iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Ibi Baxter-Webb @ibibw.bsky.social · 06/01/2026

1/3 We had to move house a couple of weeks ago. This meant saying goodbye to the neighbourhood cat we came to love - despite its best attempts at packing itself. While there is no replacement for this lap tiger, we have been delighted to find out that our new place comes with …

Ibi Baxter-Webb @ibibw.bsky.social · 07/11/2025

Neighbourhood cat is NOT helping today

Ibi Baxter-Webb @ibibw.bsky.social · 09/10/2025

8am online presentation after about 3 hours of sleep made tolerable by emotional support and lap-warming neighbourhood cat

Ibi Baxter-Webb @ibibw.bsky.social · 01/10/2025

1/2 Just found out that John Searle died a couple of weeks ago. Also just found out about the sexual harassment... Serious question: how do we deal with morally problematic academics? I'm currently writing a book that contains some sections on Searlean SAT. Not sure I feel comfortable...

Ibi Baxter-Webb @ibibw.bsky.social · 29/09/2025

1/2 📢 Special issue on offensive humour, edited by Chi-Hé Elder, Eleni Kapogianni and myself, out now in Pragmatics & Cognition. It contains a great range of papers which cover data from private & public settings, comedic performances, scripted TV dialogue, online platforms, and political discourse

jbe-platform.com

Volume 32, Issue 1 | John Benjamins

Welcome to e-content platform of John Benjamins Publishing Company. Here you can find all of our electronic books and journals, for purchase and download or subscriber access.

131

Ibi Baxter-Webb @ibibw.bsky.social · 30/08/2025

📢 New episode of Say It Like You Play It @indiegameclinic.bsky.social & I talk about the puzzle adventure game Blue Prince (@dogubomb.bsky.social) We discuss: 💬 The game's world & lore 💬 Word play in puzzles, as clues, & for fun 💬 Colour semiotics 💬 Sign versus noise ratio 💬 (Un)translatability

Blue Prince: puzzles, puns, and politics

121

Ibi Baxter-Webb @ibibw.bsky.social · 31/07/2025

Neighbourhood cat is helping with a job application today.

Ibi Baxter-Webb @ibibw.bsky.social · 27/07/2025

Neighbourhood cat helping me clean and sort some of my recent finds #mudlarking

Ibi Baxter-Webb @ibibw.bsky.social · 01/07/2025

📢 New episode of Say It Like You Play It! @indiegameclinic.bsky.social & I talk about the semiotics of (video) games: 💬 Definitions & different types of signs 💬 Multi-modality 💬 Genre-specific & genre-independent semiotics 💬 Signs vs. ludemes 💬 Examples like UI, rarity colours, & controls

Semiotics and (video) games

Ibi Baxter-Webb @ibibw.bsky.social · 05/06/2025

022

Today, the neighbourhood cat is acting as assistant of assistant managing editor for the journal of politeness research.

Ibi Baxter-Webb @ibibw.bsky.social · 04/06/2025

🎙️ new episode of Say It Like you Play It @indiegameclinic.bsky.social & I discuss language puzzle games Chants of Sennaar & Sethian. Topics include: 📜 language puzzle & translation mechanics 📜 embedding conlangs in game-worlds 📜 player vs. player-character knowledge 📜 complexity of conlangs

Chants of Sennaar & Sethian reactions: what makes a good language puzzle game?

Ibi Baxter-Webb @ibibw.bsky.social · 29/04/2025

031

1/2 🎙️ new episode of Say It Like you Play it @indiegameclinic.bsky.social and I discuss language in character creation & world building: ❕language ideologies ❕characters with accents & speech impediments ❕conlangs & orthography ❕Dragon Age, Pillars of Eternity, Cyberpunk 2077, Disco Elysium

231

Ibi Baxter-Webb @ibibw.bsky.social · 07/04/2025

Afternoon sun magic ❤️🧡💛💚💙💜

Ibi Baxter-Webb @ibibw.bsky.social · 03/04/2025

Neighbourhood cat has their own office chair now.

