/ @mperlman.bsky.social @glupyan.bsky.social Koen de Reus & @limorraviv.bsky.social) Feature Review out now in #OpenAccess in @cp-trendscognsci.bsky.social! #language #linguistics Paper: doi.org/10.1016/j.ti...
The title page
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T Hoffmann @linguistur.bsky.social · 17/11/2025
Coming soon - Turner & Hoffmann on Creative Construction Grammar. In this, we argue that the domain-general process of Conceptual Blending is the cognitive operation that combines constructions. BTW this will be published open access! www.cambridge.org/core/element...
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Richard Blythe @dralgernon.bsky.social · 12/11/2025
Interacting agents can create shared communication systems without ever knowing if signals are successfully received. The conventionalisation process involves a curious interaction between joint attention and individual behavioural differences. doi.org/10.1371/jour.... Work with Casimir Fisch.
doi.org
Exploiting individual differences to bootstrap communication
Author summary A fundamental question in the field of language evolution is how a communication system can emerge in a population that is initially unable to communicate. One theory is that human comm...
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Cambridge University Press - Linguistics @cambup-linguistics.cambridge.org · 01/10/2025
"A compelling and thought-provoking analysis of human sociality and the origins of language." The Interaction Engine by Stephen C. Levinson (@mpi-nl.bsky.social), Out Now & #OpenAccess cup.org/4nusznG #OA #Linguistics #LangSky 🐦🐦
Abstract painting of two people gesturing
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Mustafa Uçar @mustafaucar.bsky.social · 20/07/2025
Hang it in the Louvre
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Viola Wiegand @violawiegand.bsky.social · 02/07/2025
The data is actually part of my forthcoming book, ”Exploring Meaning in Surveillance Discourses through Corpora“ - available to pre-order now (with a discount code 😉 😇), and coming out in March 2026 (so stay tuned ☺️) #cl2025 @cl2025.co.uk @bloomsburyacad.bsky.social
EXPLORING MEANING IN
SUPVEILLANCE
DISCOURSESCORPORA
BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC
Pre-order now at 35% off:
Exploring Meaning in Surveillance
Discourses through Corpora
Viola Wiegand
This book takes a fresh perspective on surveillance, examining how it is defined, discussed, and negotiated in different domains of public discourse

Use the following discount code to save 35% on bloomsbury.com/9781350501515:
BLOOM-CONF-26

March 2026

Situated at the interface of corpus linguistics, discourse analysis, sociolinguistics, and surveillance studies, this book focuses on how surveillance is defined, discussed, and negotiated in public discourses. It analyses different meaning components of the cultural keyword of surveillance - inherently linked to power relations - in ongoing debates of public discourses.
The author looks at the representation of surveillance in different discourse domains through three different studies - the prime academic joural in surveillance studies (Surveillance & Society), The Times newspaper, and the signage of public spaces. The first two studies illustrate implementations of a novel method of 'co-occurrence comparisons' in diachronic analyses of collocation. The final study integrates cutting-edge research on the multimodal representation of surveillance in public spaces.
Adopting the sociolinguistic framework of 'surveillant landscapes' from mediated discourses analysis, this analysis reveals how surveillant practices are signalled in public environments. To capture the textual and material representation of surveillance in a collection of photographs from public spaces in multiple cities across Europe, North America, and Asia, the study presents a novel methodology combining corpus and qualitative methods for the analysis of multimodal data.

