Lauren Hall-Lew
LightNews LightNews
lhlew.bsky.social
Lauren Hall-Lew
@lhlew.bsky.social
3.3K followers 2K following 360 posts

Professor of Sociolinguistics at the University of Edinburgh. Anti-racist, pro-trans, pro-housing, adoption-critical, Gàidhlig learner, BSL learner, musician, Trekkie, dysthymic, bleeding-heart cynic. She/her.

Videos
Psychology 45%
Communication & Media Studies 27%
Posts Replies Media Videos
Pinned
lhlew.bsky.social
Lauren Hall-Lew @lhlew.bsky.social · Oct 28
My inaugural lecture is now online 🥰
media.ed.ac.uk/media/Profes...

#sociophonetics #sociolinguistics #linguistics #phonetics #semiotics #Peirce #indexicality #social #meaning #research #academic #academia #lecture #Arizona #SanFrancisco #Gaelic #Gàidhlig #Scots #English #professor #babyphotos
Professor Lauren Hall-Lew Inaugural Lecture
Professor Lauren Hall-Lew's Inaugural Lecture from 25th September 2024. Sociophonetic indexicality as a window onto language and society.
media.ed.ac.uk

Reposted by Lauren Hall‐Lew

21group.bsky.social
21 Group @21group.bsky.social · 1h
"Surveys of bullying in universities show that it is rife, but universities are chronically unable to identify any bullying behaviour"

From "Exited: Terminated from Higher Education", edited by Howson, Hughes & Tight, published Emerald Press

Reposted by Lauren Hall‐Lew

saraharens.bsky.social
Sarah Arens @saraharens.bsky.social · 4d
Nice to see this out in the world. My new article 'Epistemological violence in the museum: animals, colonial knowledge, and challenges to decoloniality' is out with CFC and currently open-access. Thanks to everyone who made it possible: liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/doi/10.3828/...
Epistemological violence in the museum: animals, colonial knowledge, and challenges to decoloniality | Contemporary French Civilization
This article offers a novel intervention in decolonial museology by foregrounding animal representation and natural history collections as critical yet overlooked sites of epistemological violence in Belgium’s Royal Museum for Central Africa (RMCA). ...
liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk

lhlew.bsky.social
Lauren Hall-Lew @lhlew.bsky.social · 4d
Sign the petition to allow trans girls and women back into Girl Guiding UK c.org/BzmspcT9HW
Allow transgender women and girls back into GirlGuiding UK
Can you spare a minute to help this campaign?
c.org

Reposted by Anna O. Law, Suresh Venkatasubramanian, Rebecca Sear , and 9 more

jackiantonovich.bsky.social
Jacqueline Antonovich @jackiantonovich.bsky.social · 4d
Historian of eugenics here. I don't normally like to retweet bad arguments, but this is such a fundamental misunderstanding of eugenics, I think it's important to point out. I don't have time to debunk all of the ways this is inaccurate, but I'll highlight a few things and then recommend some books🧵

Reposted by Elizabeth Saunders, Caroline Krafft, Erika Franklin Fowler , and 5 more

bencollins.bsky.social
Tim Onion @bencollins.bsky.social · 5d
Hey all,

The Onion is accepting applicants for our writing, video and graphics fellowships.

Fellowships last six months, pay well, and provide full benefits.

You can apply at theonion.com/fellowship.
Fellowship
theonion.com

Reposted by Anna O. Law, Suresh Venkatasubramanian, Rebecca Sear , and 5 more

Reposted by Lauren Hall‐Lew

langsocscot.bsky.social
Language and Society Scotland @langsocscot.bsky.social · 8d
Thank you to everyone who joined us at the University of Edinburgh on Friday for lively discussions on the linguistic, economic and social dynamics of AI. Planning will begin for our next event before too long, so please tag or message us with ideas for your preferred topic or location!

Reposted by Lauren Hall‐Lew

technomoralfutures.bsky.social
Centre for Technomoral Futures @technomoralfutures.bsky.social · 12d
Speech technology researchers are working to improve text-to-speech with the goal of accessible communication. However, TTS models are also being used to produce misinformation, deepfake pornography & more…

Read our latest blog post from @alice-ross.bsky.social, CTMF PhD Fellow ▶️ edin.ac/4re6En4
Blue to green gradient image with text reading, 'Centre for Technomoral Futures Blog: Text-to-speech voices as human remains, by Alice Ross, PhD Fellow.' There is a headshot photo of Alice – she is wearing a black and white polka-dot shirt, with a gold necklace. She has short brown hair with a red tint, and is smiling. 

lhlew.bsky.social
Lauren Hall-Lew @lhlew.bsky.social · 15d
What a nice surprise to see this recent mention in my alma mater's newsletter 🥰 linguistics.stanford.edu/news/hall-le...

