35: Something's Got to Change (with Lesley Woods and Alice Gaby)

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 generativism relevant to them, and how do they regard its claims? We ask: What importance does linguistic theory have on day-to-day research? How does generativism relate to nativism, the idea that at least some language is innate? Is there a conflict between generativism and functionalism today? What's the next step in the generative enterprise?

14 Okt 20211h 56min

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 disagree with the generative programme will be at least somewhat conversant with its claims and the debate around it. Here, we’ll try to answer questions such as: What is generativism, and what are its claims? What does generativism help you to do in linguistics? What is the relationship to nativism, the idea that some aspects language are inborn? How does generativism relate to functionalism? What should the next generation of generative linguists keep in mind?

30 Sep 20211h 50min

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 are wiped out When it comes to learning languages, multilinguals have the edge over bilinguals A generativist argues that languages don't adapt to their environment. What's behind this? And it's iconicity turned up to 11: some experiments that explore how language began.

13 Sep 202153min

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 brought some of the winning students to compete in a linguistic quiz with Ben and Hedvig. Will it go well for them?

5 Aug 20211h 46min

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 linguistics and the nature of linguistic communication in the digital age.

25 Jul 20211h 25min

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 different, and how are they maintaining themselves? Two Chinese researchers, Wu Mei-Shin and Ye Jingting, join us. And what’s going on in the Cantonese lingopod world? We’re joined by Israel Lai of Rhapsody in Lingo.

18 Jul 20211h 38min

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.

30 Jun 202158min