Because Language - a podcast about linguistics, the science of language.
222 episodes - English - Latest episode: 12 days ago - ★★★★★ - 65 ratingsA podcast about linguistics, the science of language.
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Episodes
46: Just Words (with Rebecca Shapiro)
February 10, 2022 01:58 - 1 hour - 87 MBCan 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 speaks with Dr Rebecca Shapiro, author of Fixing Babel: An Historical Anthology of Applied English Lexicography.
45: Mailbag of Words
January 29, 2022 04:00 - 1 hour - 72.9 MBThe 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. We also have that and what. Was there ever a hat? Why are we friends with someone? Is the distribution of emoji Zipfian? If you study linguistics — the science of language — are you a STEM major? And Hedvig springs a game on us.
44: Words of the Week of the Year 2021 (with Lauren Gawne)
December 22, 2021 09:34 - 1 hour - 76 MBOur 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 special guest (and lingopod pal) Dr Lauren Gawne for this very cheugy episode of Because Language.
43: Journal Club: Zoomies on Zoom (with Hadas Kotek and friends)
December 17, 2021 04:19 - 1 hour - 75.9 MBOur 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 this live episode, and many have brought pets. Also, Dr Hadas Kotek has examined the sentences used in linguistic textbooks and examples. How are people represented in our discipline?
42: Replicability Crisis (with Martine Grice and Bodo Winter)
December 01, 2021 06:34 - 1 hour - 86.5 MBThe 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 how do we fix this problem? Dr Martine Grice and Dr Bodo Winter have contributed to a special issue of Linguistics, and they join us for this fun episode.
41: Mailbag of Caitlin University (with Caitlin Green)
November 16, 2021 04:00 - 1 hour - 67.9 MBHere 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 behind coffee names? Why is there an L in WOULD? Could swearing get in the way of persuasion? When is it time to stop supporting a minority language? What’s with the D in TIDDIES? Fee fi fo… fun? Why doesn’t it rhyme with ENGLISHMAN? Where does TUCKER come from?
40: Dialect Playthrough (with Hakan Seyalıoğlu and Stephen Mann)
November 15, 2021 04:00 - 2 hours - 161 MBDialect 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 community’s isolation is breached. We’re very pleased and honoured to play a game of Dialect, with game creator Hakan Seyalıoğlu of Thorny Games leading us through it.
39: Is This a Reference? (with Sylvia Sierra)
November 01, 2021 14:07 - 1 hour - 93.3 MBYou 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 out it has a lot to do with identity, building social relationships, and communication — all the stuff that language normally does. We’re having a media-heavy discussion with Dr Sylvia Sierra about her book Millennials Talking Media: Creating Intertextual Identities in Everyday Conversation.
38: Generativism 2: How It's Going (with Taylor Miller and Adam Tallman)
October 14, 2021 02:45 - 1 hour - 107 MBThis 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? Wha...
37: Generativism 1: How It Started (with David Adger and John Goldsmith)
September 30, 2021 06:02 - 1 hour - 102 MBWe’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 i...
36: Journal Club: Clickety Clack (with Stephen Mann)
September 13, 2021 04:00 - 53 minutes - 49.7 MBThe 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.
35: Something's Got to Change (with Lesley Woods and Alice Gaby)
August 27, 2021 01:32 - 1 hour - 75.3 MBLinguistics 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 place to work? Daniel, Hedvig, and very special co-host Ayesha Marshall are having a yarn with Lesley Woods and Dr Alice Gaby about their work in changing linguistics for the better.
34: OzCLO 2021: 2 Cool 4 School (with Elisabeth Mayer, Henry Wu, Victoria Papaioannou, and the students of Melbourne Girls Grammar School)
August 05, 2021 01:52 - 1 hour - 97.8 MBOzCLO 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?
33: You're Wrong About Everett, Roberts, Blasi 2015
July 25, 2021 04:00 - 1 hour - 78.5 MBAll 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.
32: Fallen Leaves: The Chinese Languages (with Wu Mei-Shin, Ye Jingting, and Israel Lai)
July 18, 2021 03:42 - 1 hour - 90.9 MBWhat 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.
31: All the Words (with Grant Barrett)
June 30, 2021 04:00 - 58 minutes - 54.1 MBWords 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: Mailbag of Raspberries (with Helen Zaltzman)
June 14, 2021 04:00 - 1 hour - 62.3 MBOur 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 language? Or is it? How can sounds in a language change so much over time? Am I BURNED OUT? Or BURNT OUT? Why are they called metaphysicians and not metaphysicists? What can we call something besides LAME? Why is AMPHI- so infrequently used in English?
29: Cultish (with Amanda Montell and Jared Holt)
June 08, 2021 13:51 - 1 hour - 98.9 MBBlog post with show notes: http://becauselanguage.com/29-cultish/ Support the show on Patreon: http://patreon.com/join/becauselangpod/ Language helps us build and maintain social relationships. Cults — however we define them — exploit this function and subvert it for their own ends. Amanda Montell is the author of the new book Cultish, and she joins us for this show. And researcher Jared Holt explains why QAnon conspiracy catch phrases seem to be dropping off in popularity from the mai...
