Podcasts by Because Language - a podcast about linguistics, the science of language.
A podcast about linguistics, the science of language.
Further podcasts by Daniel Midgley, Ben Ainslie, and Hedvig Skirgård
Podcast on the topic Sozialwissenschaften
All episodes
87: Trans-Inclusive (with Andrew Perfors) from 2023-12-01T23:57:30
What is a woman? Or a man? Or a chair, or a sandwich? Or anything, really?
"Gender critical" people are making language into a vector to attack the rights of trans people. They treat cate...
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85: The Dictionary People (with Sarah Ogilvie) from 2023-11-04T00:27:20
Who wrote the Oxford English Dictionary? Sure, James Murray had a very important role as editor, but a small army of volunteers submitted hundreds of thousands of words on slips of paper to get ...
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83: You're All Talk (with Rob Drummond and Robbie Love) from 2023-10-02T01:56:05
Our accents are great! They represent our origins, our languages, our community, and our identity. But too many of us feel like we can't speak with our authentic voice. Accent prejudice is real....
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82: Girl Dinner (live with our patrons and friends) from 2023-09-16T01:18:37
Our patrons are joining us live to give us their news, words, and stories. That's right, it's a Potluck episode! What's a "girl dinner"? What's the other name of India? And how is AI helping tra...
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81: Mother Tongue (with Jenni Nuttall) from 2023-09-02T05:06:26
Women's bodies, women's occupations, women's experiences. So often in history, the discourse about women has been by men, about women. And that means that women's words have be...
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79: A.I. Hype Hosedown (with Emily Bender and Jack Hessel) from 2023-07-26T05:07:34
Daniel Midgley, Ben Ainslie, and Hedvig Skirgård
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78: Forensic Linguistics, Really (with Helen Fraser, Georgina Heydon, Diana Eades, Seán Roberts, and Steph Rennick) from 2023-06-29T13:25:54
For decades, forensic linguists have been pushing back on harmful language ideologies, and fighting for better representation for linguistic minorities in the legal domain. We're talking to thre...
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77: Big Tent (live with Aris Clemons, Caitlin Green, Rikker Dockum, and friends) from 2023-06-15T05:31:42
How do we make the discipline of linguistics — and our world — a more just, diverse, and equitable place? Why does our personal history and personal perspective matter when doing science? How do...
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76: Ooo! Yum! Uh… (with Emily Hofstetter, Eleonora Beier, and Russell Gray) from 2023-05-27T03:24:45
Why does everyone say OOO! when they see someone fall down? Why do we say YUM when we feed a baby? And what's the deal with fillers like UM?
For this episode we're talking about non-lexic...
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75: Fake News (with Jack Grieve) from 2023-05-15T23:57:40
How can you tell if a news story is intended to deceive? In one well-known case of journalistic deception, there were tells that required machine learning to trace. We’re talking to author and c...
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74: Mailbag of Go from 2023-04-25T04:00
We're going deep into our Mailbag, and we're going to answer all your questions.
- Why do we say "here you go" when we give something to someone?
- Why can we reduce someth... Listen
73: Consequences of Language (with Nick Enfield and Morten Christiansen) from 2023-04-03T07:32:51
When language was innovated, what happened next? How did it change our abilities — and our responsibilities — to each other? Dr Nick Enfield shares ideas from his new book, ...
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72: PharaohKatt Is a Speechie Now from 2023-03-25T04:00
Here’s an entire show, curated by one of our most prolific contributors — newly minted speechie PharaohKatt!
She’s got news. She’s got words. She tries to stump us on Rel...
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71: You're Welcome, English! (live with friends, for LingFest23) from 2023-03-02T23:32:05
For this special live LingFest23 episode, we’ll again be voting on tricky language issues, and our votes will be binding on all English users for all time because that’s how language works.
... Listen
70: Free Speech, But… (with Dennis Baron) from 2023-02-16T04:10:03
We all have freedom of expression, but what are its limits — social and legal? And how have governments tried to curtail it? We’re talking through the implications of free speech with De...
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69: Mailbagussy from 2023-01-27T04:00
The American Dialect Society Word of the Year has been chosen — and it’s a wonderful and terrible pick! Depending on who you’re talking to. In this episode, we’re talking about -USSY and all the...
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68: Lazy in a Good Way (with Mark Ellison) from 2023-01-03T17:44:38
In what was meant to be a casual chat, cognitive scientist Dr Mark Ellison answers galaxy-brain-level questions about how language works.
