Language, broad and small
New Word Wall is an independent linguistics project by David DeBonis. It is interested in language as both a tiny, intimate act and a vast social force: a phrase between friends, a grammar shared by millions, a name that marks belonging, a story that carries a worldview.
The project draws from linguistics and the human sciences to ask how language works, how it changes, and how it shapes the worlds people build together. The goal is not to police how people speak, but to understand how meaning moves through bodies, communities, institutions, technologies, and time.
From a word to a world
Entries may begin as slang, a workplace phrase, a social-media pattern, a sound, a grammatical pattern, a research concept, or a word that someone made up because the existing vocabulary was not quite enough. Each one is an invitation to observe more carefully and connect the local detail to the larger human story.
The project also makes room for consulting and collaboration around language, culture, and communication.