Baby's second conference - and now for something completely different

(I started writing this at the conference itself, then added to it on the coach ride home, before finishing it in dribs and drabs over the subsequent weeks. Basically, any 'I just did [x]' phrases are probably bogus.)

I've just got back from the 3rd i-Mean Language and Identity conference in Bristol (told you), and it's been quite the i-opener for me (don't worry, I hate myself for that pun just as much as you do). My first conference was for postgrads, so on a personal level this was a step up in the terrifying stakes, being my first 'grown-up' conference - the postgrads were so lovely, and these were Proper Academics that might rip me to shreds and tell me I suck! Throw in the fact that this was the first time I'd written a paper especially for the conference itself rather than presenting previously completed research, and it's unsurprising that I didn't sleep the night before.

Of course, I needn't have worried, because everybody has been wonderful, supportive and keen, even when I managed to talk about a graph that wasn't even on screen at the time. I'm beyond grateful (and still a little staggered) that people were happy to listen to me waffle for half an hour, and I'm even more grateful to Chris for agreeing to run the survey with me and present alongside me. It's been an awesome introduction to my eventual PhD work, and a great reminder that this is definitely what I want to be doing.

But beyond that, i-Mean has been a delight in an unexpected way. With the theme of 'identity' being such an abstract concept in the first place, it's unsurprising that the talks have been varied, but the sheer diversity of approaches, specialties and ideologies has been a particular delight. I saw several talks that were directly related to my sphere of research (Emma Moore, Julia Snell, Mercedes Durham, Fernanda McDougall, and Devyani Sharma to name just a few), but the majority of my time was spent meandering between talks which have no direct practical similarity to my stuff, but which captured my interest and curiosity.

I saw the very brave Nicola Puckey talk about metalcore fan identities and conflict in YouTube comments (particular props to her for voluntarily venturing into the cesspit of the Internet). Kay Richardson examined  Bigotgate and the political onstage/offstage persona; Yukiko Nishimura explained the employment of emoticons as a kind of 'virtual make-up' employed by Japanese bloggers to index a cutsey/kawaii identity; while Douglas Ponton talked on the distance-closeness aspect of the British Royal family in the media. All brilliant; all utterly unrelated to my field.

It's easy to get tunnel vision when you have a particular research interest, and of course having a dedicated focus is by no means a bad thing. But this weekend it's been lovely to dabble in wider areas of interest; to learn not to benefit my own work, but for the sake of learning.

I've also discovered failsafe areas of study where, even though I'm not working on the field myself, I'm especially keen to go along and soak up the research of the people who are. I suppose it's looking at my general interests through a linguistic lens (and in doing so, combining everything I love!). It seems to boil down to:

- Politics. There was a fantastic plenary by Ruth Wodak on the tightening grip that linguistic proficiency has on national identity, and how linguistic policing is more and more a part of citizenship issues, particularly in the UK. I think any investigation of language and politics just gives me more ammo to throw at people who say "it's only a word, stop getting so OTT about it" -- language IS politics, guys. I have a funny feeling my own PhD might get a bit ~social justice...and I'm quite looking forward to it.

- Feminism/gender issues. Well, naturally. i-Mean had a great wealth of language, gender and sexuality talks, and I wish I could have seen more.

- The Internet. Being On The Internet, watching talks about Internet linguistics is simultaneously fascinating ("ooh, I've seen people do that!"), embarrassing ("oh god, I do that!") and occasionally frustrating ("that's not what we do!"). If I hadn't fallen in love with variationist sociolinguistics, I think I'd definitely have gone into looking at language on the Internet. It's SO interesting. For now, I have to settle for blogging emotively on the subject.

- Sport. This is a surprising one, for me. I'm not hugely sporty, but I'm a keen spectator. I watch a lot of football in particular (owing to my dad's subtle indoctrination, of course - I still avoid red clothing unconsciously); despite the foulness that often surrounds it, the game and the culture fascinate me. I went to the National Football Museum in April, and it was so interesting to look at it all historically, and be able to appreciate the camaraderie and team spirit it fosters as well as analyse the abusive and sensationalist culture it perpetuates. There were a couple of sport and language talks at i-Mean, and they were incredibly interesting, too.

That last point brings me to the one thing that will most make me adore any talk anybody gives: enthusiasm. Kieran File from the University of Wellington gave a cracking talk about the linguistic makeup of post-match interviews, the performance of media identity by sportspeople, and how this differs between sports and cultures. It was my favourite talk of the conference. The linguistic content itself was stellar, but it was File's enthusiasm for sport, linguistics and the combination of the two that made me love it so much. He was so excited to have interviewed so many of his sporting heroes, and he'd taken something he loved and turned it into his bread and butter - that's basically the dream!