- Why aren't we more efficie... Listen
67: Words of the Week of the Year 2022 (live with friends) from 2022-12-20T23:54:45
We're counting down our Words of the Year, as voted by you! We're joined by our friends and patrons, and they've brought us some words we missed. And we'll go through all the Words of the Year f...
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66: ChatGPT Wrote This Episode (with Daan van Esch) from 2022-12-13T14:39:21
ChatGPT has just landed. It can generate text that seems fluid, plausible, and (surprisingly) not total nonsense. It's got a lot of people wondering what's left for humans — and for the field of...
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65: Naval Manoeuvres (with Chase Dalton) from 2022-12-07T04:00
Many expressions we use come from the nautical domain. But are they nautical? Are they really? We’ve got Chase Dalton from the US Naval History Podcast to shine a light...
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64: Struggle Pile (with Kelly Wright) from 2022-11-20T03:26:48
A chat with Dr Kelly Wright, who’s been working on… well, really a lot. Kelly is at the juncture of a lot of areas we’re keen on.
Oxford’s effort to document African-Amer...
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63: Mailbag of Yeah-No (with Isabelle Burke) from 2022-11-03T04:00
Just two words, but they do so much. But what exactly? Here to answer that question is Dr Isabelle Burke, who has studied yeah-no in depth. She’s also going to help us ...
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62: Language in Spaaaaace (with Hannah Little) from 2022-10-22T01:19:57
Yes, linguistics is all through the world of sci-fi, but science fiction has had a surprising impact on linguistic research as well. Dr Hannah Little is cataloguing the ways in ...
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61: Together at Last from 2022-10-08T04:00
It’s Ben, Hedvig, and Daniel all together in the same place for the first time. We’re talking about the state of the show, the state of linguis...
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60: The Crossworld (with Hayley Gold) from 2022-09-13T19:30:51
Language isn’t just for communication — it’s fun. For over a hundred years, crosswords have served as entertainment, and even been blamed for society’s ills. Turns out crosswords are serious bus...
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59: Mailbag of Ew from 2022-08-30T04:00
In which we get together for a chat, talk about stuff we like, and — oh, yeah — answers a few questions from our great listeners.
- Other languages have a word for late morning, befor... Listen
58: Expression Unleashed (with Thom Scott-Phillips and Joshua Blackburn) from 2022-08-03T01:12:10
Today, we communicate. But once, we didn’t. What had to happen in our brains to make communication possible? And why don’t other animals do it like we do? We talk to Dr Thom Scott-Philli...
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57: Potluck (live, with friends) from 2022-07-27T07:48:27
Our friends, listeners, and patrons give us so many great stories, news, and words, so for this live episode, we’re having them tell these language stories in their own words.
Thanks to P...
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56: Diego's Digest from 2022-07-14T04:00
Our listeners and patrons send in so many great ideas, stories, and words. For this episode, listener and prolific contributor Diego has put together an entire show for our edif...
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55: Rebel With a Clause (with Ellen Jovin) from 2022-06-29T14:20:11
Everyone’s favourite tabletop grammarian is back! It’s Ellen Jovin, proprietor of the Grammar Table. She dispenses grammar advice around New York City and the world, and now she...
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54: Slang (with Jonathon Green) from 2022-06-15T13:19:55
It’s crude. It’s rude. And it’s a lot of fun. Slang has been with us for as long as people didn’t want others to understand what they were about. But what exactly is it? And has the nature of sl...
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53: Mailbag of Compounds (with Tiger Webb) from 2022-05-31T04:00
Language titan Tiger Webb is helping us with our voluminous Mailbag.
Hedvig is giving her annual Eurovision language roundup.
And we’re sorting thro...
52: The Language Game (with Morten Christiansen and Nick Chater) from 2022-05-11T09:14:59
How is language like a game of charades? According to a new book, quite a lot. Charades players and language users improvise and work together to create meaning in a situation, and they get bett...
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51: A Wug-Tonne of Advice (with Kitty Liu and Romany Amber) from 2022-05-01T04:00
We had the pleasure of an interview with two up-and-coming linguists, wanting to find out more about the show and linguistic communication. It was such a fun chat that we wanted to share it with...
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50: Employing Linguistics (with Anna Marie Trester and Ellen) from 2022-04-08T09:15:23
Linguistics is what we all love, but how do we make it pay? Turns out there are more ways than you might have thought of, and a new book is here to help. Dr Anna Marie Trester j...
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49: Mailbag - It's That T Again (with Mignon Fogarty) from 2022-03-23T04:00
Lingcomm legend Mignon Fogarty (Grammar Girl) joins us to answer all the questions in our Mailbag! And we have to ask her about National Grammar Day. How do we bring out descrip...
