Posts tagged review

superlinguo:

Looking for podcasts about language and linguistics? Here’s a comprehensive list with descriptions! I’ve also mentioned if shows have transcripts. If there are any I missed, let me know!

Linguistics

Lingthusiasm A podcast that’s enthusiastic about linguistics by Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne (that’s me!). Main episodes every third Thursday of every month, with a second bonus episode on Patreon. (Transcripts for all episodes)

Because Language Every week Daniel, Ben, and Hedvig cover the news in linguistics and tackle a particular topic. (previously Talk the Talk) (Transcripts for all episodes after release)

The Vocal Fries Every episode Carrie Gillon & Megan Figueroa tackle linguistic discrimination in relation to a particular group. (Transcripts for some episodes)

En Clair A podcast about forensic linguistics from Dr Claire Hardaker at Lancaster University. Episodes released monthly, with a range of topics from criminal cases to literary fraud. (Transcripts for all episodes)

Language on the Move Conversations about linguistic diversity in social life. (Transcripts for some episodes)

Linguistics Behind the Scenes join linguistics professor Christina Sanchez-Stockhammer and linguistics enthusiast Dominic Piazza on a backstage tour of linguistic research. (transcripts for all episodes)

Said & Done A podcast about languages and the people who speak them, from the Columbia LRC

Accentricity From Sadie Durkacz Ryan, a lecturer in sociolinguistics at Glasgow University. Season one has six episodes.

All About Accents A podcast all about accents with linguist and accent coach Dani Morse-Kopp in conversation with her partner Lucas Morse. 

Tomayto Tomahto Led by Talia Sherman, a Brown University undergrad, this interview-based podcast explores language.

Field Notes Martha Tsutsui Billins interviews linguists about their linguistic fieldwork. (Transcripts for all episodes)

History and Philosophy of the Language Sciences sub-30 minute episodes about the history of linguistics from James McElvenny, with the occasional interviews.

Lingua Brutalica Jess Kruk and Wes Robertson take on the world of extreme metal.

Say It Like You Play It A podcast about games, language and culture.

The Language Revolution Changing UK attitudes to languages.

The Secret Life of Language An interview podcast from the University of Melbourne’s School of Languages and Linguistics.

JSLX Conversations Podcast A podcast produced by the Journal of Sociolinguistics. (Transcripts for all episodes)

Lexis A conversation about linguistics with a topical UK focus, from Matthew Butler, Lisa Casey, Dan Clayton and Jacky Glancey.

When Languages Meet A podcast miniseries for people interested in languages and multilingualism. From MultiBridge.

Kletshead A podcast about bilingual children for parents, teachers and speech language therapists from Dr. Sharon Unsworth. Also in Dutch.

Linguistics Lounge A podcast about language and discourse with Tony Fisher and Julia de Bres. Transcripts for all episodes.

CorpusCast from Dr Robbie Love, available alongside other shows in the Aston University podcast feed or in video format.

Life and Language Michaela Mahlberg chats with her guests about life and why language matters.

Toksave – Culture Talks A podcast from the PARADISEC Archive, where the archived records of the past have life breathed back into them once again.

Theory Neutral Covering typology and descriptive grammars with Logan R Kearsley.

PhonPod Podcast Interview-based podcast about phonetics and phonology from Vicky Loras.

Linguistics Now An interview podcast from Vicky Loras.

Linguistics Careercast A podcast devoted to exploring careers for linguists outside academia.

The Language Neuroscience Podcast Neuroscientist Stephen Wilson talks with leading and up-and-coming researchers. For an academic audience. (Transcripts for all episodes).

Writing Wrongs Historic and contemporary forensic linguistic cases, from Aston Institute for Forensic Linguistics.

Stories of Languages and Linguistics Created by students at Georgia Tech as part of their learning. Short episodes. 

Language

The Allusionist Stories about language and the people who use it, from Helen Zaltzman (Transcripts for all episodes) (my review).

Grammar Girl Episodes are rarely longer than 15 minutes, but they’re full of tips about English grammar and style for professional writing, and more! (Transcripts for all episodes).

A Language I Love Is… A show about language, linguistics and people who love both. An interview-based podcast hosted by Danny Bate.

Word of Mouth BBC Radio 4 show exploring the world of words with Michael Rosen.

America the Bilingual Dedicated to the pursuit of bilingualism in the USA.

Words & Actions A podcast about how language matters in business, politics and beyond.