This is why I read people's dissertations, watch TED talks, and listen rapt when anybody starts talking about their work, no matter what it is. If someone is passionate about what they do, then it's a joy to listen to them talk about it. I refer to my favourite Road Dahl quote yet again:

“I began to realise how important it was to be an enthusiast in life. He taught me that if you are interested in something, no matter what it is, go at it full speed ahead. Embrace it with both arms, hug it, love it and above all become passionate about it. Lukewarm is no good. Hot is no good, either. White hot and passionate is the only thing to be.” -- RD, My Uncle Oswald

So, yeah. Thanks i-Mean 2013 - it was a blast!

Onwards!

So, as most people will have seen by now, my Series of Escalating Dares endeavour has sadly been cancelled. My dad is having surgery in the middle of that very week, and I both want and need to be at home with him and Ma. I'm disappointed of course, but there will be plenty of other opportunities to raise money in the future, and in the meantime, potential sponsorship can be directed elsewhere! My housemate Ross is running the BUPA 10k for UNICEF, and you can sponsor him here, and my (very brave!) friend Tom is doing both the London Marathon and the Three Peaks Challenge in aid of the Bobby Moore Fund, which donates to colon cancer research, and can be sponsored here. Brilliant guys, amazing causes.

Elsewhere in my life, I am hurling myself headlong into other projects, and am thus hijacking my own blog to pimp out my newest project. Myself and Dr Chris Montgomery at the University of Sheffield will be presenting a paper at the i-Mean Language and Identity conference in April (eee!), looking at accent and identity in the Potteries/Stoke-on-Trent accent.

That's where you (might) come in! We need as many Stoke folk to take this accent survey as possible - it only last about five minutes, and is completely anonymous. If you're a local, please do give it a go, and if you could share it with friends and family too, that would be amazing.

Thanking you kindly!

Baby's First Conference

WELL. I thought post-dissertation life would mainly involve luxuriating in front of the TV watching endless repeats of Murder She Wrote, but it turns out to be even busier than before!

Alongside PhD applications, conference abstracts, and discussing potential teaching opportunities, I have started a new job; I'm now Project Officer for the Temporal Co-ordination in Communication project run jointly by York and Cambridge universities. My role sounds far more fancypants than it actually is, but basically I am working on gesture and rhythm in speech, and analysing audio and visual data in various ways to investigate how participants negotiate communication using both their voices and bodies. It's SUPER interesting, and I'm enjoying it immensely - I learn about eight thousand new things a day, and working on an actual linguistics research project is the most amazing opportunity.

Wednesday saw my lovely bestie Becky visit Grand Old York, and we had a fabulous time getting spontaneous piercings, exploring the city and the Minster and such (I love any opportunity to go Full Tourist; despite living here for a year, it never gets boring), and kicking through bright autumn leaves like the big kids we are. Subsequently joined by Ed, we all later prepared my house for a Hallowe'en party which went off wonderfully*, with costumes ranging from the typical (ghosts, skeletons, etc.) through a-typical (Caeser, Alice Cooper), to the quite magnificent (a zom-bee, from an apiologist friend). My offering was Daphne from Scooby Doo**:

Jinkies

Following a fantastic few days (and a discombobulating trip around Illuminating York, which you honestly couldn't have thought up unless you were in some kind of trippy fever dream), a different Becky and I headed off to Manchester for the New Researchers Forum in Linguistics, where we would both be presenting our MA research.

I've never been to a conference before, let alone presented at one, so the whole experience was terrifyingly exhilarating. I learnt a staggering amount (with several of the talks being directly relevant to my work, which was incredible), met some truly wonderful people I very much hope to see again, and according to Sam, did my first conference 'properly' i.e. went out to the pub the night before giving my presentation.

My talk had run long every single time I did it, but I think the nerves of the day brought out my usual, jabbery self and I garbled my way through it just on time without missing out too many important points. Questions were helpful and not too intimidating, and people were wonderfully lovely about the whole thing. I know I have a tendency to a) ramble and b) flail about, so it's good to know people got the jist despite my ridiculousness.

Giving it my best presentation face (photo by Becky).

I think the best bit about the weekend was just being able to casually chat about, amongst other things, linguistics and language with like-minded, lovely folk who are just as keen-beany as I am. Glorious. I can see why conferences are so addictive!

One final thing that came from the weekend was a sprawling Twitter-based game of #linguistmovies, which spread into #linguistsongs, and got so fun I decided to collect everything together here - a page which will no doubt be constantly extended, as we continue to furiously procrastinate from our real work by making terrible/excellent puns. Hell yeah, linguists.

*even with the presence of a Jimmy Savile costume, despite my assurance that I wouldn't let anybody in if they were dressed up like him. Not big or clever, guys.

**I'm more of a Velma myself, but my hair is the right colour for Daph.