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48: The Black Side of the River (with Jessi Grieser) from 2022-03-04T08:33:24
Anacostia is a rapidly gentrifying suburb in Washington DC, and as Anacostia changes, so does the language. How do the original Black residents use language to establish their cred? What about t...
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47: We Need to Talk About Grice (with Rikker Dockum) from 2022-02-20T04:00
Every Linguistics 101 student knows about HP Grice and his famous Maxims. They state that dialogue is usually cooperative — and when it doesn't appear to be, they explain how we manage to work o...
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46: Just Words (with Rebecca Shapiro) from 2022-02-10T01:58:19
Can dictionaries create a more fair world? One language observer sees that dictionaries, far from being a neutral chronicle of language, are capable of promoting social justice.
Daniel sp...
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45: Mailbag of Words from 2022-01-29T04:00
The Words of the Year are out! And we’re talking about ’em.
We’re answering all the questions in our voluminous Mailbag.
- We have here, there, and where<... Listen
44: Words of the Week of the Year 2021 (with Lauren Gawne) from 2021-12-22T09:34:54
Our listeners have voted, and here are all the words! Which were our top Words of the Week? Which were the worst? And what did all the dictionary people pick?
We’re joined by our very spe...
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43: Journal Club: Zoomies on Zoom (with Hadas Kotek and friends) from 2021-12-17T04:19:38
Our friends and listeners bring us lots of great stories, questions, and words. So for this episode, we've invited them to present them themselves! All patrons have been invited to join us for t...
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42: Replicability Crisis (with Martine Grice and Bodo Winter) from 2021-12-01T06:34:48
The sciences are facing a replicability crisis. Some landmark studies were once considered settled, but then failed when they were retested. So have any linguistic experiments been toppled? And ...
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41: Mailbag of Caitlin University (with Caitlin Green) from 2021-11-16T04:00
Here to help us answer our voluminous Mailbag is the tireless Dr Caitlin Green, Vice Cancellor of Caitlin University. Among our questions:
- NON-BINARY or NONBINARY?
- What’s b... Listen
40: Dialect Playthrough (with Hakan Seyalıoğlu and Stephen Mann) from 2021-11-15T04:00
Dialect is a role-playing game about language and how it dies. Over the course of a game, players form an isolated community, create a private language, and watch it fade away as the co...
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39: Is This a Reference? (with Sylvia Sierra) from 2021-11-01T14:07:48
You probably communicate with your friends using media references all the time. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. But why do we include media references, when we could just talk? Turns ...
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38: Generativism 2: How It's Going (with Taylor Miller and Adam Tallman) from 2021-10-14T02:45:43
This is the second of a two-parter on generativism, the linguistic school of thought originated by Noam Chomsky. This time, it's from the perspective of early-career researchers. How is generati...
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37: Generativism 1: How It Started (with David Adger and John Goldsmith) from 2021-09-30T06:02:04
We’re doing a deep dive into generativism, the linguistic school of thought championed by Noam Chomsky. It’s had an enormous impact on the direction of linguistics, and even those who d...
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36: Journal Club: Clickety Clack (with Stephen Mann) from 2021-09-13T04:00
The Because Language team are talking through some of the most interesting research around, and you get to listen!
- Valuable medical information gets lost when Indigenous languages a... Listen
35: Something's Got to Change (with Lesley Woods and Alice Gaby) from 2021-08-27T01:32:05
Linguistics as a discipline throws up challenges to Indigenous linguists. At the same time, they're the ones called upon to fix it. It can't stay like this. How do we make linguistics a safe pla...
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34: OzCLO 2021: 2 Cool 4 School (with Elisabeth Mayer, Henry Wu, Victoria Papaioannou, and the students of Melbourne Girls Grammar School) from 2021-08-05T01:52:55
OzCLO is the Australian Computational and Linguistic Olympiad. It gets students together to compete and solve linguistic problems. It’s also a gateway to further linguistic study.
We’ve b...
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33: You're Wrong About Everett, Roberts, Blasi 2015 from 2021-07-25T04:00
All it took was a tweet. Last week, linguists refocused their attention on a paper about humidity and tone. Was it bad linguistics? Environmental determinism? The reaction said a lot about lingu...
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32: Fallen Leaves: The Chinese Languages (with Wu Mei-Shin, Ye Jingting, and Israel Lai) from 2021-07-18T03:42:27
What we call sometimes Chinese is really a gigantic family of languages. They’re somewhat divided in mutual intelligibility, and somewhat united in their writing system. How are they di...