29: Cultish (with Amanda Montell)
June 08, 2021 13:51 - 1 hour - 98.9 MBBlog post with show notes: http://becauselanguage.com/29-cultish/ Support the show on Patreon: http://patreon.com/join/becauselangpod/ Language helps us build and maintain social relationships. Cults — however we define them — exploit this function and subvert it for their own ends. Amanda Montell is the author of the new book Cultish, and she joins us for this show.
28: The Cutting Edge (with Emma Schimke, Georgia Dempster, and Kirsten Ellis) - Pint of Science Takeover episode!
May 26, 2021 03:40 - 1 hour - 86.5 MBShow notes: http://becauselanguage.com/28-the-cutting-edge/ Become a patron and support the show: http://patreon.com/join/becauselangpod/ We're taking over Pint of Science (or are they taking over us?) for this episode! Three researchers are presenting their work in language, and they'll also tell us what they're learning about public science communication.
27: It’s All Semantics (live at LingFest 2021)
May 18, 2021 13:51 - 1 hour - 82.3 MBBlog post with show notes and video episode: http://becauselanguage.com/27-its-all-semantics/ Become a patron yourself: http://patreon.com/join/becauselangpod/ Are fish wet? What is bi-weekly? And which Monday is next Monday? We’re solving some of the thorniest problems in semantics by voting, because that’s how language works! 👍 Our great Patreon patrons join us for this episode, along with Christy Filipich on Auslan interpretation. Part of #LingFest.
26: Hyphen (with Pardis Mahdavi)
April 28, 2021 04:14 - 1 hour - 85.7 MBIt 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, an exploration of identity and self as it concerns this confounding little mark.
25: Transcription (with Maya Klein)
April 15, 2021 04:00 - 1 hour - 94.9 MBWho 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 of transcription, and is a word-for-word approach really the best? And what quirks and habits do we have on the show? Maya roasts us on this episode of Because Language.
24: Higher Ed Discrimination (with Gail Clements, Marnie Jo Petray, and Fabio Trecca)
March 31, 2021 04:37 - 1 hour - 98 MBFor 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 education, and how to work toward fixing it. Also: Danish presents an unusual challenge for those who try to learn it — even babies. Why is Danish like this, and what does it tell us about language?
23: Mailbag of YouChoob (with the Layman's Linguist)
March 24, 2021 04:00 - 1 hour - 77.5 MBWe'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 contractions come into English, and why don't characters in period dramas use them? Did Hebrew displace Yiddish when it was revitalised? Do bilingual children have delays in syntax? When did the word APOLOGY move from a defence to an expression of contrition? Did linguistics affect your religious faith?
22: Historical Dictionary of Science Fiction (with Jesse Sheidlower)
March 17, 2021 17:24 - 1 hour - 91.6 MBWhat’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 work The Historical Dictionary of Science Fiction, and with us is the editor, lexicographer Jesse Sheidlower.
21: Journal Club: Newsblast!
February 26, 2021 04:00 - 1 hour - 74 MBThere'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 Honesty / certainty has a prosodic profile People with "gay-sounding" voices anticipate rejection and discrimination Language patterns emerge in protactile communities Gesture shows patterns
20: Madam VP (with Nicole Holliday and Caroline Kilov)
February 09, 2021 04:01 - 1 hour - 81.3 MBKamala 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 aspects of her identity by employing features of African-American English that would resonate with Black voters, but that wouldn’t alienate white voters. How did she do it? Dr Nicole Holliday joins Ben, Hedvig, and Daniel on this episode of Because Language.
19: Mailbag, Schmailbag
February 06, 2021 04:00 - 1 hour - 86.3 MBMore 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? Why do PEEP, PEEK, and PEER resemble each other? Which acronym etymologies aren't bunk? Why do we add a SCHM- to words to signify derision? Are Mormon missionaries supernaturally good at learning languages?
18: Swearin' Time (with Kory Stamper)
January 19, 2021 01:42 - 1 hour - 81.7 MBThere'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 Stamper. Kory tells us all about the show on this episode of Because Language.
17: Words of the Week of the Year 2020
December 22, 2020 15:13 - 1 hour - 101 MBOn 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 vote of the American Dialect Society, but the greatest were voted on by you, the listeners. Ready? Let’s talk words!
16: Mailbag of Spedrun
December 08, 2020 04:00 - 1 hour - 68.5 MBOur Mailbag is at capacity! Time to get to these questions. We have pronouns and proverbs. So why don’t we have proadjectives and proadverbs? Is it on accident, or by accident? What’s the past tense of speedrun? When has a loanword become just another word? Why do we say we’re going ham? Why do people pronounce dynasty differently? When we talk about accents, why is so much of the discussion about vowels?
15: Xenolanguage (with Kathryn Hymes)
November 30, 2020 15:12 - 1 hour - 67.3 MBIf 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 decipher alien messages while working through their tangled personal relationships. Kathryn Hymes of Thorny Games joins us for this episode.