Subtitle A podcast about languages and the people who speak them, from Patrick Cox and Kavita Pillay. For those who miss Patrick’s old podcast, The World in Words.

The Parlé Podcast from Canadian Speech-Language Pathologist Chantal Mayer-Crittenden.

Slavstvuyte! A podcast for everyone who is fascinated by Slavic languages from Dina Stankovic.

Subtext A podcast about the linguistics of online dating.

Hear us out! The science of second language listening from the Japan Association for Language Teaching.

Conlangs

Conlangery Particularly for those with an interest in constructed  languages, they also have episodes that focus on specific natural  languages, or linguistic phenomena. Newer episodes have transcripts.

Linguitect Matt, Rowan and Liam explain linguistic topics and talk about how to build them into your conlang.

Dictionaries

Word For Word From Macquarie dictionary, with a focus on Australian English.

Fiat Lex A podcast about making dictionaries from Kory Stamper & Steve Kleinedler. One season.

Word Matters From the editors at Merriam-Webster, hosted by Emily Brewster, Neil Serven, Ammon Shea, and Peter Sokolowski. 

English

Unstandardized English Interview-based podcast. Disrupting the language of racism and white supremacy in English Language Teaching.

History of English Meticulously researched, professionally produced and engaging content on the history of English. (My reviews: episodes 1-4, episodes 5-79, bonus episodes).

Lexicon Valley Hosted by John McWhorter.

That’s What They Say Every week linguist Anne Curzan joins Rebecca Kruth on Michigan public radio for a five minute piece on a quirk of English language.

A Way With Words A talk-back format show on the history of English words, cryptic crosswords and slang.

Words/etymology

Words Unravelled Rob Watts (aka RobWords) and Jess Zafarris unravel the stories behind everyday terms. 

Something Rhymes With Purple Susie Dent and Gyles Brandreth uncover the hidden origins of language and share their love of words.

Telling our Twisted Histories Kaniehti:io Horn brings us together to decolonize our minds– one word, one concept, one story at a time.

Word Bomb Hosts Pippa Johnstone and Karina Palmitesta explore one word per week, using particular words for a deep dive into linguistic and social issues. (Transcripts for all episodes)

Words for Granted In each episode Ray Belli explores the history of a common English word in around fifteen minutes.

Lexitecture Ryan, a Canadian, and Amy, a Scot share their chosen word each episode.

Bunny Trails Shauna and Dan discuss idioms and other turns of phrase.

Translation & Interpreting

Brand the Interpreter Interviews about the profession, from Mireya Pérez.

The Translation Chat Podcast a podcast on Japanese to English media with Jennifer O’Donnell, and translators and editors in the Japanese to English localization.

In Languages other than English

Parler Comme Jamais A French language podcast from Binge Audio.Monthly episodes from Laélia Véron.

Sozusagen A German language podcast of weekly 10 minute episodes.

Talking Bodies A German language podcast about speech, gesture and communication.

Registergeknister A German language linguistics podcast of the Collaborative Research Center 1412 at the Humboldt University of Berlin.

Språket A Swedish language podcast from Sveriges Radio about language use and change.

Språktalk A Norwegian language podcast with Helene Uri and Kristin Storrusten from Aftenposten.

Klog på sprog A Danish language podcast that playfully explores the Danish language.

Kletshead A Dutch language podcast about bilingual children for parents, teachers and speech language therapists from Dr. Sharon Unsworth. Also in English.

Over taal gesproken A Dutch language podcast from the Institute for the Dutch language and the Dutch Language Society.

BabelPodcast A Portuguese language podcast from Brazil, hosted by Cecilia Farias and Gruno. 

Mexendo com a Língua A Spanish language podcast about linguistics, literature, culture, and more from the Postgraduate Program in Linguistics at the Federal University of São Carlos.

El Racionalista Omnívoro a Spanish language podcast about linguistics, history, cinema, literature and more, hosted by Antonio Fábregas.

War of Words A Spanish language podcast about linguistics from Juana de los Santos, Ángela Rodríguez, Néstor Bermúdez and Antonella Moschetti.

Con la lengua fuera A Spanish language podcast from Macarena Gil y Nerea Fernández de Gobeo.

Hablando mal y pronto A Spanish language conversational podcast from Santiago, Juan and Magui.

Saussure e grida An Italian language podcast about linguistics from Irene Lami.

