Language Joyriding: An Inaugural Lecture Delivered Before the University of Oxford on 16 November 1993

by Jean Aitchison, Rupert Murdoch

Jean Aitchison explains that the role of the Rupert Murdoch Professor of Language and Communication is twofold: researching into key aspects of language, especially of the media, and educating future gatekeepers or lock-keepers, those who will filter and transform incoming floods of information. Lock-keeper education involves promoting clear communication, computer skills, and knowledge of language, in the sense of knowing how it works. Media language is inventive and creative - but it can only push language along in the direction in which it is already going. Use of individual words matters less that the context in which they are used, and metaphors can be all-powerful. These points are made with illustrations from some changing lexical items: mini-, wimp and joyriding.

38 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 1994

About the author

Jean Aitchison is a Professor of Language and Communication in the Faculty of English Language and Literature at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of Worcester College, Oxford.

Her main areas of interest include:

Socio-historical linguistics
Language and mind
Language and the media