iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Lauren Gawne @superlinguo.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

I made zines about the La Trobe linguistics program for our Open Day! They were cute and fun and a useful info delivery mechanism. I share the zine and reflections on this mini project on the Superlinguo blog: www.superlinguo.com/post/8245087...

A small table with clear boxes full of zines, alongside a green duolingo owl and some stickers, all on a black scarf with the IPA on it

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Lauren Gawne @superlinguo.bsky.social · 16/07/2026

Ahead of #WorldEmojiDay tomorrow you can see the new emojis coming to you with Unicode 18.0 later this year! If some of these look familiar to you already, @jenniferdaniel.bsky.social has the lowdown on the @unicode.org blog! blog.unicode.org/2026/07/why-...

Emojis: Monarch butterfly, net, meteor, left and right sideways thumb, crumbling face, lighthouse, pickle, eraser

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Lauren Gawne @superlinguo.bsky.social · 03/07/2026

Sorry to scoop you, but the website and emails have it extended to the 17th of July! als.asn.au/Conference/2...

‌Important Dates

17 July 2026 - Deadline for abstract submissions
15 August 2026 - Notification of acceptance
1-4 December 2026 -
Conference Dates

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Lauren Gawne @superlinguo.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

Was creeping the AI Con website and found out it's going to be available in paperback in October - so excited that @emilymbender.bsky.social and @alexhanna.bsky.social can find even more readers. www.penguin.com.au/books/the-ai...

Paperback of the AI Con,blue with black and white text

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Lauren Gawne @superlinguo.bsky.social · 14/05/2026

yeah but no worries because it says this on the cover

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Lauren Gawne @superlinguo.bsky.social · 04/12/2025

Marianne Mithun: The place of prosody in the greater scheme of things "No excuse" to ignore prosody in documentation, revitalisation, theories

Marianne Mithun in a lecture theatre with the slide saying: The place of prosody in the greater scheme of things

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Lauren Gawne @superlinguo.bsky.social · 02/12/2025

Opening plenary of #als2025 Felicity Meakins: Social salience as a driver of language change

Felicity Meakins speaking in a large lecture theatre. Slide says Social salience as a driver of language change

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Lauren Gawne @superlinguo.bsky.social · 22/10/2025

Podiversary Felicitations! Fourth birthday requires a very deep cut emoji, here's the emojidex design from 2016-2017.

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Lauren Gawne @superlinguo.bsky.social · 19/10/2025

Excited for the approaching future where @edzitron.com's blog posts are 100% hyperlinked.

First four paragraphs of an ed zitron post, at least 25% of text is hyperlink

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Lauren Gawne @superlinguo.bsky.social · 10/09/2025

Happy Unicode 17.0 Day! Includes seven new emoji that are rolling out on your phones and computers in the coming year: treasure chest, trombone, avalanche, big foot, bulging face, fight cloud, orca @jenniferdaniel.bsky.social has the lowdown: jenniferdaniel.substack.com/p/tomorrows-...

treasure chest, trombone, avalanche, bigfoot, bulging face, bust up cloud, orca

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Lauren Gawne @superlinguo.bsky.social · 17/07/2025

Happy #WorldEmojiDay! Here's a sneak peek at what's coming in Unicode 17.0 later in the year! blog.unicode.org/2025/07/say-...

new emoji for 2025: Trombone, Treasure Chest, Distorted Face, Bigfoot, Fight Cloud, Apple Core, Orca, Ballet Dancers

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Lauren Gawne @superlinguo.bsky.social · 17/07/2025

The latest round of cuts at ANU include an outrageous plan to close the Australian National Dictionary Centre (ANDC). ANU has forgotten its vital function as the national university. Please sign this petition urging ANU to reconsider and protect the ANDC: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

Why the ANDC Matters?

- The ANDC is Australia’s leading centre for lexicographical research, jointly funded by ANU and Oxford University Press.
- It is the definitive authority on Australian English—documenting regionalisms, Aboriginal English, and producing landmark publications like the Australian National Dictionary.
- Its widely celebrated “Word of the Year” initiative connects Australians with their evolving language and identity.
- For ANU, it provides immense national and international visibility—while operating as a low-cost, high-impact asset.

The Cost of Closure:
- Damage to Australian English: Halting systematic documentation of our unique national language.
- Setback for Indigenous Languages: Undermining efforts to research and preserve Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages.
- Erosion of National Identity: Undermining the role of language in shaping how Australians see themselves, their history, and their culture.
- Damage to ANU’s Reputation: Compromising its mission as a national university and leader in cultural heritage research.

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Lauren Gawne @superlinguo.bsky.social · 01/07/2025

Lovely to spend an evening listening to @emilymbender.bsky.social chatting with Kobi Leins about #TheAICon, and the weird technological moment that we find ourselves in.