Viola Wiegand is Lecturer in Education (TESOL) at the University of Stirling, UK.
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Martin Haspelmath @haspelmath.bsky.social · 30/06/2025
Interested in Balkan languages? The definitive reference work has arrived – on 1000 pages, in open access. www.cambridge.org/core/books/b...
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Lauren Gawne @superlinguo.bsky.social · 30/06/2025
A Decade of Lingwiki: An informal history 2025 marks ten years of lingwik. I like round numbers, documenting informal histories and lingwiki, and so I wanted to celebrate this anniversary by sharing the parts of the lingwiki story I am familiar with. www.superlinguo.com/post/7870922...
superlinguo.com
A Decade of Lingwiki: An informal history Lingwiki...
A Decade of Lingwiki: An informal history Lingwiki is the name used for an informal network of people and events with the aim of improving the representation of linguistics on Wikipedia. Whether it’...
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Caroline Rowland @carorowland.bsky.social · 27/06/2025
Children are incredible language learning machines. But how do they do it? Our latest paper, just published in TICS, synthesizes decades of evidence to propose four components that must be built into any theory of how children learn language. 1/ www.cell.com/trends/cogni... @mpi-nl.bsky.social
cell.com
Constructing language: a framework for explaining acquisition
Explaining how children build a language system is a central goal of research in language acquisition, with broad implications for language evolution, adult language processing, and artificial intelli...
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Olli Silvennoinen @ollisilv.bsky.social · 24/06/2025
Some years ago, I started to notice the phrase 'going forward' in the sense 'in the future, from now on'. When @tanjasaily.fi and Turo Vartiainen organised a workshop on constructional creativity and innovation and asked me to join, I decided to take a closer look. Here is the result:
doi.org
Going forward as an adverb | English Language & Linguistics | Cambridge Core
Going forward as an adverb
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Andrew Smith @andrewdmsmith.bsky.social · 29/05/2025
Wow!
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spencer roberts 🦈 @unpopularscience.bsky.social · 09/05/2025
I will forever be haunted by this footage. Trawling has only been filmed underwater a few times in documentary history, and never with such clarity. What’s so heart-rending about these shots is watching how the animals don’t just get swept up — they swim for their lives. 🌎🦑🧪
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Peter Geoghegan @petergeoghegan.bsky.social · 24/04/2025
🔴 Remember Aria, the “moonshot" research agency dreamed up by Dominic Cummings? It's funded by £800m in public money but exempt from FOI laws We decided to fight for transparency... and we won 🎉 New on Democracy for Sale w/ @lucasamin.bsky.social democracyforsale.substack.com/p/dominic-cu...
democracyforsale.substack.com
Democracy for Sale 1, Dominic Cummings 0
We fought to expose the £800m research agency that Cummings built to escape scrutiny - and we won.
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Cognition @cognitionjournal.bsky.social · 22/04/2025
"Words acquire new meanings by creative processes of semantic extension. We studied this experimentally: participants conventionalise novel labels with a partner, then extend labels to convey new meanings. Salient shared associations facilitated figurative semantic extensions." See link below!
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Andrew Smith @andrewdmsmith.bsky.social · 18/04/2025
New article in @cognitionjournal.bsky.social with @kennysmithed.bsky.social and Josie Bowerman. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
sciencedirect.com
Semantic extension in a novel communication system is facilitated by salient shared associations
Creative processes of semantic extension play a key role in language change, grammaticalisation, and (by hypothesis) the early origins and evolution o…
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Andrew Smith @andrewdmsmith.bsky.social · 15/04/2025
New paper on metonymic and metaphorical semantic extension in a novel communication system with @kennysmithed.bsky.social and Josie Bowerman out in Cognition. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
kennysmithed.bsky.social
Kenny Smith (@kennysmithed.bsky.social)
Professor of evolutionary linguistics at Edinburgh. Cyclist, runner, climber, coward.
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Satan’s Niece @krissychula.bsky.social · 06/04/2025
This is high art
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George Monbiot @georgemonbiot.bsky.social · 29/03/2025
You think the arbitrary arrest of political dissenters cannot happen in the UK? It already does. www.quaker.org.uk/news-and-eve...
quaker.org.uk
Quakers condemn police raid on Westminster Meeting House
Police broke into a Quaker Meeting House last night (27 March) and arrested six young people holding a meeting over concerns for the climate and Gaza.
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Ed Hawkins @edhawkins.org · 26/03/2025
Five years ago today, most historical UK monthly rainfall observations were not available to scientists. But the 66,000 pieces of paper containing the data had been scanned. With covid lockdown approaching we saw an opportunity to transcribe the data. #RainfallRescue began... 🧵
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Peter Geoghegan @petergeoghegan.bsky.social · 22/03/2025
🔴 For *four years* officials refused to release names of all companies linked to Conservative donors and party figures put in the 'VIP' lane for bumper Covid contracts Now a judge has ordered them to. Huge win for @jennacorderoy.bsky.social (and DfS) democracyforsale.substack.com/p/government...
democracyforsale.substack.com
Government loses legal battle over Covid ‘VIP Lane’
Exclusive: Judge slams “most unsatisfactory” Cabinet Office and orders release of names of 'VIP' firms to Democracy for Sale reporter - after *four year* wait.
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Monica Tamariz @onicatam.bsky.social · 22/03/2025
Unpublished 2011 results rescued from oblivion!⏳ osf.io/preprints/ps.... Effects of systematicity and frequency distribution (uniform, skewed) on artificial language learning. With Barbora Skarabela, @andrewdmsmith.bsky.social and @simonkirby.bsky.social
osf.io
OSF
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Andy Wightman @andywightman.scot · 12/02/2025
With yet more going round the houses in council tax - here is the secondary legislation I actually drafted that could reform it tomorrow andywightman.scot/2024/02/scra...
andywightman.scot
Scrapping the Council Tax is Straightforward - Land Matters
Today, the STUC has published an open letter to Scotland’s political parties urging them to revalue Scotland’s domestic property in order to provide an accurate tax base for the Council Tax which is s...
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Dana Roemling @danaroemling.bsky.social · 30/01/2025
My paper with @bodowinter.bsky.social and @jwgrieve.bsky.social was published in the Journal of Linguistic Geography today. 🎉 It’s a tutorial on how to use R & ggplot2 to visualise linguistic map data. doi.org/10.1017/jlg....
doi.org
Visualizing map data for linguistics using ggplot2: A tutorial with examples from dialectology and typology | Journal of Linguistic Geography | Cambridge Core
Visualizing map data for linguistics using ggplot2: A tutorial with examples from dialectology and typology
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The Empty City @davidallengreen.bsky.social · 24/01/2025
NEW How Harry and Watson forced News Group Newspapers to admit wrongdoing Why the circumstances show it was NGN wanting to avoid a public trial—and not the costs risk on the claimants—that brought this case to its end By me, at @prospectmagazine.co.uk www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/ideas/law/th...
The best explanation is perhaps not that the prince and Watson had finally buckled to costs risk; it instead looks like a desperate last-minute move by a publisher anxious to avoid a public trial of the claims. 

