Lingthusiasm - A podcast that's enthusiastic about linguistics

This podcast episode explores the versatility of schwa, a vowel sound found in words like about, broken, council, potato, and support. The hosts discuss the uniqueness of schwa having its own name, its role in English pronunciation and spelling, and its presence in different languages. They also mention a bonus episode on numbers available to Patreon supporters.

In this episode, linguist Kirby Conrod discusses their research on the grammar of singular they. Topics include social attitudes conveyed by pronouns, specific vs generic singular they, and the process of changing mental grammars. The podcast also explores synesthesia, including Gretchen's unique attitude-texture synesthesia.

This podcast explores the concept of language difficulty and factors that contribute to it, such as existing language knowledge and starting point. It discusses the differences between language acquisition in children and adults, and the impact of motivation on language learning. The importance of incorporating personal interests and identities in language learning experiences is emphasized, along with the value of any amount of learning.

In this episode, the hosts discuss the grammar of time, examining how languages encode time into their grammar. They delve into the complexity of tense and explore its distinctions in different languages like English, French, and the Tifal language. They also explore the evolution of tenses and grammaticalization, focusing on the future tense in English. Additionally, they discuss the constraints on language, such as anatomy and physics, and how they relate to time travel.

AI researcher and author, Janelle Shane, discusses how AI 'sees' language, creating AI humor, and ethical issues. The hosts also explore AI's limitations, training data quirks, challenges in designing language-learning machines, and generating nonsensical ice cream names.

Why do some conversations seems to flow really easily, while other times, it feels like you can’t get a word in edgewise, or that the other person isn’t holding up their end of the conversation? In this episode of Lingthusiasm, your hosts Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne have a conversation about the structure of conversations! Conversation analysts talk about a spectrum of how we take turns in conversation: some people are more high-involvement, while other people are more high-considerateness, depending on how much time you prefer to elapse between someone else’s turn and your own. These differences explain a lot about when conversations feel like they’re going off the rails and how to bring them back on track. — This month’s bonus episode is about onomatopoeia! We talk about words that take their inspiration from the sounds and experiences of the world around us, and how these words vary across languages. Support Lingthusiasm on Patreon to gain access to the onomatopoeia episode and 33 previous bonus episodes. patreon.com/lingthusiasm Lingthusiasm merch makes a great gift for yourself or other lingthusiasts! Check out IPA scarves, IPA socks, and more at lingthusiasm.com/merch For more links to everything mentioned in this episode, check out the shownotes at https://lingthusiasm.com/post/189762810146/lingthusiasm-episode-39-how-to-rebalance-a

The Lingthusiasm podcast celebrates its anniversary and invites listeners to share their favorite linguistic facts. The episode explores plurals in English and discusses different strategies for forming plurals in various languages. The hosts examine the plural forms of 'octopus' in English, Latin, and Greek. They also delve into the presence of dual and trial forms in certain languages. Additionally, the chapter explores the concept of counting and provides resources for studying plurals.

This episode of Lingthusiasm discusses the lack of vocabulary for describing scents compared to colors, research on language and smells, the creation of a scent-focused language for a novel, and the connection between smell and books. They also encourage listener engagement and promote bonus content and merchandise.

Larger, national signed languages, like American Sign Language and British Sign Language, often have relatively well-established laboratory-based research traditions, whereas smaller signed languages, such as those found in villages with a high proportion of deaf residents, aren’t studied as much. When we look at signed languages in the context of these smaller communities, we can also think more about how to make research on larger sign languages more natural as well. In this episode, your host Gretchen McCulloch interviews Dr Lynn Hou, an Assistant Professor of linguistics at the University of California Santa Barbara, in our first bilingual episode (ASL and English). Lina researches how signed languages are used in real-world environments, which takes her from analyzing American Sign Language in youtube videos to documenting how children learn San Juan Quiahije Chatino Sign Language (in collaboration with Hilaria Cruz, one of our previous interviewees!). We’re very excited to bring you our first bilingual episode in ASL and English! For the full experience, make sure to watch the video version of this episode at youtube.com/lingthusiasm (and check out our previous video episode on gesture in spoken language while you’re there). Check out the shownotes page to get the links mentioned in this episode: https://lingthusiasm.com/post/187829933341/lingthusiasm-episode-36-villages-gifs-and

In this podcast, the hosts discuss the concept of syllables and how they are constructed in different languages. They compare syllables to burgers, with different parts representing the sounds and structures within a syllable. They also explore the pronunciation of words like 'pterodactyl' and 'helicopter' and discuss the impact of printing on the pronunciation of the word 'sneeze'. Additionally, they touch on the use of alliteration and rhyme in different languages, and the joy of learning languages and playing with language games.