Emily M Bender in conversation with Kobi Leins in a big fancy hall

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Lauren Gawne @superlinguo.bsky.social · 13/06/2025

I've noticed 'unhinged' in my own lexicon and around me a lot in the last month or so, but apparently this is something that's been building for a couple of decades and only now hitting my perceptual filter.

google ngram viewer for 'unhinged', from 180 there but kind of trending gently down, strong hockey stick curve around the year 2000.

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Lauren Gawne @superlinguo.bsky.social · 04/06/2025

Spending some time with my smart and funny parasocial friends @emilymbender.bsky.social & @alexhanna.bsky.social. The AI Con is a wonderfully sensible analysis of what's happening with tech hype today.

E-reader cover of The AI Con by Emily M Bender and Alex Hanna, sitting next to a chai

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Lauren Gawne @superlinguo.bsky.social · 19/05/2025

My boss made these for me, they sit on my desk and are useful for in-person meetings as well as online ones.

two crocheted emoji: a smiling face with three red hearts, and an eyerolling face

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Lauren Gawne @superlinguo.bsky.social · 12/05/2025

Pleaaaaaase get humans to write your lessons instead of cheaping out with AI slop. If you don't care enough about your product, why should I?

Duo notific saying pleaaaaaase do 6 lessons today and you can have your streak back.

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Lauren Gawne @superlinguo.bsky.social · 05/05/2025

Gesture a Slim Guide is available with a 30% discount code (AUFLY30) on the global.oup.com/academic website - for the hardcover (and it looks like it works for the very cute softcover too) global.oup.com/academic/pro...

A bookshelf filled with various books about gesture, with a prominent book in the center titled 'Gesture: A Slim Guide' by Lauren Gawne. The book cover features a black line illustration of a person with abstract representation of eight different hands doing gestures.

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Lauren Gawne @superlinguo.bsky.social · 17/04/2025

Poking around, it seems like it was specifically a golden age for now obscure units of milk.

google n gram viewer where "pound of milk" has clear popularity in the middle of the 20th century

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Lauren Gawne @superlinguo.bsky.social · 07/04/2025

First hour at #LingComm25 and I've already met a pelican at the beach and settling in for the first round of lighting talks.

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Lauren Gawne @superlinguo.bsky.social · 27/03/2025

Magical cheesemakers under capitalism:

The image shows a jar of Kraft Cheez Whiz Original Cheese Dip. The label on the jar has 'ard' added to spell Cheez Whizard

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Lauren Gawne @superlinguo.bsky.social · 24/03/2025

It's publication day for Gesture: A Slim Guide If you have been wanting to think about gesture in your own research, bring it into your teaching or connect with the field of Gesture Studies, this is for you. It's under 50k words and has a nifty glossary too.

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Lauren Gawne @superlinguo.bsky.social · 19/12/2024

One of my favourite moments on Crash Course Linguistics was when the production team took our script and ran with it in the best possible way, turning Bill Labov's sociolinguistic work into a video game quest. Labov's work was scrupulous, guided by good moral principle and his legacy lives on.

Animation aesethic but with design vibes of original 1980s Nintendo. Text says "William Labov's Quest for the New Work City Accent" Has a Statue of Liberty, an apple, and an animated Bill Labov

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Lauren Gawne @superlinguo.bsky.social · 30/11/2024

As soon as I saw Canberra had a bubble tea place called SuperEmoji I knew there was only one place for 2025 scheming meeting with Jess Kruk while we were both at #als2024. Very successful schemings, with both gesture and #lingcomm plans afoot.

A pale pink bubble tea drink with a cartoon cat riding a skateboard that says 'emoji' holding a bubble tea and a red pistol that says 'super'

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Lauren Gawne @superlinguo.bsky.social · 27/11/2024

Caroline Hughes starting today at #als2024 with a talk about AIATSIS and its purpose as it celebrates its 60th anniversary.

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Lauren Gawne @superlinguo.bsky.social · 27/11/2024

Samantha Rarrick on eyeblinks in Hawai'i Sign Language, and variation when the same people are using ASL. Eyeblinks with HSL are much lower than anything found in the sign language literature so far. #als2024

Samantha Rarrick, a white woman, at the front of a lecture theatre in front of a PowerPoint slide with a nice template

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Lauren Gawne @superlinguo.bsky.social · 27/11/2024

Lauren Reed and a fabulous team of colleagues from Tilburg Uni with a study of response tokens (eg "mm hm") in five really diverse sign languages. Overwhelmingly nodding and other non-manual. Parallel to spoken languages, a low effort turn. #als2024

Lauren Reed, a white woman with a dark dress, stressing at the front of a lecture theatre in front of a white PowerPoint slide with black text

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Lauren Gawne @superlinguo.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

First day and a half of #als2024 is a gesture workshop, and the first talk is from Kita. What a perfect start to the conference.

