Adam Schembri (ˈʃɛmbɹi/ˈʃkɛmbri)
@adamcschembri.bsky.social
https://sites.google.com/view/adamcschembri/home Australian professor of linguistics at the University of Birmingham, UK Hearing person interested in sign languages & signing communities 🏳️🌈🇦🇺🇲🇹🇪🇺
I am once again begging journlists to ask a linguist before they publish hot takes about language. #linguistics CW: JKR, so there is transphobia, OBVIOUSLY.
JK Rowling sparks grammar row over 'trans' and takes fresh swipe at Amnesty
The Harry Potter author explained that the word 'trans' was not an adjective as claimed by trans activists
scottishdailyexpress.co.uk
An interesting one! #linguistics www.sciencemagazinedigital.org/sciencemagaz...
Science Magazine - The rise and fall of language diversity through the Holocene
There are ∼7500 languages signed and spoken in the world today (1, 2), and they have a wide range of grammatical structures, vocabularies, speech sounds, signs, and usage rules.
sciencemagazinedigital.org
It was published yesterday! I'm grateful to my co-authors for their patience as I was the main reason it has taken over a decade. I hope it's useful. Please don't forget to download the 500 video sign examples from the website. Now on to the Auslan linguistics second edition!
Cambridge University Press - Linguistics@cambup-linguistics.cambridge.org · 4w agoOut now! Sign Language Linguistics by Schembri et al. | A uniquely international and comparative introduction to the structure and use of ASL and BSL. Find out more: ☑️ https://cup.org/4uu0pfg
This is my semi-regular shout out to linguists: if you have/are a PhD student who'd write a great book review for the Journal of Linguistics, especially if it'd help increase our global diversity of authors, let me (reviews editor) know a couple of books they/you'd like to review. #linguistics
Tentative save the date: 8-10 September 2027 for the next UK Language Variation and Change conference (UKLVC 16) in Birmingham! More information and confirmation of these dates to follow. Please get in touch if you know of any clashes with other events planned at this time.
Yesterday I learned about the relationship between lexical frequency and iconicity: higher frequency items tend to be less iconic in spoken languages and ASL too. I just wrote an article that included discussion of frequency effects: How did I not know this? 🤣 link.springer.com/article/10.3...
Iconicity ratings for 14,000+ English words - Behavior Research Methods
Iconic words and signs are characterized by a perceived resemblance between aspects of their form and aspects of their meaning. For example, in English, iconic words include peep and crash, which mimi...
link.springer.com
Great to see this out!
Julie A. Hochgesang@jahochcam.bsky.social · 2mo agoPleased to share that “ASL Signbank” through Cambridge Elements (Sign Language Series) is out! It’s free for the next two weeks. You can find it here doi.org/10.1017/9781... Thanks to Erin Wilkinson and David Quinto-Pozos, editors of Sign Language Series, for their support! #ASLSignbank
Our new book on sign language linguistics (adapted from the 2007 Auslan linguistics book) isn't out until next month, but over 500 clips of BSL and ASL sign examples from the book can be downloaded now! Take a look at the resources section on the book's webpage. www.cambridge.org/highereducat...
Sign Language Linguistics | Cambridge Aspire website
Discover Sign Language Linguistics, 1st Edition, Adam Schembri, HB ISBN: 9781107077140 on Cambridge Aspire website
cambridge.org
New review paper just became available online: thanks to the editors for their patience with me. It's been a long time coming. :-) doi.org/10.1075/sll....
Usage-based grammars and sign languages
Abstract Work within variationist corpus-based sign language linguistics often has implications for linguistic theory in general, as this quantitative data-driven approach can be used to test claims i...
doi.org
The recording is now available. Unfortunately, the recording is not the same view as we had live and terps are visible instead of some panellists. Captions have been manually checked and it's indicated when someone is talking who isn't visible www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lkfp...
Language Matters in the Pacific: Sign languages in the Pacific
YouTube video by Language Matters in the Pacific
youtube.com
I’m a professor of sociolinguistics in the UK and I approve this message 🤣 #linguistics (doubly because I’m originally from the US)
Erin Biba@erinbiba.bsky.social · 2mo agoIf you wanna get a bunch of British people to fight with each other, ask them what one of their words means.
