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This study examined discourse effects on obligatory and non-obligatory control interpretations. Seventy participants undertook three online forced-choice surveys, which monitored preferred interpretations in complement control, verbal gerund subject control, long-distance control and sentence-final temporal adjunct control. Survey 1 ascertained their baseline interpretations of the empty category in these constructions. Survey 2 primed the critical sentences used in survey 1 with a weakly established topic of discourse and survey 3 primed them with a strongly established one. Reference assignment in complement control remained consistent across all three conditions, illustrating that pragmatics does not infiltrate this structurally regulated and syntactically unambiguous construction. Changes in interpretation were found in the remaining three constructions. An accessibility-motivated scale of influence, combining three independent discourse factors (topichood, competition and linear distance) was created to model reference determination in verbal gerund subject control and long-distance control. The results for temporal adjunct control are novel. They revealed a much stronger susceptibility to pragmatic interference than that reported in the literature yet the construction behaved differently from non-obligatory control under discourse pressure. We propose a structural account for sentence-final temporal adjunct control, which permits the evident interpretation shift while still excluding arbitrary and sentence-external interpretations.

The present study focuses on the word cheeky which, in the past few decades, has taken on a new meaning of ‘mildly illicit’ in addition to, and partly overtaking, its original meaning of ‘impudent’. We examine how this semantic change is spreading in different age groups and in different parts of the English-speaking world. As we demonstrate, the newer meaning of cheeky is associated with younger speakers, so we examine whether this correlates with different age groups’ understanding of the new form. Furthermore, cheeky ‘impudent’ was used more frequently in the United Kingdom than in North America. If that earlier meaning was already marked for North America, how is the newer meaning cheeky ‘mildly illicit’ understood by speakers there?

Increasingly across many UK higher education institutions staff and students are questioning and challenging systemic inequalities that affect racially minoritised groups in their learning and sense of belonging within the curriculum. Students are calling for inclusion of diverse sources of knowledge and perspectives, especially from scholars of colour and from the Global South, to enrich what is currently perceived to be a Eurocentric canon. One way to promote more culturally aligned pedagogy is through diversifying reading lists. This article presents findings from two pilot studies that explored the reading lists in one department in social sciences and one in the humanities at the University of Kent, UK. Applying critical race theory as a guiding framework, the first part of the article examines the ways in which a diverse curriculum must include the voices of the marginalised. It then describes the methods: a desk-based review of the reading lists, interviews with academics to inform the work, disseminate the findings, instigate further action and identify future needs, and student focus groups. Crucially, the project resulted from the collaboration between students and staff, and across departments and disciplines. We found that reading lists in both departments overwhelmingly comprised items by White male authors. Students and staff both reflected on the importance of not only curriculum diversification but also barriers to diversification and decolonisation. The article discusses the impact of this project, which has led to a Diversity Mark process, and the Diversity Mark Toolkit, which can be used in any discipline when putting together reading lists to create a more culturally competent curriculum. It concludes by considering other systemic changes needed, with particular attention to changes needed in library services and collections.

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