Ma langue maternelle n'est pas la langue de ma mère a French language podcast about the diversity of languages.

Rhapsody in Lingo Cantonese podcast on language and linguistics.

Back Catalogue

These are podcasts that had a good run of episodes and are no longer being produced.

• Spectacular Vernacular A podcast that explores language … and plays with it Hosted by Nicole Holliday and Ben Zimmer for Slate. Transcripts available. 19 episodes from 2021 and 2022.
  
• Science Diction a podcast about words—and the science stories behind them. Hosted by Johanna Mayer, this is a production from WNYC Science Friday. 42 episodes from 2020-2022.
• Troublesome Terps The podcast about the things that keep interpreters up at night. 70 episodes from 2016-2022.
  

• The World in Words From PRI, episodes from 2008-2019.

• How Brands are Build (season 1 of this show focuses on brand naming)
• Very Bad Words A  podcast about swearing and our cultural relationship to it. 42 episodes from 2017 and 2018.
  
• The Endless Knot is not strictly a language podcast, but they often include word histories, linguistics podcast fans episode may find their colour series particularly interesting.
• Given Names (four part radio series from 2015, all about names. My review)

Odds & Ends

There are also a number of podcasts that have only a few episodes, are no longer being made, or are very academic in their focus:

• The Black Language Podcast Anansa Benbow brings you a podcast dedicated to talking about Black people and their languages. Five episodes from 2020.
  
• Speculative Grammarian Podcast (from the magazine of the same name, about 50 episodes from Dec 2009-Jan 2017)
• Linguistics Podcast (on YouTube, around 20 episodes in 2013 introducing basic linguistic concepts)
• Linguistics with Laura: 14 episodes from 2020/2021using the An Introduction To Language (Fromkin et al.) textbook as a basis. 
• Evolving English: Linguistics at the Library (8 episodes 2018), from the British Library.
• Language Creation Society Podcast (8 episodes, 2009-2011)
  
• LingLab (very occasionally updated podcast from graduate students in the Sociolinguistics program at NC State University)
• Hooked on Phonetics five episodes from Maxwell Hope from 2019 and 2020.
• Glossonomia Each episode is about a different vowel or consonant sound in English. 44 episodes from 2010-2014.
  
• Distributed Morphs An interview-based podcast about morphology, from Jeffrey Punske. Eight episodes in 2020.
• Word to the Whys a podcast where linguists talk about why they do linguistics. Created by TILCoP Canada (Teaching Intro Linguistics Community of Practice). 10 episodes in 2020 and 2021.
  
• The Weekly Linguist An  interview podcast about the languages of the world and the linguists who study them from Jarrette Allen and Lisa Sprowls. 21 episodes in 2021.
  
• Silly Linguistics (ad hoc episode posting, but episode 7 is an interview with Kevin Stroud for History of English fans)
• Linguistics After Dark Eli, Sarah and Jenny answer your linguistics questions in hour-ish long episodes.
• WACC Podcast (guest lectures at Warwick Applied Linguistics)
• Sage Language and Linguistics
• Let’s Talk Talk
• Queer Linguistics has a couple of episodes, with a bit of classroom vibe
• GradLings An occasionally-updated podcast for linguistics students at any stage of study, to share their stories and experiences.
  
• Canguro English A podcast about language for people learning languages. 103 episodes from 2018-2021.
  
• Why is English? A podcast about how the English language got to be the way it is, from Laura Brandt. Seven episodes from 2020 and 2021. 
• Animology Vegan blogger Colleen Patrick Goudreau uses her love of animals as a starting point for exploring animal-related etymologies. 27 episodes from 2017-2020.
  
• Wordy Wordpecker Short weekly episodes from Rachel Lopez, charting the stories of English words. 14 episodes from 2018.
• Speaking of Translation A monthly podcast from Eve Bodeux & Corinne McKay. 10 episodes from 2020-2021.
• Se Ve Se Escucha (Seen and Heard) Language justice and what it means to be an interpreter, an organizer and bilingual in the US South, from the Center for Participatory Change. Episodes from 2020.
  

This is an updated listing from December 2024. I’m always excited to be able to add more podcasts to the list, so if you know of any linguistics/language podcasts not here, please let me know! I wait until a show has at least 5 episodes before I add it to the list, and I like to let people know when transcripts are available.

2025 update!