It appears from the evidence available that NGN signalled that it would actually accept liability. If so, this would change everything. If NGN accepted it was liable for at least the main part of the claims, there would be no need for a full trial—for there would be nothing to be tried. The prince and the politician would not now be able to force a full trial even if they had wanted to do.

For a defendant to admit liability is an unusual, if not unique litigation ploy.
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Michael Pleyer @symbolicstorage.bsky.social · 24/01/2025
JOB ALERT! Come work with me! 34-Month Postdoc Position here at the Center for Language Evolution Studies, Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń in my project "Paths to Polysemy" Job offer here: www.umk.pl/en/jobs/?tas... Please repost & share widely!
a picture of Torun old town in winter
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Heddwen Newton - English & Dutch @heddwen.bsky.social · 17/01/2025
I've become slightly obsessed with anachronyms; words that are used in an anachronistic way, by referring to something that was appropriate in a former time. E.g. to clock in, to film something, to hang up the phone, to dial a number. I've collected a list.
englishinprogress.net
30 examples of anachronyms - English in Progress
Anachronyms are words that are used “in an anachronistic way, by referring to something in a way that is appropriate only for a former or later time.” (Source) I chanced upon the term through a Reddit...
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Paul Evans @pauliewaulie.bsky.social · 03/01/2025
In Eugene Ionesco’s play, ‘Rhinoceros’, nearly all of the characters gradually turn nto Rhinoceroses. It’s a parable about how fascism spreads, and how its opponents concede one minor point after another before they nosedive into nazi savagery. Niall Ferguson. And ‘conservatives’ everywhere:
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Andrew Smith @andrewdmsmith.bsky.social · 01/01/2025
The worst parliament in history … so far.
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Michael Pleyer @symbolicstorage.bsky.social · 12/12/2024
Exited this short article on language evolution for a general audience by Slawek Wacewicz and me is now out. It's part of a Theme Issue of "ACADEMIA. The magazine of the Polish Academy of Sciences" on Evolution #language #linguistics doi.org/10.24425/aca...
The upper half of the first page of the article
Academia - Insight - Linguistics
The Emergence of Language
The science of language evolution has become a vibrant, modern and interdisciplonary field of scientific research
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Thom Scott-Phillips @thomscottphillips.bsky.social · 10/12/2024
New paper: The communicative principle of relevance This is a law-like generalisation about communicative behaviour; and in my view a landmark in our understanding of human interaction. This short piece briefly explains and updates it in (I hope) useful ways static1.squarespace.com/static/64e38...
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Andrew Smith @andrewdmsmith.bsky.social · 20/11/2024
Actual, glorious BlueSky this morning on campus. Mid-November in Scotland!
View across Aithrey Loch to Dumyat at the University of Stirling. Lots of blue sky
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Ed Conway @edconway.bsky.social · 19/11/2024
🧵SALT🧵 It's been snowing in the UK and the road gritters are out in force, begging the question: Have you ever wondered where that grit actually COMES from? The answer is more magical, beautiful and fascinating than you probably realised. 1/14
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Seth Abramson @sethabramson.bsky.social · 17/11/2024
I learned some stuff about Bluesky I did not know by reading this. Maybe worth passing it on to others so we can all start getting the full benefit of the 🦋.
theverge.com
Here’s some cool stuff you can do with Bluesky
It’s not just an Alf pics repository.
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