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218: The F-Word from 2021-07-06T04:00
Just how far back in history does the F-word go?
Further than we thought. A historian has discovered evidence that pushes the term back by hundreds of years. Meanwhile, researchers are fi...
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31: All the Words (with Grant Barrett) from 2021-06-30T04:00
Words of the Week are coming out of the woodwork, and who better to work through them with us than Grant Barrett of A Way with Words? Wowee.
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30: Mailbag of Raspberries (with Helen Zaltzman) from 2021-06-14T04:00
Our Mailbag is once again full of questions, and podcasting luminary Helen Zaltzman is here to help us answer them!
- Why is the raspberry sound (PBTPBBBBT) not a speech sound in any ... Listen
29: Cultish (with Amanda Montell and Jared Holt) from 2021-06-08T13:51:42
Blog post with show notes: http://becauselanguage.com/29-cultish/
Support the show on Patreon: Listen
29: Cultish (with Amanda Montell and Jared Holt) from 2021-06-08T13:51:42
Blog post with show notes: http://becauselanguage.com/29-cultish/
Support the show on Patreon: Listen
28: The Cutting Edge (with Emma Schimke, Georgia Dempster, and Kirsten Ellis) - Pint of Science Takeover episode! from 2021-05-26T03:40:28
Show notes: http://becauselanguage.com/28-the-cutting-edge/
Become a patron and support the show: Listen
27: It’s All Semantics (live at LingFest 2021) from 2021-05-18T13:51:21
Blog post with show notes and video episode:
http://becauselanguage.com/27-its-all-semantics/
Become a patron yoursel...
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26: Hyphen (with Pardis Mahdavi) from 2021-04-28T04:14:05
It joins, it divides. It’s disappearing in some places, but it’s stronger than ever in others. For this episode, we’re talking to Professor Pardis Mahdavi, author of Hyphen<...
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25: Transcription (with Maya Klein) from 2021-04-15T04:00
Who listens to the show more closely than anyone (except possibly Daniel)? It's Maya Klein, who transcribes every word we say in excruciating detail. What goes into the process ...
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24: Higher Ed Discrimination (with Gail Clements, Marnie Jo Petray, and Fabio Trecca) from 2021-03-31T04:37:12
For many students, university opens up new frontiers of learning — and new ways to be marginalised for their language use. A new book explores the problem of linguistic discrimination in higher ...
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23: Mailbag of YouChoob (with the Layman's Linguist) from 2021-03-24T04:00
We're tackling these Mailbag questions with the help of our special guest and star of TikTok, the Layman's Linguist!
- Where do they say CHUBE instead of TUBE?
- When did contr... Listen
22: Historical Dictionary of Science Fiction (with Jesse Sheidlower) from 2021-03-17T17:24:21
What’s a corpsicle? How old is the word hyperspace? Who was the first writer to use the term warp drive?
These and many other terms can be found in the landmark...
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21: Journal Club: Newsblast! from 2021-02-26T04:00
There's so much news and research coming out, we can hardly address it all! But we're giving it a try on this episode of Little Words Newsblast Journal Club.
- Uzbek is romanising Listen
20: Madam VP (with Nicole Holliday and Caroline Kilov) from 2021-02-09T04:01
Kamala Harris is the first woman — and woman of colour — to be Vice President of the United States. In the campaign, she had to pull off a tricky task: stay true to her voice and multiple aspect...
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19: Mailbag, Schmailbag from 2021-02-06T04:00
More great questions from our Mailbag!
- How did we get from SUSS (suspect) to SUSS OUT (find out)?
- Is the J in JORTS part of a portmanteau, or a real live prefix?
- W... Listen
395: Outed or Misgendered (with Cedar Brown) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Performative wokeness only goes so far.
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394: What’s Your Pronoun? (with Dennis Baron) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Thon, xe, and te. Oh, and singular they.
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393: Push and Pull (Live Q&A) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Push and pull. Left and right. Why do we get them confused?
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392: Your Voice (with Jane Setter) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Are you true to your voice?
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391: Words of the Year 2019 from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Zoomer. Selfie. They. The words of the Year and the Decade.
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390: Words of the Week of the Year 2019 (Live Q&A) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
We gathered, you voted.
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389: Mailbag of Pronouns from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Do languages get more efficient over time? And more.
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388: Lies, All Lies (with Georgina Heydon, Heather Wilson, and Amanda Hamilton-Hollaway) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Can you tell when someone is lying?
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387: The Language of Emotion (with Maïa Ponsonnet) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Language and culture are tightly bound. Or are they?
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386: English Needs These Idioms (Live Q&A) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Are cats scratching your soul? They will.
