BUZZWORDS THAT WERE SO LAST YEAR

Last Tuesday Philip Norman listed for the Daily Mail some of the words that became common usage in 2012 among politicians and twitter addicts. Sharp and witty. There you will find phrases such as: chillax, a mixture of chill and relax; Ping; Do you need a bag? Do not miss the explanations of what is meant by saying that. LOL

THE ITALIAN MAN WHO WENT TO MALTA

Taboo words, phonetics and cultural misunderstanding. Do you find it extremely dull when we do insist on long and short vowels? Watch this video on the net. So true.

HUGH LAURIE: BRITISH SLANG VS: AMERICAN SLANG

Hugh Laurie visited Ellen's show and they played a brilliant game on slang. Have a gig watching it at YouTube.

AUTONOMOUS LEARNING REVISITED

Autonomy was a buzz word for the TESOL market. I would recommend 'Teaching and Researching Autonomy in Language Learning (2001). it is an appropriate starting point for student teachers, researchers in Applied Linguistics, and teachers involved in self-access learning, and learner trainning in autonomy. 

STEVEN PINKER: THE LANGUAGE INSTINCT

The language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language (1994)

In this classic, the MIT's expert on language and mind brilliantly explains everything you always wanted to know about language: how it works, how children learn it, how it changes, how the brain computes it, and how it evolved. Full of humor and wordplay. Do not miss the preface.

GRICE'S COOPERATIVE PRINCIPLE

The English language philosopher Paul Grice proposed in 1975 that in ordinary conversation speakers and hearers cooperate to be understood, and try to avoid ambiguity by attempting to be informative, truthful, relevant and clear. But these rules would mean that humour, puns and tales would become a diversion of his cooperative principle. Basic in Pragmatics. Check out a slideshare in Applied Linguistics (Univ. of Pamplona). Watch a video by Phloneme in YouTube explaining the maxims of conversation.

AROMAPOETRY

A must. Just type aromapoetry, browse, and open up to Expanded Semantics.