Lingthusiasm - A podcast that's enthusiastic about linguistics
Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne
111 episodes
2 weeks ago
Wait, surprise is associated with a particular intonation!?
Oh, you can see surprise by measuring electricity from your brain!?
Hang on, some languages have grammatical marking for surprise!?
In this episode, your hosts Lauren Gawne and Gretchen McCulloch get enthusiastic about surprise. We talk about surprise voice and context, writing surprise with punctuation marks and emoji, anti-surprise and sarcasm, and measuring the special little surprise blip (technically known as the n400) in your brain using an EEG machine. We also talk about grammatically indicating surprise, aka mirativity, and whether that's its own thing or part of a broader system related to doubt and certainty (spoiler: linguists are still debating this).
Click here for a link to this episode in your podcast player of choice: https://pod.link/1186056137/episode/dGFnOnNvdW5kY2xvdWQsMjAxMDp0cmFja3MvMjIzMjQxOTY3OA
Read the transcript here: https://lingthusiasm.com/post/803318354608783360/transcript-episode-111-whoa-a-surprise
Announcements:
New on Patreon: you can now buy a set of bonus episodes as a collection if you're not keen on signing up for a monthly membership. Collections so far include Lingthusiasm book club, Lingthusiasm After Dark, Linguistics Gossip, Linguistic Advice, Word Nerdery, and Interviews: https://www.patreon.com/cw/lingthusiasm/collections
Patreon bonus episodes also make a great last-minute gift for a linguistics enthusiast in your life: https://www.patreon.com/lingthusiasm/gift
In this month’s bonus episode we get enthusiastic about the mysterious Voynich Manuscript with Dr. Claire Bowern! We talk about We talk about what we can actually know about the manuscript for certain: no, it wasn't created by aliens; yes, it does carbon-date from the early 1400s; and no, it doesn't look like other early attempts at codes, conlangs, or ciphers. We also talk about what gibberish actually looks like, what deciphering medieval manuscripts has in common with textspeak, why the analytical strategies that we used to figure out Egyptian hieroglyphs from the Rosetta Stone and Linear B from Minoan inscriptions haven't succeeded with the Voynich Manuscript, and finally, how we could know whether we've actually succeeded in cracking it one day.
Join us on Patreon now to get access to this and 100+ other bonus episodes. You’ll also get access to the Lingthusiasm Discord server where you can chat with other language nerds: https://www.patreon.com/posts/144558456
For links to things mentioned in this episode: https://lingthusiasm.com/post/803318024765603840/lingthusiasm-episode-111-whoa-a-surprise
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Wait, surprise is associated with a particular intonation!?
Oh, you can see surprise by measuring electricity from your brain!?
Hang on, some languages have grammatical marking for surprise!?
In this episode, your hosts Lauren Gawne and Gretchen McCulloch get enthusiastic about surprise. We talk about surprise voice and context, writing surprise with punctuation marks and emoji, anti-surprise and sarcasm, and measuring the special little surprise blip (technically known as the n400) in your brain using an EEG machine. We also talk about grammatically indicating surprise, aka mirativity, and whether that's its own thing or part of a broader system related to doubt and certainty (spoiler: linguists are still debating this).
Click here for a link to this episode in your podcast player of choice: https://pod.link/1186056137/episode/dGFnOnNvdW5kY2xvdWQsMjAxMDp0cmFja3MvMjIzMjQxOTY3OA
Read the transcript here: https://lingthusiasm.com/post/803318354608783360/transcript-episode-111-whoa-a-surprise
Announcements:
New on Patreon: you can now buy a set of bonus episodes as a collection if you're not keen on signing up for a monthly membership. Collections so far include Lingthusiasm book club, Lingthusiasm After Dark, Linguistics Gossip, Linguistic Advice, Word Nerdery, and Interviews: https://www.patreon.com/cw/lingthusiasm/collections
Patreon bonus episodes also make a great last-minute gift for a linguistics enthusiast in your life: https://www.patreon.com/lingthusiasm/gift
In this month’s bonus episode we get enthusiastic about the mysterious Voynich Manuscript with Dr. Claire Bowern! We talk about We talk about what we can actually know about the manuscript for certain: no, it wasn't created by aliens; yes, it does carbon-date from the early 1400s; and no, it doesn't look like other early attempts at codes, conlangs, or ciphers. We also talk about what gibberish actually looks like, what deciphering medieval manuscripts has in common with textspeak, why the analytical strategies that we used to figure out Egyptian hieroglyphs from the Rosetta Stone and Linear B from Minoan inscriptions haven't succeeded with the Voynich Manuscript, and finally, how we could know whether we've actually succeeded in cracking it one day.