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385: You Look Like a Thing (with Janelle Shane) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Artificial intelligence will only ruin the world in ways we already have.
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384: Mailbag of Welcome from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Why do we say "You're welcome"? And more.
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383: Decolonising the Archive (with Emma Murphy and Caroline Hughes) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Linguists and community researchers are teaming up to bring language research to communities.
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382: There's No Enhance Button (with Helen Fraser) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
What did the suspect really say? Justice may hang in the balance.
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381: A Hard Spell (Live Q&A) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Tough spelling words? We can help.
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380: Emoji Innovations (Live Q&A) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Unique emoji usages — they're 🍇.
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379: Indigenous Signed Languages (with Rodney Adams and Steph Tisdell) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Indigenous signed languages are reviving.
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378: Bugger All (with Isabelle Burke) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Talking with Dr Isabelle Burke about "bugger all". How did it come to be a negative? News: The latest on the origins of the Indo-European language family. Bird songs show features typically thought...
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377: Mailbag of Uncomfortableness from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
The mail keeps coming, and we keep answering. Is English really a dialect of Chinese? Why do people say “uncomfortableness”, when we already have “discomfort”? Are "ankh” and “anchor” related? How...
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376: Language Hotspots (with Xia Hua) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Talking to mathematical biologist Xia Hua about why some places are more linguistically diverse, and how this relates to biological diversity. News: Variation in individual vocal tracts may influen...
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375: Community Size Matters (with Limor Raviv) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Community size may have an effect on language systematicity. Researcher Limor Raviv takes us through her work. News: You can't say "There it's!" in English, but in Scottish English you can. Indigen...
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374: Polari, Britain's Lost Gay Language (with Paul Baker) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
When homosexuality was illegal, a secret language brought people together.
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373: Mailbag of Processes from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
We're opening up the Mailbag for another episode.
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372: Because Internet (with Gretchen McCulloch) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
The rules are changing. Here's the manual.
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371: -nado, -holic, -pocalypse: Combining Forms (Live Q&A) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
These word parts are coming into their own.
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370: Named Wrong (Live Q&A) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Times they named a thing the wrong thing.
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369: The Grammarian Is In (with Ellen Jovin) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Meet Ellen Jovin, proprietor of Grammar Table.
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368: Poetry from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Poetry expresses the soul's innermost. No wonder it's kind of terrible.
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367: Your Inner Prescriptivist (with Alyssa Severin) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
How can we have linguistic discussions with grammar sticklers?
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366: Oxbows (Live Q&A) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Some words were less restricted in bygone days of yore. Wait: yore? Bygone?
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365: Difficult Words (with Jane Solomon) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Juxtapose. Obfuscate. And of course, absquatulate.
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364: Mailbag of R-R-R-R from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
What's the past tense of yeet? And much more.
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363: Talking Race (with Jessi Grieser) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Looking at African-American English in a gentrifying neighbourhood.
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361: Helping My Language Live - Language Activism (with Margaret Florey) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Imagine watching your language erode away. How would you help it to stay alive?
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356: The The Show (with Nick Wilson) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Talking to Nick Wilson about the biggest small word in the English language: the. News: How the media reports about shooters. Also, how a changing diet changed the range of possible sounds in huma...
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355: The Bee Show (with Stephen Mann) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Bees: What is their communication like, and are they losing their groove? Talking with animal communications expert Stephen Mann. News: The outrage machine fires up over the appearance of Aborigina...
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354: Shiny Crumb (Live Q&A) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Have you ever blanked on a word and said something else? It may not just be you. Some mild forms of anomia happen as we age, but research finds that lexical recall is not straightforward. We'll b...
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353: Mailbag of Highly Intelligent Listeners from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Some smart questions from our Mailbag. Will there ever be one global language? What would it take for completely new words in English? What's happening when people say 'I have went'? When did b...
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352: Wait (with Sali Tagliamonte) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Wait — you mean people are doing something new in English? They sure are.
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351: A Perfect Alphabet (or, The Royal Tweet) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Some deep thoughts are going on at the Palace. The Royal Family is tweeting about what a perfect alphabet would look like, and how far the English alphabet varies from this ideal. And are there a...
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350: Fiddler on the Roof in Yiddish (with Zalmen Mlotek and Motl Didner) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Fiddler on the Roof is heading to Broadway — in Yiddish for the first time. What goes into the production? How does translation work? What does this production mean to the cast and to audience memb...
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349: Words of the Year 2018 from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
What were the words that marked our year? Daniel was there for the serious, the social, and the silly at the American Dialect Society's annual Word of the Year vote. Hedvig and Daniel discuss all t...
