This article explores intraspeaker malleability in the realisation of the first-person possessive in the North-East of England ([maɪ], versus [mi] and [ma]). The analysis relies on a combination of a trend sample and a novel dynamic panel corpus that covers the entire adult lifespan. While [mi] has been around at least since the 1970s on Tyneside, [ma] appears to have made its way into the system during the 1980s and 1990s. The panel data add intraspeaker information to this ongoing change, revealing a turnover in the proportional usage of possessive variants between two recordings that are on average ten years apart. Regression modelling provides differentiated information about intraspeaker changes across the lifespan, suggesting that, with only a few exceptions, intraspeaker grammars are stable across the lifespan. The analysis supports recent panel research that has argued for the importance of considering the socio-demographic trajectory of the individual: while speakers who are part of the ‘marché scolaire’ (Bourdieu & Boltanski 1975: 7) orient towards the standard, speakers working as professional carers (e.g. nurses) tend to retain high rates of the reduced variants across their lifespans to do local identity work and establish better interpersonal relations with their clients.

This essay argues that Russia's war on Ukraine and the post-Soviet experience, more generally, reveal ethical, empirical, and theoretical problems in the study of nationalism in the region; namely, the tendency to designate anti-colonial, non-Russian nationalism as a “bad” ethnic type and the related tendency to see opposition to it as a “good” civic, nationalist agenda while in reality, the latter agenda can be imperial. Conflation of imperialism with civic nationalism and underappreciation of the democratic potential of non-Russian nationalism are problematic. The essay argues that these problems stem from theorizing about ethnic and civic nationalism that is rooted in abstract principles and does not take into account the empirical realities in which specific policies originate. I suggest that a more ethically and theoretically accurate characterization of types of nationalism as good or bad can be achieved by applying a methodology that takes into account not only formal markers of “ethnic” and “civic” policies but also the realities proponents and opponents of a given policy seek to establish and undo, the methods by which these realities come into being, and the constraints on employing illiberal methods that political actors face.

The Catherine Tate Show (2004–7) is a rich source of instances of stereotyped language varieties as linked to various TV tropes, reflecting how speakers coming from specific regional areas in the British Isles are generally and stereotypically perceived within British society, thus contributing to their linguistic enregisterment. Building on previous works on dialects in the media and their stereotypical representations, this study gives an account of the various implications and functions of the linguistic phenomena that are specific to the Southeast of England and that are exploited for the creation of some of the fictional identities presented in the show. Specific phonological features that implicitly collocate Tate’s recurring characters both regionally and socially are identified and their functions discussed.

Multicultural Toronto English (MTE) is a register found in Toronto, Canada, associated with racialized youth. The ongoing enregisterment of MTE takes place, in part, through metadiscourse on social media, which disseminates the register to a wider audience. This article examines online metadiscursive engagement with representations of MTE. We consider how audiences take up, receive and recontextualize MTE through metadiscourse across grassroots and institutional media platforms. We argue that audience engagement with pop-cultural representations of language is a critical driving force of enregisterment and register change.

Climate change is to a large extent a collective action problem, but many believe that individual action is also required. But what if no individual contribution to climate change is necessary nor sufficient to cause climate change-induced harms? This issue is known as the problem of inconsequentialism. It is particularly problematic for act consequentialism because the theory does not seem to judge such inconsequential contributions negatively. In this paper, we apply Henry Sidgwick's idea of esoteric morality to climate change and assess whether what we call a climate esoteric morality could help to deal with the problem of inconsequentialism from an act consequentialist perspective. Consequentialists ought then to promote what we call nonconsequentialist faux principles; exaggerate existing consequentialist principles that pro tanto forbid contributing to climate change whenever strictly consequentialist principles fail to do so; and refrain from criticising nonconsequentialist principles that forbid contributing to climate change.

Many of the most popular comedy performances are rich in non-standard linguistic features of English. This article addresses how dialect contributes to the humor in comedy performances, and how humorous dialect performance leads to the enregisterment of a dialect. It applies enregisterment theory to online clips of three live comedy performances by Stephen Buchanan (‘How to survive Glasgow’), Ali G (‘Harvard Commencement Speech 2004’) and Riaad Moosa (‘I have a weird accent’), and one clip from the British sitcom PhoneShop (2009–13). All four dialectal performances showcase the metalinguistic activity central to enregisterment processes. However, in each performance, the dialect also fulfils a dedicated function in the construction of humor, ranging from building audience rapport to the subversion of a (linguistic) status quo. It is argued that just as dialect can help performers to be funnier, humor can help a dialect to become more enregistered.

Amid Russia's illegal invasion of Ukraine, the human rights community has understandably focused its attention on human rights violations committed by the Russian state. This has, however, left the human rights implications of the martial law Ukraine has put in place for civilians largely unexamined. This essay highlights the ways Ukraine's travel restriction on “battle-aged” civilian men has harmed three overlapping groups—civilian men, the families of the men (including women and children), and trans and nonbinary individuals—and shows that the restriction runs counter to important principles in international human rights and humanitarian law. It then considers the ethical dilemmas faced by the international human rights community in addressing such harms, and the political psychology of rights advocacy that may explain the tendency to underplay this particular set of human rights issues. Nonetheless, the essay ultimately argues that advocates should hold actors—including and perhaps especially those with which they may sympathize—accountable to the human rights standards to which they have pledged.

