17: Vowel Gymnastics
Say, “aaaaaahhhh…..” Now try going smoothly from one vowel to another, without pausing: “aaaaaaaeeeeeeeiiiiiii”. Feel how your tongue moves in relation to the back of the roof of your mouth as you mov...
15 Feb 201839min
16: Learning parts of words - Morphemes and the wug test
Here’s a strange little blue animal you’ve never seen before. It’s called a wug. Now here’s another one. There are two of them. There are two ___? You probably thought “wugs” – and even kids as youn...
19 Jan 201833min
15: Talking and thinking about time
When we talk about things that languages have in common, we often talk about the physical side, the fact that languages are produced by human bodies, using the same brain and hands and vocal tract. Bu...
21 Dec 201732min
14: Getting into, up for, and down with prepositions
Are you up for some prepositions? You might think you’re over prepositions, but have you ever really looked into them, or have you just gone by them? Other parts of speech notwithstanding, preposition...
17 Nov 201736min
13: What Does it Mean to Sound Black? Intonation and Identity Interview with Nicole Holliday
If you grow up with multiple accents to choose from, what does the one you choose say about your identity? How can linguistics unpick our hidden assumptions about what “sounds angry” or “sounds articu...
19 Okt 201743min
12: Sounds you can’t hear - Babies, accents, and phonemes
Why does it always sound slightly off when someone tries to imitate your accent? Why do tiny children learning your second language already sound better than you, even though you’ve been learning it l...
21 Sep 201729min
11: Layers of meaning - Cooperation, humour, and Gricean Maxims
– Would you like some coffee? – Coffee would keep me awake. Does that mean yes coffee, or no coffee? It depends! Is it the morning or the evening? Is the person trying to pull an all-nighter or tak...
17 Aug 201733min
10: Learning languages linguistically
Some linguists work with multiple languages, while others focus on just one. But for many people, learning a language after early childhood is the thing that first gets them curious about how language...
20 Juli 201738min
