Hello

I've decided to start a blog while procrastinating away from writing 3000 words that I promised my supervisor I'd have done by last Friday.

As my first post I thought I would just offer a bit of explanation of the title as it relates to my approach to language/linguistics.

To begin, I like puns and Speech Axe is clearly a pun on Speech Acts. I especially like this pun because both axe and acts put the focus on language in use. An axe is, of course, a tool, and so emphasises language as a tool used for communication. Acts focuses on language as it is actually used. Language consists of actions that are performed, that is, saying, signing or scribing (to preserve the alliteration).

Of course, 'speech acts' are also the key notion of Austin's approach to philosophy of language, and this is nice connection too, because I am very interested in philosophical approaches to language.

Finally, just the word speech nicely puts the focus on real language usage, its heterogeneity across regional varieties and different registers and contexts, as opposed to an approach that prioritises formal, written, standard varieties.