Kita, a Japanese man in a white business shirt with the sleeves rolled up, standing in front of a PowerPoint slide with blue gradient background with black text saying Gesture, Language and Thought.

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Lauren Gawne @superlinguo.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

First plenary of #ALS2024 is Dave Briton, with an introduction to work on Falkland Islands English. Early work in the 1980s noted it was remarkably unremarkable. More recent work by Dave and team shows interesting feature traces depending whether your migrating ancestors were Scottish or not.

Dave Briton, an affable, bearded white guy in a white linen shirt, standing at a lecturn with a PowerPoint presentation behind him.

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Lauren Gawne @superlinguo.bsky.social · 15/11/2024

So pleased my copy of The Politics of Language Oppression in Tibet turned up 30 minutes before @geraldroche.bsky.social's conversation with Ruth Gamble!

Cover of a book The Politics of Language Oppression in Tibet by Gerald Roche, with the author on a Zoom forum screen next to the cover

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Lauren Gawne @superlinguo.bsky.social · 27/09/2024

Members of the Australian Linguistic Society, the Talkley Awards are now open for nominations. Nominate a particular piece or collection of linguistics communication produced by current ALS members (individuals or groups)! #ALS2025

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Lauren Gawne @superlinguo.bsky.social · 12/09/2024

Unicode 16.0 is official, and I'm super excited that Shovel is one of the new emoji. Jennifer Daniel has all the news about this release, and the lowdown on why it takes so long for new emoji to show up on your phone: jenniferdaniel.substack.com/p/from-unico...

new emoji: tired face with bags under eyes, finger print, beetroot, bare tree, harp, shovel, paint splat in purple

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Lauren Gawne @superlinguo.bsky.social · 04/02/2024

Lol ok maybe at 1000 I'll be convinced that enough people have been amused. This metric is about as scientific as the quiz itself 😂

100 emoji (red text underlined and handwritten style like a grade on a paper) but it's 1000 instead

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Lauren Gawne @superlinguo.bsky.social · 04/12/2023

Now @gretchenmcc.bsky.social sent me the etymology of 'kidney' so I have something else to be mad about

Screen shot of Etymonline:
"kidney (n.)
early 14c., kidenere, a word of unknown origin, perhaps a compound of Old English cwið "womb" (see chitterlings) + ey "egg" (see egg (n.)) in reference to the shape of the organ. Figurative sense of "temperament" is from 1550s. Kidney-bean is from 1540s, so called for its shape.

also from early 14c."

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Lauren Gawne @superlinguo.bsky.social · 21/11/2023

I'm excited for Emoji 15.1, which you should start seeing on your keyboards in 2024. 100% made of existing emoji in new combinations, including some long-requested faves like lime, broken chain and a more boring/edible brown mushroom. image via @Emojipedia

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Lauren Gawne @superlinguo.bsky.social · 21/11/2023

New emoji in 15.1: head shake, head nod, Phoenix, lime, brown mushroom, chain break, a variety of family configurations and a variety of people moving right instead of left

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Lauren Gawne @superlinguo.bsky.social · 02/10/2023

It's good to see that the Australian Linguistic Society Talkley Awards are back for 2023! Also nice to see nominations now focus on a specific piece of lingcomm. Members, you have a month left to nominate (details in your member email)

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Lauren Gawne @superlinguo.bsky.social · 02/10/2023

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Lauren Gawne @superlinguo.bsky.social · 10/09/2023

If you have an android with gboard you can custom colour hearts in emoji kitchen stickers (and if you don't, I made them below for you to save). Proposal for colour zwj variants on existing emoji needs to show important sense variation, emoji in Unicode couldn't handle the # of variants otherwise.

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Lauren Gawne @superlinguo.bsky.social · 14/02/2023

I missed #lingcomm23 for the smallest and most perfect of reasons. Happy to be home and muddling along as a family. My thanks to all of you posting outside of my usual timezone over the coming weeks and months while we're up at all hours.

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Lauren Gawne @superlinguo.bsky.social · 11/01/2023

Officially on parental leave for 2023 🎉🎉🎉 Tried to make sure my autoreply was useful for colleagues who are stuck leaving me on email chains while also containing a bonus linguistics fact-let.

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Lauren Gawne @superlinguo.bsky.social · 18/11/2022

oh, what's this? @lingthusiasm Episode 74: Who questions the questions? lingthusiasm.com/post/7012220978763… Photo of me while recording this episode:

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Lauren Gawne @superlinguo.bsky.social · 08/11/2022

This map plots every language for which there is at least one emblem documentation project published. It looks promising, but over a 3rd of these are from 3 large publications, and many points on the map are very small observational publications. There's a lot of work to be done!

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