100

Ibi Baxter-Webb @ibibw.bsky.social · 02/04/2025

1/2 🎙️ Episode 8 of Say It Like You Play It is out on YouTube & major podcast platforms: open.spotify.com/episode/7KmB... This month we take a close look at Blizzard's online collectible card game 'Hearthstone' and three research papers which study the game in relation to language and communication.

Hearthstone deep dive: when game studies meets linguistics

Ibi Baxter-Webb @ibibw.bsky.social · 28/03/2025

121

Joined LinkedIn the other day. I really don’t like it there.

000

Ibi Baxter-Webb @ibibw.bsky.social · 28/03/2025

Literature review be like: -) researchers define ‘(im)politeness’ in vastly different ways; -) researchers define ‘(in)directness’ in vastly different ways; -) researchers define ‘modality’ in vastly different ways; Man, can we not agree on ANYTHING?! #academicwriting

UCU University of Kent branch @ucukent.bsky.social · 24/03/2025

Reposted by Ibi Baxter-Webb

We are out picketing this week to fight the threat of redundancies. Come find us on the picket line Monday, Wednesday and Friday!

A purple trestle table with hot pink ucu bats, stickers and posters saying “on strike today”

13716

Ibi Baxter-Webb @ibibw.bsky.social · 16/03/2025

I decided it was too cold and windy after half an hour, but it was a good half hour! #fieldwalking #treasure

Ibi Baxter-Webb @ibibw.bsky.social · 06/03/2025

Happy world book day! I will be celebrating by writing some of my book. #academicwriting.

041

Ibi Baxter-Webb @ibibw.bsky.social · 02/03/2025

Me on Fridays: looking forward to the weekend because I ‘get to’ work on my book. Me on Sundays: dreading the week because I ‘have to’ work on my book. 🤔 🫤 #academicwriting

Ibi Baxter-Webb @ibibw.bsky.social · 27/02/2025

Episode 7 of Say It Like You Play It is out. We talk about our experiences using 'gamified' language-learning apps like Duolingo, LingoLegends, and Influent. Are they fun? Are they educational? Neither? In collaboration with @indiegameclinic.bsky.social

Gamified language learning: neither fun nor educational?

Ibi Baxter-Webb @ibibw.bsky.social · 26/02/2025

011

Have been ordered (by my partner) regular screen breaks to deal with eye strain. For that purpose, I have been ordered (also by my partner) to learn to play this thing. 1 week in. Eyes much better. Fingertips sore.

Ibi Baxter-Webb @ibibw.bsky.social · 24/02/2025

Finally nice enough weather for a little beach walk. Found what may be a fossilised echinoid spine and some cowrie shells, which I don’t see very often.

Ibi Baxter-Webb @ibibw.bsky.social · 21/02/2025

Neighbourhood cat has inspected and approved my new work setup. #academicwriting

Cat on a desk walking around a computer monitor.

Cat on my lap while I work on my computer.

Ibi Baxter-Webb @ibibw.bsky.social · 19/02/2025

New setup. Hopefully fewer eye issues now. This book will cost me at least one diopter 😔 #academicwriting

Photo of a desk with laptop and computer monitor.

Ibi Baxter-Webb @ibibw.bsky.social · 13/02/2025

This week's favourite sentence, in Fraser, B. (1990). Perspectives on Politeness. Journal of Pragmatics, 14, 219-236. #academicwriting

Screenshot of academic paper, reading: In reviewing the relevant literature in preparing this critique, I was struck by the lack of consistency among researchers on what politeness is, never
mind how it might be accounted for. Remarkably, many of the writers do not even explicitly define what they take politeness to be, and their understanding of the concept must be inferred from statements referencing the term. Indeed, I was reminded of the classic comment made by Justice Potter Stewart in his decision involving the claim that a movie was pornographic.

