105: Linguistics of TikTok - Interview with Adam Aleksic aka EtymologyNerd
TikTok, Instagram Reels, and YouTube Shorts are an evolving genre of media: short-form, vertical videos that take up your whole screen and are served to you from an algorithm rather than who you follo...
20 Juni 202543min
104: Reading and language play in Sámi - Interview with Hanna-Máret Outakoski
When we talk about language reclamation, we often think about oral traditions. But at this point, many Indigenous languages also have considerable written traditions, and engaging with writing as part...
16 Maj 202547min
103: A hand-y guide to gesture
Gestures: every known language has them, and there's a growing body of research on how they fit into communication. But academic literature can be hard to dig into on your own. So Lauren has spent the...
18 Apr 202548min
102: The science and fiction of Sapir-Whorf
It's a fun science fiction trope: learn a mysterious alien language and acquire superpowers, just like if you'd been zapped by a cosmic ray or bitten by a radioactive spider. But what's the linguistic...
21 Mars 202551min
101: Micro to macro - The levels of language
When we first learn about nature, we generally start with the solid mid-sized animals: cats, dogs, elephants, tigers, horses, birds, turtles, and so on. Only later on do we zoom in and out from these ...
21 Feb 202548min
100: A hundred reasons to be enthusiastic about linguistics
This is our hundredth episode that's enthusiastic about linguistics! To celebrate, we've put together 100 of our favourite fun facts about linguistics, featuring contributions from previous guests and...
17 Jan 202541min
99: A politeness episode, if you please
If it wouldn't be too much trouble, if you have a spare half hour, could we possibly suggest that you might enjoy listening to this episode on politeness? Or, if you'd prefer a less polite version, "L...
20 Dec 202456min
98: Helping computers decode sentences - Interview with Emily M. Bender
When a human learns a new word, we're learning to attach that word to a set of concepts in the real world. When a computer "learns" a new word, it is creating some associations between that word and o...
22 Nov 202456min
