Tower Hamlets’ recognition of Cockney as a “community language” celebrates the role that all English dialects play in shaping individual and community identities.
‘Accentless’ spoken language is the language of the elite, of authority. It’s the version of the language that is used by the people who have traditionally held all the power.
Words have power, and what vocabulary you have at your disposal to describe your relationships with other people can shape what directions those relationships can take.
For many school children, Benjamin Zephaniah’s work will have been the first time they encountered published literature that talked about the things that mattered to them.
Translation involves more than just transferring words from one language to another. Better translations of study materials can improve both the diversity of study participants and research results.
Most people can draw from tens of thousands of words in their memory within milliseconds. Studying this process can improve language disorder treatment and appreciation of the gift of communication.