English for Academic Purposes/ 2016

7 October
Articles and clips
Yes Minister Brexit - an update (from The Guardian) on earlier wisdom (transcript)
The Rise of the Trump Academic, from The Sociological Review, in response to Mark Carrigan’s How to ‘network’ without chipping away at your soul
Peter Higgs on academic productivity

Grammar and vocabulary
Origin of the term hedge
Creepy

13 October
Model answers” to ex. 8.2 on academic writing style (Cambridge Academic English C1, p.51) – I think we did better!

Articles and clips
University of Lincoln Research Showcase: Academic Freedom
Freedom of Speech: Why We NEED Academic Freedom (from Learn Liberty, Inst. for Humanist Studies)

Grammar and vocabulary
Finnish Virtual University Vocabulary choice, with Exercises
Using Appropriate Words in an Academic Essay (CELC, National University of Singapore)

mettle, put/keep on your mettle, prove/show your mettle,  - example sentences using ‘mettle’
by/according to one’s own lights
op-ed  

20 October
Articles and clips
Survey of Academic Freedom in Europe, email and selections from survey
Constantine Sandis, Free speech within reason (THES)
What did the Foreign and Commonwealth Office say to the London School of Economics about foreign academics?
(see e.g. the Guardian’s article LSE foreign academics told they will not be asked to advise UK on Brexit)

Grammar and vocabulary
English phonemes
ə
(schwa)

foil: foil a plan, foil one’s enemies, play foil to (some literary examples)
coot: crazy as a coot, bald as a coot
[bald here meaning ‘marked with white’, a sense seen also in the word piebald, transferred to bald as in hairless]
tantamount to
doublespeak, spin (news management – Raymond Kuhn paper on Labour spin)
doublethink

4 November
Articles and clips
What are you working on? (video clip) Constantine Sandis
Academic freedom summarized (Academic Senate, UCSC)
The ‘Idea of the University’ today (History & Policy)
Philip G. Altbach, “Academic freedom: International realities and challenges,” Higher Education 41: 205–219, 2001
AAUP on academic freedom
AFAF, Why Academic Freedom Matters (Civitas, 2016)
The UK: the Prevent Duty, and the Research Excellence Framework.
The evolution of intellectual freedom (PhD comics, thanks to Kateřina Papežová for the link!)

Grammar and vocabulary
pat, pat dry, pat down, a pat on the back, pat someone on the back = congratulate, have something off or down pat = memorized perfectly, stand pat
academe

11 November
Articles and clips
Alan Renwick and Meg Russell, We need to talk about our democracy (The Constitution Unit)
Harry Belafonte, What Do We Have to Lose? Everything (New York Times)
Peter Pomerantsev, Why we’re post-fact (Granta)
Nathan Jurgenson, factiness (blog post). How’d the polling go so, so, so wrong? (Fusion). Jill Lepore, Politics and the new machine (New Yorker).
Niall Ferguson, Populism as a backlash against globalization – historical perspectives (Horizons)
Garrison Keillor, Trump voters will not like what happens next (Washington Post)
Jeff Guo, …why Trump voters are so angry… (Washington Post blog)
Jonathan Freedland, A world in doubt (NYRB)
[Various authors], Donald Trump: reflections on the chaos (TLS)

Leonard Cohen, Everybody knows, (lyrics)
 
Grammar and vocabulary
Nominal groups and nominalisation, Helen Sword, Zombie nouns (NYT), Henry Hitchings, The Dark Side of Verbs-as-Nouns (NYT)
non-finite clause
deixis
demagogue
bigotry
troll, trolling
alt-right (Guardian editorial guidance)
pundit, spin doctor
pollyannaish

18 November (No class due to Dean’s Day)
Emails in academic correspondence. (TEFLtastic). Spot the errors in academic emails from students to faculty. 
Useful emailing phrases (UsingEnglish.com)
Academic email etiquette (blog post)

25 November
Articles and clips
[Various authors], Aftermath (New Yorker)
David Tollerton, In the age of Trump, why bother teaching students to argue logically?
Boris Johnson: Bollocks?, IHNED article. Guardian editorial

Grammar and vocabulary
Colloquial pairs
If (conditional), type 2 (present, unreal situation).  He shouldn’t be surprised if I forgot.
Murphy, English Grammar in Use, If…, exercises

Kick against the pricks, (literary use), prick (vulgar)
cloak and dagger [origin], apples to oranges

2 December
Articles and clips
Students have ‘dismaying’ inability to tell fake news from real (NPR) [clip]. J. Bartlett & C.Miller, Truth, lies and the internet (Demos report).
Who’s really to blame for fake news (Truthdig), Fake news (Guardian)
Post-truth: a guide for the perplexed (Nature), Post-truth (Guardian), Post-truth and its consequences (The Nation), Malcolm Byrne, A milestone in post-truth politics (NSA archive), The art of the lie (Economist)

Grammar and vocabulary
Colloquial pairs to complete
Avoiding negatives (exercises)

wrenching, heart-rending and gut-wrenching
have your cake and eat it

9 December
Articles and clips
English for beginners (Polish ad). Martin Creed, It’s you (Guardian) - lyrics
Mary Beard, The Fall of the Roman Empire… on Twitter (TLS blog A Don’s Life)

James Gleick, What defines a meme? (Smithsonian),
Meme warfare (Guardian), The menace of memes (Spectator; comment from Alan Renwick)
How social media created an echo chamber for ideas (BigThink) [clip]
2016 in Guardian Long Reads

Grammar and vocabulary

meme, dank memes,
filter bubble [TED talk], confirmation bias, (media) echo chamber
new political glossary (Guardian)
emoji, emoticons and emoji, Emoji invasion (Guardian)
détournement
by the bye, by and by
bunkum
mansplainer (man explaining), be a sport
ilk
dodge, dodgy
ten etymologies

16 December
Articles and clips
Terry Gilliam, The Christmas Card
Patti Smith, A hard rain’s a-gonna fall (Bob Dylan, Nobel Prize Ceremony - lyrics), Bob Dylan, acceptance speech, (FT, and Guardian on the award)
Jonathan Haidt, Two incompatible values in American universities (Hayek lecture, Duke U.)

Grammar and vocabulary
Commonly known rhyming slang.
Language of concession
Pelmanism
Weak verbs” (exercises)
Multi-word verbs, Phrasal verbs dictionary (usingenglish.com)
brag, humblebrag