Karly

There are only a few things in life as awkward, disorienting, and linguistically revealing as the first week of university. You’ve just moved in, you’re surrounded by strangers, and suddenly everything feels like a giant game of speed-friending. You’re sleep-deprived, emotionally overwhelmed, and expected to create your entire social life using only small talk, tote bags, and mutual hatred of the university’s Wi-Fi.

Enter: Freshers’ Language.

It’s a register in itself. An entire lexicon built around first impressions, identity management, and the desperate desire to be perceived as chill, interesting, and mildly employable.

Let’s break it down.

The Opening Script

“Hi! What’s your name?”
“Where are you from?”
“What are you studying?”

If you’re a fresher, you’ve said these three sentences approximately 45 times a day. You start sounding like a chatbot. You hear your voice repeat the same facts with slight variations depending on who you’re talking to. You start judging other people’s responses. You overthink your own. You wonder if you should say your hometown or just the nearest major city. You wonder if saying “English Literature” makes you sound boring or romantic. You wonder if you’re making any sense at all.

And yet, this ritual matters. These early scripts are how people test the waters. How they map social proximity. How they figure out if you’re friend material, flatmate material, or someone they’ll never speak to again.

Fun fact: when I started the masters, I would say my name was “Karly, as in Kloss but not ‘ie’ and no affiliation with the Republicans.” 

Register Shifts and Academic Identity

One of the weirdest things about starting university is realising you now have to talk about yourself in academic terms. You’re no longer just “into books” or “kind of good at maths.” You’re officially A Student of Something. You now have to say things like:

• “I’m doing a joint honours in Linguistics and French.”
  
• “I think I want to specialise in medieval literature.”
  
• “I’m just doing Business, nothing exciting.”
  

Listen closely and you’ll hear the hedging, the self-consciousness, the low-stakes bragging. Language becomes a way to signal belonging or to play it safe.

People downplay their courses to avoid sounding pretentious. They dress up vague interests to sound like they have a plan. It’s all about managing face: how much confidence is too much? How do you show enthusiasm without sounding cringe?

Spoiler: everyone’s winging it.

The Microdialects of Campus

By week two, you start to notice microdialects emerging. There’s the Law Girl voice (fast, polished, full of “basicallys”). There’s the Philosophy Bro voice (pauses mid-sentence to sound like he’s contemplating the void). There’s the Theatre Kid voice (projecting even during casual conversation). Each department comes with its own vibe, and people mirror each other constantly.

But it’s not just about subject. It’s also about background.

Spend long enough at a Russell Group uni and you’ll start to hear another kind of code: the voice of the rah girly. Think hyper-posh vowels, unplaceable accents, and casual references to ski season. These girls were born knowing what Le Chameau boots are. Their register is as curated as their skincare routine, full of elongated vowels, softly ironic self-deprecation, and the occasional “literally babes” used as punctuation.

It’s not just funny. It’s a linguistic marker of class, confidence, and cultural capital. And it can feel wildly alienating if you’re not used to it. Sometimes it feels like these universities speak their own dialect, fluent in things you’ve never heard of, referencing traditions you didn’t grow up with, assuming everyone else knows the rules.

If you’ve ever nodded along in a conversation while silently Googling what a formal hall is, you are not alone.

(Full disclosure: I’ve been told my accent is posh and unplaceable, and I did go to University of Edinburgh. So this part is written with love, curiosity, and the self-awareness of someone who may or may not sound like she owns a Barbour jacket.)

What It Means to Sound Like You Belong

Freshers’ Week is full of linguistic insecurity. Especially if you’re an international student, a first-gen student, or just someone who overthinks everything (hello). There’s pressure to sound fluent, not just in English, but in campus culture. In sarcasm. In seminar-speak. In group chat etiquette.

The good news? No one actually knows what they’re doing. Even the guy quoting Marx in your 9 am tutorial is probably Googling half the words he says.

The way you speak will shift. That’s not a loss of identity, it’s a sign you’re learning the codes: you are building connections, trying things out, finding your voice.

Final Thoughts from the Linguistics Department of Vibes

So if you’re a fresher trying to decode the unwritten rules of campus conversation, here’s your cheat sheet:

• It’s okay to say “I don’t know yet.” That’s a valid academic stance.
  
• You don’t need to have a hot take in every seminar. Curiosity is enough. You are allowed to sit in silence (I know I did).
  
• You’re allowed to ask “what does that word mean?” even if it’s on the reading list.
  
• Language is supposed to change. So are you.
  

You don’t need to sound smart, deep, chill, or impressive. You just need to speak. Someone will listen. Someone will relate. And someone will be grateful you said hi first.