University and College Union (UCU) @ucu.org.uk · 06/02/2025

Reposted by Ibi Baxter-Webb

Coventry University is in crisis: 👉 300 jobs at risk 👉 Severe cuts across faculties Yet the vice-chancellor: 👉 Received an £80,768 bonus on £300k+ salary 👉 Rewarded with position at the DBT Sign the petition, urge the govt to rescind his role 👇 bit.ly/4aL7iAN

bit.ly

Remove Coventry University vice-chancellor from government role

Coventry University is facing an unprecedented jobs and debt crisis under the leadership of vice-chancellor John Latham. The institution is threatening to sack 300 staff and rehire some of them in its...

43129

Ibi Baxter-Webb @ibibw.bsky.social · 03/02/2025

Neighbourhood cat says to give my fingers a break from typing and stroke it instead. Can’t argue with that. #academicwriting

150

Ibi Baxter-Webb @ibibw.bsky.social · 31/01/2025

I don’t know who needs to hear this (apart from myself), but the key to #academicwriting is to STOP READING and actually do some writing.

190

Ibi Baxter-Webb @ibibw.bsky.social · 30/01/2025

This week's fav sentence, because uncommon expression that tickles my brain. In: Lempert, M. (2012). Indirectness. In C. B. Paulston, S. F. Kiesling, & E. S. Rangel (Eds.), The Handbook of Intercultural Discourse and Communication (pp. 180-204). Wiley-Blackwell. #academicwriting

Screenshot of text reading: "Writes John Searle, speech-act theory’s systematizer: [...]"

Ibi Baxter-Webb @ibibw.bsky.social · 28/01/2025

This just arrived, and I can’t wait to play it! Will be covered in a future podcast episode.

Ibi Baxter-Webb @ibibw.bsky.social · 27/01/2025

📢 1/3 New episode of Say It Like You Play It is out! @indiegameclinic.bsky.social and I played the text-based adventure game 'The Gostak' for this one. It's written in gibberish English where nouns, verbs, and adjectives are made-up words but standard English syntax is used.

Screenshot of the game with the following text: Finally, here you are. At the delcot of Tondam, where doshes deave. But the doshery lutt is crenned with glauds. Glauds! How rorm it would be to pell back to the bewl and distunk them, distunk the whole delcot, let the drokes discren them. But you are the gostak. The gostak distims the doshes. And no glaud will vorl them from you.

111

Ibi Baxter-Webb @ibibw.bsky.social · 21/01/2025

I talked to my friends. We’re all beetles. #kafka

a post by Moor Morrow @PoorMatty saying: Think of three friends. If none of them are beetles, you are a beetle. Below that is a screenshot of science text saying: one out of every four animals on the planet is a beetle.

110

Ibi Baxter-Webb @ibibw.bsky.social · 21/01/2025

Last night, I dreamt my partner and I were talking about our (real) podcast, called 'Say it like you play it' (linguistics meets games). At one point, dream-me says: Maybe we should start another podcast called.... Utter it like you butter it. Well done, asleep brain 😆

061

Ibi Baxter-Webb @ibibw.bsky.social · 17/01/2025

This week's favourite sentences, in: Grainger, Karen and O’Driscoll, Jim. "Editorial: where we have been and where we are going" Journal of Politeness Research, vol. 18, no. 1, 2022, pp. 1-9. doi.org/10.1515/pr-2... #academicwriting

Ibi Baxter-Webb @ibibw.bsky.social · 06/12/2024

I’ve already sent 4 emails today and done some reading. Which is more than I’ve managed over the last month combined, I think. #mentalhealth

110

Ibi Baxter-Webb @ibibw.bsky.social · 05/12/2024

Including a Public (Linguistic) Service Announcement in the latest 'Say it like you play it' blog post.

Okay, first things first: EVERYONE has an accent. The term ‘accent’ basically means the way a person pronounces words. So if you are able to produce spoken language, you have an accent. You may pronounce words the ‘standard’ or ‘normal’ way, but that’s still a type of accent.