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348: Microcosm (featuring Rachel Hendery) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Talking with Dr Rachel Hendery about what happens to language on beautiful and remote Palmerston Island. In the News: Gmail has a unique solution to the problem of gender bias and text suggestion. ...
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347: Not Rocket Surgery (featuring Kari Sullivan and William Black) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Talking to Dr Kari Sullivan about mixed metaphors, and why they're not all bad. In the news: The pronoun "y'all" seems to be making gains outside the US South. A chat with William Black. Bookmarks:...
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346: What Works (featuring Dan Dediu) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Talking with researcher Dan Dediu about non-linguistic motivators for language. In the news: We talk easily about colour and shape, and less so for touch, and smell. But other languages mix it up. ...
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345: Talk on the Wild Side (featuring Lane Greene) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Author Lane Greene joins us to discuss his new book "Talk on the Wild Side". In the news: What makes a satisfying shitgibbon? Plus: how climate affects language diversity. Bookmarks: Make an online...
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344: Coincidences and Surprising Connections (featuring Bethwyn Evans) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
We talk to historical linguist Bethwyn Evans about how we know languages are related. In the news: Emoji v11, and the best of the EMNLP conference. Words of the Week: nanobodies, reef-toxic, fair d...
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343: Moon Moons and Reduplication Reduplication from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Reduplication in the world's languages. A surprising number of meanings can arise from simply repeating all or part of a word. News: Words are different from sounds in the brains of puppers. Coke t...
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342: Mailbag of Vague from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Questions from our Mailbag: A whale is an animal. Whales are animals. What's the difference? Is the QWERTY keyboard designed to slow you down? Is English a creole? Why does a word keep popping up a...
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341: What the F (featuring Benjamin Bergen) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Talking with cognitive scientist Benjamin Bergen about the science of swearing. News: California says bots must self-disclose. British drivers swear 41 times every 100 miles. Bookmarks: The film 'I...
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340: Ethics in Big Data (featuring Hannah Rashkin and Maarten Sap) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Researchers routinely use tweets, comments, and social media posts as language data. It's public data, but does that mean it's okay to use? We talk to researchers Hannah Rashkin and Maarten Sap abo...
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339: How English Could Be Way Cooler from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
What cool things about other languages could we bring to English? Our listeners share their ideas. News: Another multilingual cross-species translator that's short on details. And the FOXP2 gene (o...
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338: Signed Languages (featuring Ulrike Zeshan and Christy Filipich) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
On this International Day of Signed Languages, an interview with researcher Ulrike Zeshan. Auslan interpreter Christy Filipich keeps us on track and shares her views. News: Which takes the effort, ...
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337: Getting the Bias out of Data (featuring Rob Speer and Kai-Wei Chang) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Turning down the bias in big data with researchers Rob Speer and Kai-Wei Chang. News: Typos can defeat a hate-speech detector. New segment: Bookmarks. Kylie tells us about Vox by Christina Dalcher....
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336: Kinship Terms from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Kinship terms. How do languages handle the vocabulary of family relations? What's a third cousin, and what's 'removed'? In the News: Two Philadelphia students have compiled a glossary of slang for ...
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335: One Hundred Things (featuring Emily Bender) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
An interview with Professor Emily Bender of the University of Washington, about 100 things you always wanted to know about semantics and pragmatics. In the News: Mormons don't want you to call them...
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334: Mailbag of Darkness from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Questions from our listeners: Zhooshing Polari. What does it mean to have "the boits"? Of hills and mountains. Why is it Portuguese and not Brazilian? How can you spot an accent? Do our brains lump...
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333: When Sapir Met Whorf (featuring Östen Dahl and Mikael Parkvall) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
We revisit the idea that language shapes behaviour with two expert linguists. Is the Sapir Whorf Hypothesis coming in from the cold? In the News: a young woman from New Zealand challenges stereotyp...
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332: Social (featuring Ketan Joshi, live at the Disrupted Festival 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
The Talk the Talk team are live at the Disrupted Festival, and they're talking data, social media, and internet privacy with science communicator and internet influencer Ketan Joshi. Plus we play F...
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330: Making Words for Miriwoong (featuring Knut Olawsky) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Talking with Knut Olawsky of the Mirima Language Centre. Knut helps to make new words for the Miriwoong language. What goes into lexical creation for a living language? The Australian government is...
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329: Pokémonikers (featuring Stephanie Shih) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Talking to Stephanie Shih about the 1st Conference of Pokémonastics. What do the names of Pokémon reveal about human language? In the news: Researchers train a bot on captions from violent and gory...
