Some recent talks
Here are some Powerpoint shows that I’ve used recently:
- September 2026, @ Highgate School: Moving forwards in MFL
- October 2025, @ University of Nancy: The benefits and limitations of tables
- March 2025, @ Westminster School: The Language of Ecology
- July 2024, @ online APLO meeting: The Architecture of Language
- March 2024, @ University of Bedford: English: Past, present and future
- July 2023, @ online APLO meeting: The other side of language (revised)
- July 2022, @ online APLO meeting: The other side of language
- September 2019, @ Bedford School: Language detectives
- September 2019, @ LAGB, QMUL: Historical background to A-level English Language
- July 2019, @ British Academy: Randolph and education
- May 2019, @ Anglia Ruskin University: Analysing language: from university to school
- May 2019, @ Edinburgh University’s CLRG: Defaults without faults.
- January 2019, @ Humboldt University Berlin: Word order and phrases in a network.
- October 2018, @ Humboldt University Berlin: Extraction: dependency and word order. [not presented]
- June 2018, @ UCL: Between dependency structure and phrase structure.
- April 2018, @ University of Cambridge: Linguistics and education: a case of mutual dependency?
- March 2018, @ Kelmscott School:
- December 2017, @ Loughborough Grammar School: Linguistics for lively minds
- September 2017, @ U3A Ealing: Why Education needs Grammar
- June 2017, @ James Allen’s Girl’s School: The Linguistics Olympiad
- November 2016, @ OCR, Cambridge: The impact of the primary SPaG tests on secondary education
- November 2016, @ Dulwich College: Linguistics for Lively Minds
- September 2016, @ Godolphin and Latymer School
- September 2016, @ LAGB conference, York UKLO and the LAGB
- May 2016, @ Burch University, Sarajevo From practice to theory and back
- March 2016, @ North London Collegiate Schools The lure of language, or the glamour of grammar
- January 2016, @ Valencia From theoretical grammar to school grammar – and back
- November 2015, @ University College School (London) Linguistics and the Linguistics Olympiad
- October 2015, @ Freie Universität Berlin Syntax and cognition
- October 2015, @ Westminster School The lure of language (or the glamour of grammar)
- May 2015, @ Surbiton High School Integrated grammar (plus handouts)
- February 2015, @ University of Luton What’s the use of grammar?
- July 2014, @ The British Library Grammar schools and school grammars
- May 2014, @ The Royal Grammar School, Guildford The lure of linguistics, and the glamour of grammar
- November 2013, @ Mander-Portman-Woodward, London Language: more than a line on your CV
- August 2013, @ DepLing, Prague Dependency structure and cognition
- May 2013, @ Cardiff University
- January 2013, @ Westminster School The Glamour of Grammar
- November 2012, @ UCLan Linguistics and literacy
- November 2012, @ Oxford French clitics and cognition
- October 2012, @ Kings College School The Glamour of Grammar
- September 2012, @ LAGB Is a unified grammatical terminology possible?
- May 2012, @ Lexington, Kentucky: The logic of default inheritance in Word Grammar | abstract
- March 2012, @ Budapest: Word Grammar and other cognitive theories
- March 2012, @ Budapest: Word order without phrases (introduction to Word Grammar)
- March 2012, @ Budapest: Why education needs linguistics, and vice versa
- March 2012, @ Budapest: Cognitive sociolinguistics
- November 2011, @ UCS: Cracking the language code: the UK Linguistics Olympiad
- September 2011, @ LAGB: The UK Linguistics Olympiad: Some facts and figures
- March 2011, @ Henry Sweet Society, Cambridge: Why history matters: from Babylon to Sweet, Tesnière, Chomsky and the National Curriculum.
- February 2011, @ ISMLA Oxford: The UK Linguistics Olympiad
- December 2010, @ Cambridge: Linguistics for education
- November 2010, @ Joensuu, Finland: (1) Words are concepts (2) Word-word relations are concepts
- October 2010, @ Bangor: A tutorial in Word Grammar
- September 2010, @ LAGB, Leeds: (with Nik Gisborne) Idioms and irregularity
- February 2010, @ Liverpool: The grammar gap
- October 2009, @ Cambridge: Overview of linguistics at school: the educational and political context
- October 2009, @ Cracow: Syntactic structure in familiar and exotic languages
- September 2009, @LAGB, Edinburgh: Welsh soft mutation and Word Grammar
- July 2009, @ Institute of Education: Measuring maturity
- April 2009, @ Manchester: A cognitive analysis of the word ‘S
- March 2009, @ Manchester: Why memory matters in English grammar
- September 2008, @Giessen: Norm, Standard, Deviation (and accompanying position statement for panel discussion)
- June 2008, @St Francis Xavier College: Grammar for A-level English Language (and accompanying data-set)
- June 2008, @Cambridge: How to learn and use a language.
- May 2008, @Lisbon: English or Portuguese: language or literature?
- March 2008 , @SOAS: Towards a useful theory of language (bulky pictures removed – ask me if you want them!)
- February 2008, @Bangor: Code-switching in a network.
- January 2008,@UCML: Language teaching (and research) in HE
- November 2007, @British Library: Variation at the BL
- October 2007, @University of Westminster: Linguistics and education
- August 2007, @LAGB: Syntactic micro-variation and linguistic theory
- July 2007, @Language Alliance: Is Dearing a shot in the arm for the Languages Strategy? A view ‘from the British Academy’.
- May 2007, @British Academy: Language Learning. An academic view (corrected) (or by ftp)
- May 2006, @Sheffield University: Linguistics at school
- April 2006, @Language World (Manchester): The excitement of language learning.
- March 2006, @Middlesex University: Grammar and Education
- March 2006, @British Academy: Networks in language structure
- December 2005, @Leipzig: Networks for modelling language use, usage, change and evolution
- December 2005, @Edinburgh: Society, symbols, sex and syntax: the evolution of the language network
- November 2005, @NewVIc: Taking language apart.
- November 2005, @Lancaster: Linguistics at school.
- October 2005, @IoE: (with others) An A-level in linguistics?
- October 2005, @ NDCL (Cognitive Linguistics conference): Landmarks in syntax?
- September 2005, @ LAGB: Against adjuncts and complements
- August 2005, @ UCL: An invitation to (socio)linguistics
- August 2005, @ LACUS, Dartmouth College: A computer model of inheritance networks in language
- June 2005, @ St Mary’s College, U of Surrey: Linguistics in the school curriculum.
- January 2005, @ Oxford Linguistics Circle: Language as a network and syntax as a network.
- December 2004 @ Edinburgh: From structure to use via the language network.
- December 2004 @ Belgrade: From English to Serbian via the language network.
- August 2004, @ LAGB: A network model of processing in morphology
- June 2004, @ UCL: My farewell talk: Whence, where and whither linguistics? (full version = 6 Mb, or reduced to 200 Kb)
- June 2004, @ SOAS: Literacy, Language-learning and Linguistics
- May 2004, @ Exeter: Grammar for writing
- April 2004, @ St Andrews: Is language a box or a network?
- March 2004, @ UCL: Modelling language as an inheritance network
- February 2004, DGfS @ Mainz: Linguistics at School – Recent events in England