Since launching Gesture: A Slim Guide, one of the most delightful things has been getting to share all of my favourite bits of it on some of my favourite podcasts. As well as a whole episode of Lingthusiasm, here are some other places I’ve been chatting about gesture:

Lauren Gawne, Is Pointing Rude, and Gestures Studies
Let’s Learn Everything

Is pointing rude? I’m sure it’s a simple question with a simple answer that won’t completely break our brains in rethinking all we take for granted about gesture. Also, what is Lauren’s holy grail lost media of gesture studies?

Gesture! ✨👐✨ (with Lauren Gawne)
Because Language

Gesture is everywhere. We wave our hands when we talk, even if we’re alone. Signed languages are, of course, full languages that use gesture. And it could even be argued that emoji are the online equivalent of gesture. It’s inescapable. And why would we want to do without it, when it’s so useful? So we’re talking about gesture and language with Dr Lauren Gawne, author of Gesture: A Slim Guide.

What your hands are saying (even when you’re not thinking about it), with Lauren Gawne
Grammar Girl’s Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing

Your hands may be saying more than your words. Lauren Gawne explains how gestures shape communication, how they differ across cultures, and why removing gestures can make your speech less fluent.

Gestures and Emblems
Language on the Move

Brynn Quick speaks with Dr. Lauren Gawne. Dr. Gawne is especially interested in documenting and analysing how people speak and gesture. Her current research focuses on the cross-cultural variation in gesture use.

Some other links and mentions:

• Some key stories from the book popped up on the A Way With Words podcast.
• More than words: How we say it best when we say nothing at all - A Sydney Morning Herald column from David Astle. [paywalled]
• Why Sci-Fi Hand Gestures Live Long and Prosper - Beyond Imaginary Worlds with Eric Molinsky [paywalled]
• Motherlingual thoughts on reading Gesture: A Slim Guide.

More links:

• Gesture: A Slim Guide - Five Fun Facts
• Lingthusiasm 103: A hand-y guide to gesture

I have a long form review of the new Cambridge Handbook of Gesture Studies over on LINGUIST List. The handbook was published as I was signing off on final proofs of Gesture: A Slim guide. While I managed to sneak a few references into my own work, I was delighted to have the chance to read a review copy. You can read the full review on LINGUIST List.

ALT

Below are some excerpts:

The Cambridge Handbook of Gesture Studies is a fitting encapsulation of the state of a relatively young, interdisciplinary field of enquiry. Alan Cienki has managed the difficult task of distilling the topic while also reflecting a well-curated range of methods, voices and perspectives. An understanding of the vital role of gesture in language is essential for any linguist who studies interaction, and this handbook provides a clear, authoritative introduction to key approaches. With 26 chapters and almost 700 pages, the Cambridge Handbook of Gesture Studies is a hefty tome, but not completely unmanageable.
The Cambridge Handbook of Gesture Studies is a welcome contribution, both as a summation of key insights from the field of Gesture Studies to date, and an indication of where there is scope for progress.

I am a big fan of LINGUIST List book reviews. It’s a publication that’s available to everyone, and I’ve relied on reviews to get a sense of the many wonderful books I don’t have time to read. I’ve written a few over the years, and you can to! Just keep an eye on the monthly FOR REVIEW list.

Read my full review of The Cambridge Handbook of Gesture Studies on LINGUIST List.

And, because it’s basically the opposite (in the best way!) of what I was trying to achieve with the Slim Guide, here they are together:

Damon Young brings his keenly-honed attention to the topic of gesture, and its role in the texture of being human as part of the philosophical detail of life. Young focuses specifically on gestures that have a fixed meaning for a group of users. The category of emblems is a rich topic of exploration, although I am a highly biased reviewer because they are a category of gesture to which I’ve also given a lot of thought. As Young marvels, “[t]hese signs are fluid, subtle; they are finely suited to situations.”

Each of the fifteen chapters focuses on one gesture, the author’s relationship to it as well as what it can tell us about culture, history, religion and so much more. The shrug is an opportunity to ponder the theological question of whether God shrugs, the finger guns are a launch point for a discussion of gun culture, and the salute at the beginning of a fencing match is an opportunity to ponder class and gallantry.

Young uses a depth of research, but with a light touch; he mentions in passing the shrug is a recurrent gesture, while (sensibly) sidestepping the complex relationship between recurrent gestures and emblems as categories. The conversational introduction to key references, rather than a performatively detailed set of formal citations, suits the cosy, conversational tones.

