106: What One Thing? (with Mark Ellison)

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 we build community? And what happens if we do nothing? This episode is really kind of a mini-conference. We found some new work from linguists we admire, so we put out the word to our patrons and piled into a room! We're hearing work from Dr Aris Clemons, Dr Caitlin Green, and Dr Rikker Dockum on this episode.

15 Juni 20231h 50min

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-lexical vocalisations with Dr Eleonora Beier and Dr Emily Hofstetter.  Also: linguists are diving into Grambank, a database with detailed information about grammatical features in over 2,500 languages. With its release, we're talking to project leaders Dr Russell Gray and our own Dr Hedvig Skirgård. Also, Hedvig gives us our yearly Eurovision language update. Ben's not here, so he won't complain.

27 Maj 20232h 26min

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 computational linguist Jack Grieve about his new book, The Language of Fake News.

15 Maj 20231h 44min

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 something to /sʌmʔ/? The thing is is, there are two IS there. Why? Some contractions seem to've appeared, and they look strange in writing. What other ones're out there?

25 Apr 20231h 8min

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, Consequences of Language. Plus: Have large language models (like GPT) disproven a key tenet of the innateness of language? Dr Morten Christiansen takes us through the implications for nativism and language learning.

3 Apr 20232h 12min

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 Related or Not. She even teaches us how to roll our R’s. Wow. But best of all, she answers all our questions about speech and language pathology.

25 Mars 20231h 37min

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. If you had to walk 10 kilometres “there and back”, how far away is the place? How many holes does a straw have? And if “Floyd and the chickens are outside”, is Floyd also a chicken? And many more!

2 Mars 20231h 33min

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 Dennis Baron. He’s the author of You Can’t Always Say What You Want: The Paradox of Free Speech.

16 Feb 20231h 42min