Because Language - a podcast about linguistics, the science of language. – Détails, épisodes et analyse

Can you hear them? Only if you're meant to. Political dogwhistles exploit lack of knowledge in one group to send a coded message to another group. But that's just the beginning. How are dogwhistles different from slurs? How do they licence behaviour? Do progressives dogwhistle? Dr Elin McCready is the author of Signaling Without Saying: The Semantics and Pragmatics of Dogwhistles.

We're also joined by Lizzy Hanks and Dr Jesse Egbert, who are working on the LANA-CASE corpus, a huge corpus of conversational English. It aims to bring representation to a diverse group of English speakers, and they're looking for contributors.

Dr Rikker Dockum is our special guest host.

Timestamps

• Intros: 0:00
• News: 3:01
• Interview with Lizzy Hanks and Jesse Egbert: 16:47
• Related or Not: 35:45
• Interview with Elin McCready: 45:57
• Words of the Week: 1:17:47
• The Reads: 1:39:43

There are lots of Englishes out there, but the way we approach varieties of English sets learners up to fail. How do we combat language ideologies out there in the world — and in our own minds? Dr Ruanni Tupas is the editor of an important new book: Investigating Unequal Englishes: Understanding, Researching and Analysing Inequalities of the Englishes of the World.

We're joined by our special guest host Dr Nicole Holliday, and we are tackling a torrent of words — political and not — that the current news cycle has thrown at us.

Timestamps

• Intros: 0:44
• Words of the Week (coconut, weird, brat): 12:41
• Related or Not: 55:25
• Interview with Ruanni Tupas: 36:36
• More Words of the Week (International Blue Screen Day / Crowdstrike, rawdogging, fedupedness, combining form -nomenon, fridgerton): 1:53:43
• Comments: 2:11:15
• The Reads: 2:13:47

What are your eyes doing when you describe a scene? It may depend on your language. 

New research from Dr Rachel Nordlinger and team shows that we do a lot of planning and scanning very quickly, and it follows the requirements of our language. She's studied Murrinhpatha, an Australian Aboriginal language, to see what its speakers do.

We’re talking words, and no one has a way with words like Grant Barrett. He’s here to tell us what it’s like at Dictionary.com, and what went down at the annual American Dialect Society Words of the Year 2023 vote. And perhaps he can help forestall Hedvig’s planned mass human extinction.

Also: World Endangered Writing Day is upon us! It’s a fantastic initiative, and author Tim Brookes of Endangered Alphabets is here to lay out the case for preserving writing systems.

The public has voted, and a winner has been decided! We're looking all the words chosen by the various dictionary bodies, and counting down our Words of the Week of the Year. 

And there's a very special interview with author, blogger, activist, and inventor of words Cory Doctorow.

What is a woman? Or a man? Or a chair, or a sandwich? Or anything, really?

"Gender critical" people are making language into a vector to attack the rights of trans people. They treat categories like man and woman as binary and obvious.

But cognitive linguistics has a response, in the form of a new paper in Nature Human Behaviour. Are categories concrete, or are they mental, social, or something else? How do we categorise objects at all? Author Dr Andrew Perfors brings the science on this episode.

We've got mail, and linguistic MVP Dr Nicole Holliday is here to help us sort some things out around here. And we chat about the state of lingcomm today.

• Why is dog sushi made FOR dogs, but duck sushi is made FROM ducks?
• What do we call it generally when companies try to improve their image by -washing?
• Is the term "MVP" becoming uncoupled from sports?
• Will vaping kill your vocal fry?
• Are shibboleths made on purpose, as a way of creating an in-group and an out-group?

Plus our favourite game: Related or Not!

Who wrote the Oxford English Dictionary? Sure, James Murray had a very important role as editor, but a small army of volunteers submitted hundreds of thousands of words on slips of paper to get the project off the ground. What were their stories, and why did they have such a relentless sense of mission for the OED?

Dr Sarah Ogilvie is sharing her research into their lives and times, and it's startling and wondrous. She's a lexicographer and author of The Dictionary People: The Unsung Heroes Who Created the Oxford English Dictionary.

What’s happening with signed language in Argentina? How are terms for gender changing in the Spanish language? And are Zoomers making work language more casual?

Listener and friend of the pod Diego Diaz has put together a terrific bunch of language news and words for our edification and enjoyment.

Our accents are great! They represent our origins, our languages, our community, and our identity. But too many of us feel like we can't speak with our authentic voice. Accent prejudice is real.

Linguist and author Dr Rob Drummond joins us to explain all about accent and accentism. He's the author of a new book You're All Talk.

And Dr Robbie Love is joining us with his research about how the word fuck is changing in the speech of British teens. Spicy!