The book is a very pretty, petite, 200 page hardcover, with striking blue cover art by Angi Thomas.

I apologise I am bad at online influencing - I probably should have taken a photo of the cover before this copy lived in my bag for a few days while I read it..

Young’s selection of gestures is wide ranging, including some classic, prototypical emblems (the ‘horns’, the Vulcan salute, the shush), as well as opportunities to push into ritualistic or stylistic actions, including the plié of ballet, taking off a hood (a recurring motif in Star Wars) and slack-mouthed miming life as a goldfish in a bowl. Each short chapter takes its own journey while weaving into a larger set of themes. I enjoyed Young delighting in the observation of actions typically taken for granted, and their storied histories. At one point he marvels “[b]ut I was very much in the world" - capturing the wonderful transition into a way of seeing that comes with paying attention to the gestures of our lives. 

ALT

Purchase Links

Damon Young, Immortal Gestures (Scribe, 2025)

Bookshop.org (affiliate link)

Amazon (affiliate link)

Scribe (publisher page)

I returned to full time work after a year of parental leave. That, alone, would have been enough for this year. Unfortunately, it turned into a terrible year at my university, with key senior colleagues in my department losing their jobs.

I like these reviews most year, but looking back on last year it feels even more important than usual to remember that there were some good things that happened in spite of everything going on with my university.

Lingthusiasm in 2024

Lingthusiasm turned 8! We maintained our regular pace, posting a dozen main episodes as well as our monthly bonus episodes for patrons. We plotted our vowels and covered a wide range of topics, including some great interviews with guests.

We launched our perfectly calibrated, Very Serious ‘Which Lingthusiasm episode are you?’ quiz guide you!

We were also reviewed in the New York Times, were featured in Lauren Passell’s Podcast the Newsletter, and conducted our final survey in the trilogy we planned.

We released a new sticker/badge that says “Ask Me About Linguistics”, new merch that says “more people have read the text on this shirt than I have” and a range of merch with a very elegant Gavagai from Lucy Maddox, which are both available alongside merch for all kinds of linguists and language fans.

Main episodes

• A politeness episode, if you please (transcript)
• Helping computers decode sentences - Interview with Emily M. Bender (transcript)
• OooOooh~~ our possession episode oOooOOoohh 👻 (transcript)
• Welcome back aboard the metaphor train! (transcript)
• Lo! An undetached collection of meaning-parts! (transcript)
• The perfectly imperfect aspect episode (transcript)
• How nonbinary and binary people talk - Interview with Jacq Jones (transcript)
• Brunch, gonna, and fozzle - The smooshing episode (transcript)
• Scoping out the scope of scope (transcript)
• What visualizing our vowels tells us about who we are (transcript)
• Connecting with oral culture (transcript)
• No such thing as the oldest language (transcript)

Bonus episodes

• Crochet vocal tract, grammar is a team sport, gifs, and soy sauce - Deleted scenes from Jacq Jones, Emily M. Bender, and Tom Scott team interviews
• Metaphors be with you! Lingthusiasm x Let’s Learn Everything crossover episode
• Linguistic Travel - Estonia, Mundolingua, and Martha’s Vineyard
• Xenolinguistics 👽
• Behind the Scenes on the Tom Scott Language Files
• Don’t you love to do a “do” episode?
• The best and worst comparatives episode
• Linguistic mixups - spoonerisms, mondegreens, and eggcorns
• Secret codes and the joy of cryptic word puzzles
• Inner voice, mental pictures, and other shapes for thoughts
• How we made vowel plots with Bethany Gardner
• Are thumbs fingers and which episode of Lingthusiasm are you? Survey results and a new personality quiz
• Themself, Basque ergativity cartoons, and bad swearing ideas - Deleted scenes from Kirby Conrod, Itxaso Rodriguez-Ordoñez, and Jo Walton and Ada Palmer

Top Superlinguo posts in 2024

I honestly expected to have nothing to post here, so it’s lovely to know that I do still get small changes to blog throughout the year.