Interested in learning #London's #languages? Sign up for free sessions in: 🩵 Portuguese (29 May) 💛 Slovene (5 Jun) 💜 Cockney (11 Jun) 💚 Macedonian (12 Jun) ❤️ Romanian (15 Jun) 🩶 Tamil (19 Jun) 🩷 Albanian (24 Jun) 💙 Danish (26 Jun) 🧡 Georgian (30 Jun) 🤍 Estonian (13 Jul) #langsky 👐💬 rb.gy/2btj6l
Language Tasters Summer 2026 - London: City of Languages
This page lists the Language Taster sessions offered for the London Festival of Languages 2026. Click on the links to find out more. We are very grateful to London communities for offering these exper...
rb.gy
👐💬 can anyone recommend some resources on bsl grammar ? is sutton-spence & woll the go-to ? im looking for descriptions of temporal reference and aspect x
Oh wow! It's 5am UK time but I'd love to see this. Will it be recorded @harrietsheppard.bsky.social ?
Harriet Sheppard @harrietsheppard.bsky.social · 3mo agoThe next USP Linguistics seminar is this Wed 20 May, 4pm Fiji time. The topic for the session is ‘Sign languages in the Pacific’. The session will include interpreters for #Fiji and #Kiribati #SignLanguage and automatic captions. All welcome! Zoom link in alt text. #PacificLanguages #Linguistics
My average day: 7 hours work, 7 hours rest, 7 hours sleep, and 3 hours unsubscribing from email messages I don't remember signing up for.
Proofs in on our @inmfl.bsky.social chapter for ‘Humanities Forward: Opportunity, Innovation, Policy in the 21st Century’. Society needs the Humanities. We make the case that #language teaching also needs #linguistics. www.liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/doi/book/10.... @hetanshah.bsky.social
Humanities Forward | Home
Opportunity, Innovation, Policy in the 21st Century
liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk
Happy that my paper 'Usage-based grammars and sign languages: Evidence from Auslan, British Sign Language, and New Zealand Sign Language' (a review paper highlighting how previous projects can be understood from a usage-based perspective) has been accepted by Sign Language & Linguistics.
Anyone else experience reading a decision letter in relation to a recent review you've done in which the other reviewer has managed to detail your concerns about a paper so much more thoroughly and clearly than you did, and you feel embarrassed that you didn't do an equally good job?
Just released & free to download for two weeks: "Constructions, Networks and Linguistic Change" by Graeme Trousdale and Elizabeth Closs Traugott in the Cambridge Elements Construction Grammar Series #language #linguistics doi.org/10.1017/9781...
Constructions, Networks and Linguistic Change
Cambridge Core - Semantics and Pragmatics - Constructions, Networks and Linguistic Change
doi.org
🐦🐦
Martin Haspelmath@haspelmath.bsky.social · 4mo agoVersion 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
And I've just noticed that this is coming out in June: exciting! www.cambridge.org/gb/universit...
ASL Signbank | Cambridge University Press & Assessment
cambridge.org
I've ordered this today (despite the price - ouch!) because I'm so curious to see if and how Liddell addresses all the criticism of his sign+gesture model. Reading his 2003 book was transformative for me as a sign language linguist, although I have become much more critical of it since that time.
Cambridge University Press - Linguistics@cambup-linguistics.cambridge.org · 4mo agoBeyond Grammar and the Lexicon by Scott K. Liddell. Fully illustrated, this book shows how signer's hands and arms articulate a sign's lexical meaning and simultaneously indicate and depict. 📚 https://cup.org/4vHjah3
I love the Evolang conferences, but I didn't attend this year, partly because of 30 years of attending academic conferences, I'm increasingly finding the travel and stress associated with attending conferences less rewarding than in the past. 1/2
Good morning from England- happy Auslan Day, Australia! Auslan is the majority sign language of Australia’s deaf community, related to British Sign Language Each 13th April is celebrated as ‘Auslan Day’ in recognition of the publication of the first dictionary of the language on this day in 1989
Not gonna lie: I'm reviewing an article in which Dutch Sign Language or NGT (Nederlandse Gebarentaal) was erroneously referred to as NGL and for some reason this made me actual lol.