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328: She Writes Dictionaries (featuring Jane Solomon) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
What goes into writing a (not the) dictionary? We talk to lexicographer Jane Solomon of Dictionary.com. Are more people learning Korean, and is it because of K-pop? Why do people take longer pauses...
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327: How We Talk (featuring Nick Enfield and Simeon Floyd) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
We talk to Nick Enfield about conversation patterns, and his book 'How We Talk'. Simeon Floyd tells us about new research on the act of thanking. Words of the Week: nano-, yesn't
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326: Language, Sign, and Transmission (live with Pint of Science, featuring Amy Budrikis and Troy Reynolds) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
A live show with Pint of Science! Amy Budrikis talks to the team about her study of Aboriginal language transmission in families. Troy Reynolds busts some myths about signed languages and Australia...
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325: Mailbag of Moisture from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
What if your trilingual child rejects your language? What's the hardest language to lip read? Why do some English adjectives come after the noun? Are 'flat adverbs' new? Why do Australians say 'but...
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324: Translanguaging (featuring Rhonda Oliver) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
We talk to applied linguist Rhonda Oliver about translanguaging, a method of teaching language that encourages students to use their existing knowledge. Is there a connection between genes and phon...
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323: Flip Yeah Taboo Avoidance from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
English-Only makes a move as Strathfield Council in Sydney cracks down on foreign language shop signs. Listeners send us their favourite minced oaths, both from English and from other languages. So...
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322: Sense of Direction (featuring Alice Gaby) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Interview with Alice Gaby about how speakers of Marshallese change the way they talk about direction. Also, apprehensives: the particle… OF FEAR. In the news, research teases bias out of big data —...
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321: Language Face to Face (featuring Rachel Romeo) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
We check out recent news in child language acquisition research. An interview with Rachel Romeo of MIT, who has found that number of conversation turns is a better predictor of language development...
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320: Love Your Larynx (featuring Thila Raja) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Are you looking after your larynx? Your voice is your ability to speak, and for a lot of people, it's how we earn a living. So it's important to look after your vocal health. And with World Voice D...
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319: The Prodigal Tongue (featuring Lynne Murphy) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
British and American English have always had a love-hate relationship. British people (and Australians) often blame Americans for somehow tarnishing the language, and they fret about creeping Ameri...
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318: Mailbag of Awesome from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
We get mail. From you. And today, we're answering your questions. How has jazz influenced our language? And what if you like language diversity, but you're not too keen on how it's used? Daniel and...
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317: With Big Data Comes Big Responsibility (featuring Sean Roberts) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
That study about language looks interesting. Can you trust the results? Lots of researchers are using big data to discover amazing things about language. But big data can bring big trouble if resea...
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316: Numbers and the Making of Us (featuring Caleb Everett) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
When we got numbers, things really started to happen. How do other languages handle numbers? How do pre-linguistic children conceptualise them? And how did the development of numbers influence our ...
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315: Grammar Day from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Grammar Day is coming soon. Which rules can you safely ignore? Is it okay for nouns to become verbs and vice versa? What's wrong with passive voice? And how can you have a healthy grammar outlook? ...
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314: International Mother Language Day (featuring Ingrid Piller) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
How do we keep mother languages alive? Governments, organisations, and the public are starting to recognise the importance of maintaining home languages as a way of preserving language diversity. B...
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313: That's Cool. That's Hot. (featuring Maria Koptjevskaja Tamm) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Boiling with rage. A warm embrace. A cool time in a hot town. How do we think about heat and cold, and how does this work its way into language? And does this have anything to do with what the loca...
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312: Words of the Year 2017 (featuring Grant Barrett) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
It's Word of the Year season again, and Daniel was repping Talk the Talk at the year's biggest vote. But controversy surrounds the WotY. Is it too white, too old, and too male? How can this be help...
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18: Swearin' Time (with Kory Stamper) from 2021-01-19T01:42:12
There's a new show on Netflix, and it's The History of Swearing, featuring Nicolas Cage. Backing him up is a team of researchers, comedians — and one of our favourite lexicographers, Kory Stampe...
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17: Words of the Week of the Year 2020 from 2020-12-22T15:13:16
On this momentous episode, we look back on all the words that made our year. Like, all of them. Including some from other languages.
Many words were discussed in the context of the annual...
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16: Mailbag of Spedrun from 2020-12-08T04:00
Our Mailbag is at capacity! Time to get to these questions.