General posts

• Research Data Management. Or, How I made multiple backups and still almost lost my honours thesis.
• Thinking With Your Hands, Susan Goldin-Meadow (Review)
• How to Talk Language Science with Everybody, Laura Wagner & Cecile McKee (Review)
• Himalayan Linguistics turns 20: Celebrating two decades of Diamond Open Access publish
• Himalayan Linguistics, Linguistics Vanguard and the Australian Journal of Linguistics - my three journal editorial hats
• 2024 LingComm Grants – Small Grants for Communicating Linguistics to Wider Audiences
• 2024 LingComm Grantees: New linguistics projects for you to follow
• New gesture Emoji in Unicode 15.1: Head Shaking Horizontally and Head Shaking Vertically (aka shake and nod!), and (finally) right facing emoji

Academic articles in 2024

Four publications this year, across lingcomm, gesture and emoji. I also spent a lot of this year finishing Gesture: A Slim Guide, which will be out with OUP in 2025.

• McCulloch, G. & L. Gawne. 2024. Towards a theory of linguistic curiosity: applying linguistic frameworks to lingcomm and scicomm. Linguistics Vanguard 10(s3): 181-189. DOI: 10.1515/lingvan-2024-0073 [OA published version][blog summary]
• Gawne, L., & Cooperrider, K. (2024). Emblems: Meaning at the interface of language and gesture. Glossa: a journal of general linguistics. doi: 10.16995/glossa.9705 [OA published version][blog summary]
• Cabraal, A. & L. Gawne. 2024. Using emoji as a creative tool for data analysis. In H. Kara, D. Mannay & A. Roy (Eds), The Handbook of Creative Data Analysis, 201-212. Bristol: Polity Press.
• Gawne, L., G. McCulloch, N. Sweeney, R. Alatalo, H. Bodenhausen, C. Riley & J. Grieser. 2024. Creating Inclusive Linguistics Communication: Crash Course Linguistics. In A. Charity Hudley, C. Mallinson, and M. Bucholtz (Eds), Inclusion in Linguistics, 383-396. Oxford University Press. [Open Access PDF][blog post summary]

The year ahead

After a year of upheaval, next year will be a time of rebuilding. There will be a new team, a new curriculum, and I’m not silly enough to assume that also means a new, manageable pace of work. I’ll still be sharing work here and recording Lingthusiasm. I’ve also been spending more time on Bluesky, perhaps I’ll see you there?

Browsing old Superlinguo content?

I have a welcome page on the blog that points you to aggregate posts, and series of posts I’ve done over the years, as well as themed collections of posts that have appeared on the blog in the last twelve years.

Previous years

• Superlinguo 2023 in review
• Superlinguo 2022 in review
• Superlinguo 2021 in review
• Superlinguo 2020 in review
• Superlinguo 2020 (2019 in review)
• Superlinguo 2019 (2018 in review)
• Superlinguo 2018 (2017 in review)
• Superlinguo 2017 (2016 in review)
• Superlinguo 2015 highlights

superlinguo:

Looking for podcasts about language and linguistics? Here’s a comprehensive list with descriptions! I’ve also mentioned if shows have transcripts. If there are any I missed, let me know!

Linguistics

Lingthusiasm A podcast that’s enthusiastic about linguistics by Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne (that’s me!). Main episodes every third Thursday of every month, with a second bonus episode on Patreon. (Transcripts for all episodes)

Because Language Every week Daniel, Ben, and Hedvig cover the news in linguistics and tackle a particular topic. (previously Talk the Talk) (Transcripts for all episodes after release)

The Vocal Fries Every episode Carrie Gillon & Megan Figueroa tackle linguistic discrimination in relation to a particular group. (Transcripts for some episodes)

En Clair A podcast about forensic linguistics from Dr Claire Hardaker at Lancaster University. Episodes released monthly, with a range of topics from criminal cases to literary fraud. (Transcripts for all episodes)

Language on the Move Conversations about linguistic diversity in social life. (Transcripts for some episodes)

Said & Done A podcast about languages and the people who speak them, from the Columbia LRC

Accentricity From Sadie Durkacz Ryan, a lecturer in sociolinguistics at Glasgow University. Season one has six episodes.

All About Accents A podcast all about accents with linguist and accent coach Dani Morse-Kopp in conversation with her partner Lucas Morse. 

Tomayto Tomahto Led by Talia Sherman, a Brown University undergrad, this interview-based podcast explores language.

Field Notes Martha Tsutsui Billins interviews linguists about their linguistic fieldwork. (Transcripts for all episodes)

History and Philosophy of the Language Sciences sub-30 minute episodes about the history of linguistics from James McElvenny, with the occasional interviews.

Lingua Brutalica Jess Kruk and Wes Robertson take on the world of extreme metal.

Say It Like You Play It A podcast about games, language and culture.