#linguistics #variation #sociolinguistics #corpora #books #Stanford #StanfordUniversity #StanfordLinguistics
Hall-Lew co-editor of new book | Linguistics
Lauren Hall-Lew (Ph.D. '09) is a co-editor of a book titled Dimensions of Linguistic Variation, published earlier this year by Oxford University Press.
linguistics.stanford.edu

Reposted by Lauren Hall‐Lew

schoolofppls.bsky.social
School of PPLS at The University of Edinburgh @schoolofppls.bsky.social · 20d
The New episode of PPLS Perspectives is available now!

Maisy Hallam chats with Prof. Jenny Culbertson about how #technology, #AI, and global change are reshaping the future of language — and why #linguistic diversity matters more than ever.

Listen now: edin.ac/4r7axdA

Reposted by Lauren Hall‐Lew

bitshammer.bsky.social
Bits @bitshammer.bsky.social · 22d
So they're saying the sign worked

Reposted by Lauren Hall‐Lew

broadwaybabyto.bsky.social
Kelly @broadwaybabyto.bsky.social · 22d
An immigrant had her green card revoked for writing a bad cheque for $25.

She had since paid it back.

She’s now languishing in a detention camp.

Yet we are letting child rapists go free. Even the ones who get caught get “community service”.

It was never about crime.
Irish woman with green card faces US deportation over $25 bad cheque
Donna Hughes-Brown, who has lived in US since 1977 and wrote cheque a decade ago, being held in isolation by Ice
www.theguardian.com

Reposted by Naomi Klein, Lauren Hall‐Lew, Dana Howard

chanda.blacksky.app
Chanda Prescod-Weinstein 🌌 @chanda.blacksky.app · 23d
A nice obituary for Alice, who was going to be recognized as one of The Post 50.

I hate that we now have to live without this phenomenal woman.

#GiftLink

wapo.st/49WOdx1
Alice Wong, disability rights advocate and wordsmith, dies at 51
Alice Wong, a transformational leader for disability rights and justice, who founded the Disability Visibility project to magnify disabled culture, died Nov. 14.
wapo.st

Reposted by Lauren Hall‐Lew

broadwaybabyto.bsky.social
Kelly @broadwaybabyto.bsky.social · 25d
Never forget the same people defending pedophilia have spent years trying to convince the public that drag queens and trans people are a threat to children.

It’s all smoke and mirrors to allow the real predators to roam free.

lhlew.bsky.social
Lauren Hall-Lew @lhlew.bsky.social · 26d
@verbingnouns.bsky.social yes!

lhlew.bsky.social
Lauren Hall-Lew @lhlew.bsky.social · 26d
I watched my grandmother completely transform due to CJD. It's brutal. And at present there are no approved prion disease treatments. The CJD Support Network is here for those who are currently being affected. #CJDAwareness www.facebook.com/CJDSupport

lhlew.bsky.social
Lauren Hall-Lew @lhlew.bsky.social · 26d
@superlinguo.bsky.social look, now we will be more unique. www.aol.co.uk/articles/10-...
10 once-popular baby names that could be going extinct
Once-popular baby names are rapidly disappearing, making them perfect picks for parents seeking something unique.
www.aol.co.uk

Reposted by Lauren Hall‐Lew

jslx.bsky.social
Journal of Sociolinguistics @jslx.bsky.social · 28d
Check out our new Interview series 🌟
In conversation with @lhlew.bsky.social, John Rickford reflects on his career in Guyana and the U.S. Through personal and professional stories, he shows how the personal and political are entwined in a life in sociolinguistics.