- We have pronouns and proverbs. So why don’t we have proadjectives and proadverbs? Listen
15: Xenolanguage (with Kathryn Hymes) from 2020-11-30T15:12:16
If you love language, and you also love role-playing games with a sci-fi flair, then you're going to want to check out the new game Xenolanguage. It allows players to make first contact and deci...
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14: Word Jail (with Ian Cushing) from 2020-11-10T13:40:20
Schools are banning words and policing language. It may be a well-meaning attempt to encourage good language habits, but it also perpetuates troubling language ideologies that may be harming the...
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13: White Supremacy (with Kelly Wright) from 2020-10-29T05:25:55
The definition of white supremacy: is it expanding, or are we just getting better at recognising it and its reach? How does white supremacy show itself in language and in linguistics? Kelly Wrig...
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12: Mailbag: Will Ben Get It Right? from 2020-10-20T04:00
The questions keep coming! Let’s answer them.
- Why is “Live Laugh Love” in that order?
- Why do we talk about “getting out the vote”?
- Why is the L sound creeping into... Listen
11: Aboriginal English: Yarning (with Glenys Collard and Celeste Rodriguez Louro) from 2020-10-09T04:35:45
Aboriginal English has been around a long while, but linguists have not taken the opportunity to really listen to the voices of Aboriginal people.
Two researchers are changing that. They'...
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10: What's with Wugs? from 2020-09-28T04:00
These cute critters, once part of a pioneering study in child language acquisition, have become an unofficial mascot of linguistics. But now they’re part of a tussle over intellectual property. ...
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9: OzCLO (with Henry Wu, Elisabeth Mayer, and the students of Sydney Girls School and Sydney Boys School) from 2020-09-18T17:24:33
OzCLO is the Australian Computational and Linguistics Olympiad, where Australian high school students compete with others around the world by solving language puzzles.
This week, we've in...
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8: How Translatable Are Languages? (with Gary Lupyan) from 2020-09-06T13:25:04
Language and culture are intertwined, and a new research project discovers that the meanings of words diverge as culture does.
But this big-data experiment is attracting the ire of anthro...
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7: Mailbag of One Wrong Answer from 2020-08-24T04:00
Our ever-popular Mailbag is bursting with questions, so let’s get to them!
- How do you communicate expressively with a mask on?
- Which was the first language with a set spell... Listen
6: Decolonising Linguistics: Grammars (with Hannah Gibson) from 2020-08-11T09:12:54
Linguistics as a discipline has some work to do when it comes to examining and eliminating the legacy of colonialism. How do we do it? And how do we feel about the overtly evangelical agenda of ...
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5: The LSA Open Letter from 2020-07-22T04:00
An open letter to the LSA has ignited a furious debate among linguists and the wider public about who represents public linguistics — and who gets to set the terms of acceptable public debate. T...
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4: Bilingual Advantages (with Iryna Khodos) from 2020-07-14T04:00
We’ve heard a lot about the cognitive benefits of bilingualism. But then we’ve also seen a lot of the supposed benefits get walked back.
What are the facts? Does being bilingual provide a...
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3: Let's Talk (with David Crystal) from 2020-07-06T06:10:19
Show notes: http://becauselanguage.com/3-lets-talk/
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2: Mailbag of Iconoclasm from 2020-06-16T04:00
Time to get to this Mailbag!
- Why are flip-flops called 'thongs'?
- When people write the date as '7 April' or 'April 7', do they also say it that way?
- Why do we add ... Listen
1: Our Favourite Things from 2020-06-08T14:45:17
For our first episode, we asked some of our linguist and lingo-pod friends what their favourite thing is about language.
We are joined by:
- Ben Zimmer
- Carrie Gillon (... Listen
360: Familiolects (Live Q&A) from 2019-04-24T04:00
Which words, phrases, and pronunciations are unique to your family?
We often talk about languages, dialects, and even our own personal ideolects, but for most of us, home is where languag...
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359: False Friends (Live Q&A) from 2019-04-19T04:00
They feel so right, but sound so wrong.
They're false friends — pairs of words in different languages that seem like they'd mean the same thing, but don't. Which ones have you run across ...
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358: Mailbag of Mallets from 2019-04-04T04:00
Again we tackle the questions that others dast not.
Why do all children know the 'nyah nyah' song?
What is the Trans-Atlantic accent?
Do Chinese characters stay readable lon...
357: The F-Word (with Jesse Sheidlower) from 2019-03-26T04:00
Daniel chats with lexicographer Jesse Sheidlower about profanity, power, and his book, "The F-Word".
News: Meet Q, the genderless voice assistant.
Words of the Week: charity muggers,...