Hello one and all, and /jəʊhəʊhəʊ/! Happy Non-Denominational Solstace-Related Period
of Universal Annual Leave! 🎅
Every year I spam round this parody poem of mine, because it seems to make people
happy - based on the replies I get each time saying it was ticklesome. Last year one
person even said they'd read it out at their staff Christmas party - celebrity at
last! This is enough to give me delusions of adequacy, and certainly sufficient to
keep me sending it round each year as Yuletide beckons. I'll introduce the poem at
the end of my email, but first...
Every year, along with this same pair of socks, I like to bundle in a stocking full
of linguistics-related seasonal cheer that I've come across.
First of all, my favourite webcomic XKCD has had some excellent Christmas-themed
entries over the years. The one from last Christmas eve, as a bonus, is
linguistics-related! https://www.xkcd.com/2089/ - excellent for teaching about
compounding! I merrily included this in my list of other linguistics-related XKCD
comics, which you are all more than welcome to use, all year round: https://is.gd/p5uFOJ.
(And to foreshadow my own Christmas parody poem, XKCD parodied the same poem a few
years prior: https://xkcd.com/361/.)
In my 2017 spamming of my poem, I shared a Christmas advert by Air New Zealand which
centred around Kiwi dialect features: https://youtu.be/M3Q_3a7HfA0. Well, it seems
the same company has done other Christmas ads, also relevant to other areas of
linguistics! For example this one relates to inter-cultural communication - and with
a linguistically interesting t-shirt! https://youtu.be/QmfIfqZc-jE
And it turns out there are various other linguistics-related Christmas ads out there.
This year's ad from Microsoft relates to automated translation:
https://youtu.be/nnmy7IPE08I - I thought I'd do this ailing small business a favour
since they've only received about 70 thousand views, compared to 22 million for this
year's Christmas ad from Apple (which is not linguistics-related, pffff!). Meanwhile
Huawei's 2018 Christmas ad is about its automated sign language app StorySign:
https://youtu.be/VAgA5QJvWvA.
Then there's this ad from British homewares store Robert Dyas, which could be useful
for deconstructing gender-related discourses about DIY: https://youtu.be/_YS2dSa-Ud0.
Compare it to gender stereotypes and/or heteronormativity in another DIY ad of your
choice!
Last but not least there's this totally adorable 2016 Christmas ad from Allegro,
Poland's answer to eBay, about learning English (also relevant to linguistic
diaspora, migration, etc.): https://youtu.be/tU5Rnd-HM6A. Hey, capitalism might be
melting the planet, but who says it can't melt some hearts too, amirite? Awww!
Ok, it's poem time. Here we go folks, with the first three stanzas...
"Twas the night before Christmas in the ivory tower,
Not a creature was stirring at the midnight hour,
Twas a problem for linguists who live to hear sounds,
Consonants, vowels (open or round).
We linguists were nestled all snug in our beds,
While visions of fricatives danced in our heads.
Snug in our gowns and our four-cornered caps,
We pondered enigmas like bilabial taps.
When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter.
I sprang from the bed hoping for research matter.
Away to the window I flew like a flash,
Hoping my equipment would record and not crash..."
The poem continues here: https://www.academia.edu/9856733/. Enjoy!
Feel free to share it far and wide (it has a Creative Commons licence:
https://CreativeCommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/). And it's printable too - perfect
for real world spamming!
For the tweeps among you, please also do what comes naturally:
https://twitter.com/DaveJSayers/status/1201043063415681024
Festively yours,
Dave
--
Dr. Dave Sayers, ORCID no. 0000-0003-1124-7132
Senior Lecturer, Dept Language & Communication Studies, University of Jyväskylä,
Finland | www.jyu.fi
Communications Secretary, BAAL Language Policy group | www.langpol.ac.uk
[log in to unmask] | http://jyu.academia.edu/DaveSayers
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