Language and social identity have been making headlines recently. Last month, Air Canada’s CEO Michael Rousseau faced scrutiny over not knowing French — his language deficit is helping support Bill 96 in Québec (which seeks to change the Canadian Constitution to affirm Québec as a nation and French its official language). Meanwhile Indian chain store Fabindia had to change advertisements […] … learn more→

The world, or at least this small world that is Spain, has a certain tendency to divide into groups: those who prefer the potato omelette with onion and those who prefer it without onion; those who want pizza with pineapple and without pineapple … and those who think that in the subject of Spanish Language and […] … learn more→

After 20 years of teaching academic writing to both native speakers and English language learners, I can attest that at some point, just about everyone asks me why, or even whether, grammar matters. There is more than one way to define grammar. Linguists – the people who study language – define “grammar” as a description […] … learn more→

First, a grammar quiz. Which of these sentences do you think begins the Eric Carle classic, The Very Hungry Caterpillar? a) A little egg lay on a leaf in the light of the moon. b) On a leaf, in the light of the moon, a little egg lay. c) In the light of the moon, […] … learn more→

As you begin reading this article, you may be wondering how a mere mortal dares to ask a question like the title. Because you think that the evolution of the rules governing the use of French is the sole responsibility of immortals sheltered under the dome of the French Academy. But, as the Academy rightly […] … learn more→

I’m a cognitive psychologist who studies language comprehension. If I see an ad for a vacation rental that says “Your going to Hollywood!” it really bugs me. But my collaborator, Robin Queen, a sociolinguist, who studies how language use varies across social groups, is not annoyed by those errors at all. We were curious: what […] … learn more→