🔗
buff.ly

Reposted by Lauren Hall‐Lew

broadwaybabyto.bsky.social
Kelly @broadwaybabyto.bsky.social · 29d
Before ACA, many Americans couldn’t afford insurance

Alex Smith was a diabetic who got kicked off his Mom’s insurance at 26

He made 35k a year which was “too much” for Medicaid, but not nearly enough to cover insurance premiums

He had to ration his insulin & died a month after losing insurance
Insulin's High Cost Leads To Lethal Rationing
Alec Raeshawn Smith was 23 when diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes and 26 when he died. He couldn't afford $1,300 per month for his insulin and other diabetes supplies, so he tried to stretch the doses.
www.npr.org

lhlew.bsky.social
Lauren Hall-Lew @lhlew.bsky.social · Nov 8
Not sure I've ever published something so blatantly personal -- and it's a book review, of all things! I even cited my mom's book! Here's to normalizing the practice of positionality statements. Thanks to the editors and authors for the opportunity. #inclusion journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
Book Review: Inclusion in Linguistics - Lauren Hall-Lew, 2025
journals.sagepub.com

Reposted by Lauren Hall‐Lew, Seth Masket, Nathan P. Kalmoe

lhlew.bsky.social
Lauren Hall-Lew @lhlew.bsky.social · Nov 7
"The UK urgently needs cohesive and foundational principles to guide policymaking in this field and agreement on these principles must be led by the Deaf community"

bda.org.uk/bsl-is-not-f...

via @bda.org.uk via @debrief.disabilitydebrief.org.ap.brid.gy
BSL is not for sale: a Deaf-led approach to AI procurement
Today, the Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy at the University of Cambridge has published a new report, BSL is not for Sale: a Deaf-led approach to AI procurement.
bda.org.uk

Reposted by Lauren Hall‐Lew

nvbinder.io
N.V. Binder 𓀨 @nvbinder.io · Nov 6
Chance of a rain of lizards on Tuesday (real)
Weather forecast: falling iguanas possible Tuesday morning.

Reposted by Lauren Hall‐Lew

mixedlinguist.bsky.social
Nicole Holliday @mixedlinguist.bsky.social · Nov 6
In her #NWAV53 plenary, King discusses an example of a juror being dismissed from the pool due to forestressing in the word police (so PO-lice), because the prosecutor claimed that the pronunciation showed animus towards law enforcement. And this is exactly why I study prosody!

Reposted by Lauren Hall‐Lew

broadwaybabyto.bsky.social
Kelly @broadwaybabyto.bsky.social · Nov 6
There’s not enough attention being paid to the fact that ICE deported a man in a persistent vegetative state

Or the fact that he was perfectly healthy when he was detained, and his family have no idea what was done to him to cause such a severe decline

He died shortly after being deported to Cuba

Reposted by Anna O. Law, Nandita Sharma, Margaret Mitchell , and 19 more

carlquintanilla.bsky.social
Carl Quintanilla @carlquintanilla.bsky.social · Nov 5
This really hasn’t gotten enough attention this week.

@wired.com #ICE
www.wired.com/story/fbi-wa...

lhlew.bsky.social
Lauren Hall-Lew @lhlew.bsky.social · Nov 5
Oops, this was from #NWAV52!

lhlew.bsky.social
Lauren Hall-Lew @lhlew.bsky.social · Nov 5
Attention #linguistics nerds, the #NWAV53 live feed has begun!
jennycz.bsky.social Jen Nycz @jennycz.bsky.social · Nov 4
On my way to Michigan for #NWAV53 ✈️ flying northwesterly to DTW, like northern cities TRAP
Picture of an in-flight screen showing a map of the northern US, with flight path from DCA to DTW

Reposted by Lauren Hall‐Lew

natashalennard.bsky.social
Natasha Lennard @natashalennard.bsky.social · Nov 5
Zohran Mamdani’s victory means so much — including a 'fuck you' to the Islamophobic weaponization of antisemitism... @theintercept.com theintercept.com/2025/11/04/z...
They Tried to Smear Zohran Mamdani as an Antisemite. Voters Saw Right Through It.
Mamdani’s mayoral victory in New York City means so much — including the repudiation of Islamophobic attacks and weaponization of antisemitism.
theintercept.com

Reposted by Lauren Hall‐Lew

jennycz.bsky.social
Jen Nycz @jennycz.bsky.social · Nov 4
On my way to Michigan for #NWAV53 ✈️ flying northwesterly to DTW, like northern cities TRAP
Picture of an in-flight screen showing a map of the northern US, with flight path from DCA to DTW