CLiC to subscribe: Babel is pleased to support the CLiC project

Dan McIntyre (@danguage on Twitter) is Professor of English Language and Linguistics at the University of Huddersfield and one of the editors of the hugely popular Babel: The Language Magazine. He is also a member of the CLiC Advisory Panel and a keen supporter of the CLiC project. Dan’s research interests include corpus linguistics, stylistics, the history of the English language and audiovisual translation. His books include Stylistics (Cambridge University Press 2010, co-authored with his fellow Babel editor, Lesley Jeffries), Teaching Stylistics (Palgrave 2011, also edited with Lesley), Language and Style (Palgrave 2010, edited with CLiC Advisory Panel member Beatrix Busse) and History of English (Routledge 2009). His most recent books are Applying Linguistics: Language and the Impact Agenda (Routledge 2018, co-edited with Babel editorial assistant Hazel Price) and Corpus Stylistics (written with Brian Walker, to be published by Edinburgh University Press later this year). In this guest blog post, Dan discusses Babel and what it offers to teachers and students.

If you’ve used CLiC (or even if you haven’t) you’ll certainly be interested in the latest issue of Babel: The Language Magazine. The May 2018 issue features a pull-out poster summarising the CLiC interface. For new users, the poster provides a handy guide to the features and benefits of the CLiC software for literary linguistic analysis. Like the CLiC team, we’re very keen to get corpus linguistics into the classroom and to see both students and teachers using this hugely powerful approach to text analysis – and CLiC offers a very easy way into corpus analysis. Other blog posts in this series have demonstrated how you can use CLiC to supplement the teaching of language and literature and turn students into researchers. So if you’re a teacher, stick the poster on your classroom wall and we guarantee students will want to know more!

Speaking on behalf of the Babel editorial team, we are very happy to be supporting the CLiC project since Babel and CLiC share a passion for communicating our work in linguistics to the world outside academia. The CLiC project team have done fantastic work with teachers and students and we’ve been happy to help communicate that by publicising CLiC in Babel.

Babel: The language magazine

Babel is a popular magazine all about language and linguistics. It’s popular in two senses. First, we have readers and subscribers from all over the world. And second, the magazine aims to popularise linguistics to people who have an interest in language but are not necessarily expert linguists. All our articles are written by researchers in linguistics rather than journalists, and all aim to make the results of linguistic research accessible to non-specialists. We publish a hugely varied range of articles, from what it’s like to work as a forensic linguist to how we might communicate with alien species. Recent topics have included whether you can distinguish people by their laugh, why spelling reform doesn’t really work, and – one of my personal favourites – why everyone in Star Wars speaks English. If you want to get students enthused about language, Babel will almost certainly help!

The first issue of Babel was published in 2012 and was intended to fill a very obvious gap in the market. At that time, if you were interested in history you could buy BBC History Magazine or countless other titles on this topic. Similarly, if science was your thing you could pick up a copy of Focus. But there was no equivalent magazine for people interested in linguistics and language. Hence, Babel. Since then, the magazine has gone from strength to strength and is now recognised as the leading popular publication in the field. We are fortunate to have an expert advisory panel of linguists and professionals, all interested in sharing our enthusiasm for language with the wider public. The well-known linguist David Crystal acts as our linguistic consultant and our list of subscribers includes such famous names as Stephen Fry. We have even expanded the Babel brand, and the annual Babel lecture is now a regular fixture in the linguistics calendar. This year’s lecture, which takes place on Friday 11 May in Huddersfield, the home of Babel, will be given by Susie Dent of Channel 4’s Countdown (and Eight of Ten Cats Does Countdown, if that’s more your thing). There are still a few tickets available if you fancy coming to listen (they’re free!). Reserve yours here.

'The Americanization of English' – is it the winningest, or do Americanisms spell the end for British English?

Join us for Susie Dent's Babel Lecture this May 11th – https://t.co/3xxcVGDuG0 pic.twitter.com/yIIZvpAxxg

— Babel (@Babelzine) April 28, 2018

If you’ve not read Babel before, visit our website to read a free sample. And if you like what you read, please consider subscribing and spread the word! We offer both individual and institutional subscriptions, as well as access to our archive of back issues.

Babel days

Finally, if you’ve seen what CLiC can do for you in the classroom, you might also want to consider a Babel day. These bespoke events can be arranged for school groups and include linguistic activities designed to enthuse students about the study of language, as well as behind-the-scenes insight into the production of Babel. If you’re interested, contact our colleague, Dr Louise Nuttall.

For now, show the CLiC poster to your students and get them enthused about corpus linguistics!

Please cite this post as follows: McIntyre, D. (2018, May 4). CLiC to subscribe: Babel is pleased to support the CLiC project [Blog post]. Retrieved from https://blog.bham.ac.uk/clic-dickens/2018/05/04/clic-to-subscribe-babel-is-pleased-to-support-the-clic-project/