14: Word Jail (with Ian Cushing)
November 10, 2020 13:40 - 1 hour - 68.4 MBSchools 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 very students that schools are committed to educate. Linguist Ian Cushing tells us about his findings.
13: White Supremacy (with Kelly Wright)
October 29, 2020 05:25 - 1 hour - 79 MBThe 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 Wright talks about her work in sociolinguistics, and how we all can do better.
12: Mailbag: Will Ben Get It Right?
October 20, 2020 04:00 - 1 hour - 65.3 MBThe 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 some words? What can computer languages tell us about human languages? Is there a word for turning a label into an insult, like Dumbocrats or Repuglicans?
11: Aboriginal English: Yarning (with Glenys Collard and Celeste Rodriguez Louro)
October 09, 2020 04:35 - 1 hour - 60.5 MBAboriginal 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're gathering stories to find out what Aboriginal English is like, and how it's changing. Daniel sits down with them for a wicked long yarn on this episode of Because Language.
10: What's with Wugs?
September 28, 2020 04:00 - 1 hour - 66.9 MBThese 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. We do our best to talk through the Wug test and the surrounding struggle.
9: OzCLO (with Henry Wu, Elisabeth Mayer, and the students of Sydney Girls School and Sydney Boys School)
September 18, 2020 17:24 - 1 hour - 93.3 MBOzCLO 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 invited some of Australia's best students to test their linguistic knowledge against us! Who will prevail?
8: How Translatable Are Languages? (with Gary Lupyan)
September 06, 2020 13:25 - 1 hour - 61.4 MBLanguage 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 anthropologists. Why the friction? Researcher Gary Lupyan joins us for this episode.
7: Mailbag of One Wrong Answer
August 24, 2020 04:00 - 1 hour - 63.9 MBOur 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 spelling? Why is the word caterpillar so long? Did it come later? Why are some news outlets writing “since the pandemic begun“? As prescriptive linguists, can we reasonably disagree with someone’s definition of a word, if that definition is being used by people?
6: Decolonising Linguistics: Grammars (with Hannah Gibson)
August 11, 2020 09:12 - 1 hour - 76.9 MBLinguistics 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 a lot of linguistic work? Dr Hannah Gibson joins us.
5: The LSA Open Letter
July 22, 2020 04:00 - 1 hour - 64.1 MBAn 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. The establishmentarians say it’s about free expression. We think it’s about power. If you’re wondering what’s going on, this bonus episode is for you.
4: Bilingual Advantages (with Iryna Khodos)
July 14, 2020 04:00 - 1 hour - 72.6 MBWe’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 any cognitive advantage? What factors does this depend on? What is bilingualism anyway? We’re talking to researcher Iryna Khodos on this episode of Because Language.
3: Let's Talk (with David Crystal)
July 06, 2020 06:10 - 1 hour - 67.8 MBShow notes: http://becauselanguage.com/3-lets-talk/ Subscribe: http://becauselanguage.com/listen/ How does conversation work? Why are videoconference calls so awkward and terrible? Why can we say goodbye multiple times in a conversation, but good morning only once? And how do we get good at being a conversationalist? David Crystal tells us about his book Let’s Talk on this episode of Because Language.
2: Mailbag of Iconoclasm
June 16, 2020 04:00 - 58 minutes - 53.7 MBTime 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 'up' to verbs like 'cut up' or 'eat up'? Why do some words have opposite meanings?
1: Our Favourite Things
June 08, 2020 14:45 - 1 hour - 66 MBFor 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 (The Vocal Fries) Ellen Jovin (Grammar Table) Grant Barrett (A Way with Words) Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne (Lingthusiasm) Jane Solomon (The Dictionary of Difficult Words) John McWhorter (Lexicon Valley) Nicole Holliday (University of Pennsylvania) Ryan Paulsen (Lexitecture) Much gratitude to all our fri...
395: Outed or Misgendered (with Cedar Brown)
February 25, 2020 08:36 - 47 minutes - 44.2 MB"What's your pronoun?" Good question. Many people would like to be more supportive of trans and non-binary people. In general, it's helpful when cis people disclose their pronouns, but there's a little more to this story. Daniel and Ben are talking to researcher Cedar Brown about pronouns on this episode of Talk the Talk.
394: What’s Your Pronoun? (with Dennis Baron)
February 18, 2020 08:36 - 50 minutes - 47 MBIt's been a big year for singular they, but there's more than one pronoun in town. What invented pronouns have there been? How far back does singular they go? And why did some people kick up a fuss about singular you? We're talking to pronoun expert Dennis Baron on this episode of Talk the Talk.
393: Push and Pull (Live Q&A)
February 12, 2020 13:34 - 30 minutes - 28.6 MBAre there any pairs of words that you constantly get confused? They're the ones where you have to think for a second to get them straight. Why do our brains have this problem? What about these words makes them so confusable? We're listening to your responses on this episode of Talk the Talk.