This article examines the causes and geographical trajectories of the globalisation of vermouth, one of the most famous Made in Italy products in the world. Of all the fortified wines, vermouth stands out for its unique history. Originally a product of Piedmont consumed mainly by the aristocracy and the emerging bourgeoisie, vermouth became the subject of a growing export trade between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, gaining credibility thanks to the prizes won at international exhibitions and the marketing strategies of the main companies in the sector (Martini & Rossi, Carpano, Gancia, Cinzano). Despite the commercial difficulties it experienced in the twentieth century as a result of protectionist measures, the effects of war, the heterogeneous policies applied to the alcoholic beverage industry and widespread imitation and counterfeiting, vermouth has managed to maintain an appeal that has made it an international icon and one of the most resilient products in the medium to long term. This is partly the result of a media representation that was capable of deeply influencing the collective imagination of consumers.

This article investigates changes in the right to social assistance – a means-tested cash support programme, regulated by the Social Services Act – for irregularised migrants over a period of four decades, 1982–2022. The article makes the case that austerity policies have hollowed out the right to support, with significant repercussions for those with irregularised residency status. In doing so, it draws on a range of empirical data to shed light on the dynamics of legal change over time and across various settings, identifying both continuities and critical turning points. The latter include shifts in national or local migration policies, and novel intersections between migration law and social law, epitomised by court judgments that have redrawn the lines of inclusion and exclusion in the sphere of rights holders. The article also highlights continuous issues concerning inconsistencies in the legal sources made used of by courts, neglect of children’s interests and needs, and an application of requirements for participation in work-related activities that disadvantage migrants and citizens alike. Ultimately, the article offers insights into how social rights can be preserved in the context of increasingly restrictive migration and social policies.

In this essay, we bridge the gap between two understandings of the power of the European Union (EU): as a normative actor, guided by ethical principles and empowered by the internal market, and as a geopolitical actor, building its own military capabilities and ready to defend its interests through deterrence and defense. In view of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, we challenge the established “values vs. interests” dichotomy and argue that defending liberal democratic values is an essential foundation of the EU's existing and potential geopolitical power. We show how, over the last decade, opting for short-term expediency and capitulating to a kind of realpolitik “regime indifference” in dealings with authoritarian regimes at home and abroad have severely weakened the EU and also diminished Ukraine's capacities to defend itself as it fights for these shared values on the battlefield. We argue that it is in the EU's strategic interest to strengthen its commitment to values-based foreign and defense policies, revive a meritocratic and credible enlargement process, and work with the United States to provide more effective military assistance to Ukraine in its fight for liberal democratic values and a rules-based European security order.

Both -ity and -ness are frequent and productive suffixes in English that fulfill the same core function: turning adjectives into nouns that denote the state or quality of whatever the adjective denotes. This well-known affix rivalry raises two core questions: 1. What determines the choice between -ity and -ness for a given base word? 2. Are the two affixes synonymous? For the first question, previous work has focused on morphological and phonological properties of the bases, but not their semantics. For question 2, the literature fails to give a convincing answer, with some studies, faced with doublets like ethnicity/ethnicness, arguing for a semantic difference, but most assuming synonymy. Using pretrained distributional vectors, I show empirically first that the semantics of the bases plays a major role in affix selection and second that the two affixes induce similar meaning shifts.

Much mainstream political philosophy assumes that states have a broad right to decide who is granted entry and membership into their political community. On this conventional view, admission of migrants and refugees is understood as mostly a matter of general humanitarian duty or voluntary beneficence rather than as a specific obligation of justice. Through an analysis of climate-related migration from Central America's Dry Corridor to the United States, I argue that many such migrants may in fact be owed admission as reparation for injustice, and that the character of this injustice raises broader challenges for the conventional view.

As part of the “Solar Geoengineering: Ethics, Governance, and International Politics” roundtable, this essay examines dilemmas arising in exploring nonideal scenarios of solar geoengineering deployment. Model-based knowledge about solar geoengineering tells us little about possible climatic responses to malicious, self-interested, or competing deployments, and even less about political or cultural responses outside of the climate system. The essay argues that policy for governing solar geoengineering in a world of multiple states and uneven power relations requires a broader base for solar geoengineering knowledge, beyond that offered by modeling, and a better understanding of nonideal scenarios, especially those motivated by logics beyond reducing climate impacts. It highlights the interests of military and security actors in such knowledge, and the potential for it to facilitate securitization and further reduce the prospect of multilateral collaborative governance of geoengineering in the public interest. The essay concludes that further research can be ethically justified but must be comprehensively governed.

In Morality by Degrees, Alastair Norcross presents contextualist accounts of good and right acts as well as harm and free will. All of his analyses compare what is assessed with “the appropriate alternative,” which is supposed to vary with context. This paper clarifies Norcross's approach, distinguishes it from previous versions of moral contextualism and contrastivism, and reveals difficulties in adequately specifying the context and the appropriate alternative. It also shows how these difficulties can be avoided by moving from contextualism to a kind of contrastivism that does not claim that any alternative is or is not appropriate or relevant.

Anthony D. Smith, in one of his earlier, less debated, works – Nationalism in the 20th Century (1979) – examines phases of nationalism in the modern era, suggesting that nationalism has taken various forms before and during the 20th century. He argues that nationalism’s adaptability is at the core of its persistence, adapting to changing situations such as fascism and communism. As a result of this adaptability, nationalism still flourishes today. This article applies Smith’s theory to explore the interplay between cultural and material factors in the evolution of nationalism in Ireland. It identifies five ideological phases – revolutionary nationalist, protectionist, liberalising, neoliberal, and ecological – to which nationalism has adapted, and within which nationalism has influenced various aspects of Irish society. These phases are situated within a broader ideological and material context, analysing obliquely the Irish language (a core element of Irish nationalism), and related to changing processes of individualization.