Join us on Patreon now to get access to this and 100+ other bonus episodes. You’ll also get access to the Lingthusiasm Discord server where you can chat with other language nerds: https://www.patreon.com/posts/144558456
For links to things mentioned in this episode: https://lingthusiasm.com/post/803318024765603840/lingthusiasm-episode-111-whoa-a-surprise
93: How nonbinary and binary people talk - Interview with Jacq Jones
Lingthusiasm - A podcast that's enthusiastic about linguistics
45 minutes 25 seconds
1 year ago
93: How nonbinary and binary people talk - Interview with Jacq Jones
There are many ways that people perform gender, from clothing and hairstyle to how we talk or carry ourselves. When doing linguistic analysis of one aspect, such as someone's voice, it's useful to also consider the fuller picture such as what they're wearing and who they're talking with.
In this episode, your host Gretchen McCulloch gets enthusiastic about how nonbinary people talk with Jacq Jones, who's a lecturer at Te Kunenga ki Pūrehuroa / Massey University in Auckland, New Zealand. We talk about their research on how nonbinary and binary people make choices about how to perform gender using their voices and other variables like clothing, and later collaborating with one of their research participants to reflect on how it feels to have your personal voice and gender expression plotted on a chart. We also talk about linguistic geography, Canadian and New Zealand Englishes, and the secret plurality of R sounds in English and how you can figure out which one you have by poking yourself (gently!) with a toothpick.
Click here for a link to this episode in your podcast player of choice: episodes.fm/1186056137/episode/dGFnOnNvdW5kY2xvdWQsMjAxMDp0cmFja3MvMTg1MzMwODQxMA==
Or read the transcript here: lingthusiasm.com/post/753857624894849024/transcript-episode-83
Announcements:
In this month’s bonus episode we get enthusiastic about three of our favourite kinds of linguistic mixups: spoonerisms, mondegreens, and eggcorns! We talk about William Spooner, the Oxford prof from the 1800s that many spoonerisms are (falsely) attributed to, Lauren's very Australian 90s picture book of spoonerisms, the Scottish song "The Bonny Earl of Moray" which gave rise to the term mondegreen, why there are so many more mondegreens in older pop songs and folk songs than there are now, and how eggcorn is a double eggcorn (a mis-parsing of acorn, which itself is an eggcorn of oak-corn for akern).
Join us on Patreon now to get access to this and 80+ other bonus episodes. You’ll also get access to the Lingthusiasm Discord server where you can chat with other language nerds about your favourite linguistic mixups: patreon.com/posts/105461156
For links to things mentioned in this episode: lingthusiasm.com/post/753857305290915840/episode-93-how-nonbinary-and-binary-people-talk
Lingthusiasm - A podcast that's enthusiastic about linguistics
Wait, surprise is associated with a particular intonation!?
Oh, you can see surprise by measuring electricity from your brain!?
Hang on, some languages have grammatical marking for surprise!?
In this episode, your hosts Lauren Gawne and Gretchen McCulloch get enthusiastic about surprise. We talk about surprise voice and context, writing surprise with punctuation marks and emoji, anti-surprise and sarcasm, and measuring the special little surprise blip (technically known as the n400) in your brain using an EEG machine. We also talk about grammatically indicating surprise, aka mirativity, and whether that's its own thing or part of a broader system related to doubt and certainty (spoiler: linguists are still debating this).
Click here for a link to this episode in your podcast player of choice: https://pod.link/1186056137/episode/dGFnOnNvdW5kY2xvdWQsMjAxMDp0cmFja3MvMjIzMjQxOTY3OA
Read the transcript here: https://lingthusiasm.com/post/803318354608783360/transcript-episode-111-whoa-a-surprise
Announcements:
New on Patreon: you can now buy a set of bonus episodes as a collection if you're not keen on signing up for a monthly membership. Collections so far include Lingthusiasm book club, Lingthusiasm After Dark, Linguistics Gossip, Linguistic Advice, Word Nerdery, and Interviews: https://www.patreon.com/cw/lingthusiasm/collections
Patreon bonus episodes also make a great last-minute gift for a linguistics enthusiast in your life: https://www.patreon.com/lingthusiasm/gift
In this month’s bonus episode we get enthusiastic about the mysterious Voynich Manuscript with Dr. Claire Bowern! We talk about We talk about what we can actually know about the manuscript for certain: no, it wasn't created by aliens; yes, it does carbon-date from the early 1400s; and no, it doesn't look like other early attempts at codes, conlangs, or ciphers. We also talk about what gibberish actually looks like, what deciphering medieval manuscripts has in common with textspeak, why the analytical strategies that we used to figure out Egyptian hieroglyphs from the Rosetta Stone and Linear B from Minoan inscriptions haven't succeeded with the Voynich Manuscript, and finally, how we could know whether we've actually succeeded in cracking it one day.
Join us on Patreon now to get access to this and 100+ other bonus episodes. You’ll also get access to the Lingthusiasm Discord server where you can chat with other language nerds: https://www.patreon.com/posts/144558456
For links to things mentioned in this episode: https://lingthusiasm.com/post/803318024765603840/lingthusiasm-episode-111-whoa-a-surprise