The Language Revolution Changing UK attitudes to languages.

The Secret Life of Language An interview podcast from the University of Melbourne’s School of Languages and Linguistics.

JSLX Conversations Podcast A podcast produced by the Journal of Sociolinguistics. (Transcripts for all episodes)

Lexis A conversation about linguistics with a topical UK focus, from Matthew Butler, Lisa Casey, Dan Clayton and Jacky Glancey.

Kletshead A podcast about bilingual children for parents, teachers and speech language therapists from Dr. Sharon Unsworth. Also in Dutch.

Linguistics Lounge A podcast about language and discourse with Tony Fisher and Julia de Bres. Transcripts for all episodes.

CorpusCast from Dr Robbie Love, available alongside other shows in the Aston University podcast feed or in video format.

Life and Language Michaela Mahlberg chats with her guests about life and why language matters.

Toksave – Culture Talks A podcast from the PARADISEC Archive, where the archived records of the past have life breathed back into them once again.

Theory Neutral Covering typology and descriptive grammars with Logan R Kearsley.

PhonPod Podcast Interview-based podcast about phonetics and phonology.

Linguistics Careercast A podcast devoted to exploring careers for linguists outside academia.

Language

The Allusionist Stories about language and the people who use it, from Helen Zaltzman (Transcripts for all episodes) (my review).

Grammar Girl Episodes are rarely longer than 15 minutes, but they’re full of tips about English grammar and style for professional writing, and more! (Transcripts for all episodes).

A Language I Love Is… A show about language, linguistics and people who love both. An interview-based podcast hosted by Danny Bate.

Word of Mouth BBC Radio 4 show exploring the world of words with Michael Rosen.

America the Bilingual Dedicated to the pursuit of bilingualism in the USA.

Words & Actions A podcast about how language matters in business, politics and beyond.

Subtitle A podcast about languages and the people who speak them, from Patrick Cox and Kavita Pillay. For those who miss Patrick’s old podcast, The World in Words.

The Parlé Podcast from Canadian Speech-Language Pathologist Chantal Mayer-Crittenden.

Slavstvuyte! A podcast for everyone who is fascinated by Slavic languages from Dina Stankovic.

Subtext A podcast about the linguistics of online dating.

Conlangs

Conlangery Particularly for those with an interest in constructed  languages, they also have episodes that focus on specific natural  languages, or linguistic phenomena. Newer episodes have transcripts.

Linguitect Matt, Rowan and Liam explain linguistic topics and talk about how to build them into your conlang.

Dictionaries

Word For Word From Macquarie dictionary, with a focus on Australian English.

Fiat Lex A podcast about making dictionaries from Kory Stamper & Steve Kleinedler. One season.

Word Matters From the editors at Merriam-Webster, hosted by Emily Brewster, Neil Serven, Ammon Shea, and Peter Sokolowski. 

English

Unstandardized English Interview-based podcast. Disrupting the language of racism and white supremacy in English Language Teaching.

History of English Meticulously researched, professionally produced and engaging content on the history of English. (My reviews: episodes 1-4, episodes 5-79, bonus episodes).

Lexicon Valley Hosted by John McWhorter.

That’s What They Say Every week linguist Anne Curzan joins Rebecca Kruth on Michigan public radio for a five minute piece on a quirk of English language.

A Way With Words A talk-back format show on the history of English words, cryptic crosswords and slang.

Words/etymology

Something Rhymes With Purple Susie Dent and Gyles Brandreth uncover the hidden origins of language and share their love of words.

Telling our Twisted Histories Kaniehti:io Horn brings us together to decolonize our minds– one word, one concept, one story at a time.

Word Bomb Hosts Pippa Johnstone and Karina Palmitesta explore one word per week, using particular words for a deep dive into linguistic and social issues. (Transcripts for all episodes)

Words for Granted In each episode Ray Belli explores the history of a common English word in around fifteen minutes.

Lexitecture Ryan, a Canadian, and Amy, a Scot share their chosen word each episode.

Bunny Trails Shauna and Dan discuss idioms and other turns of phrase.

Translation & Interpreting

Brand the Interpreter Interviews about the profession, from Mireya Pérez.

The Translation Chat Podcast a podcast on Japanese to English media with Jennifer O’Donnell, and translators and editors in the Japanese to English localization.

In Languages other than English

Parler Comme Jamais A French language podcast from Binge Audio.Monthly episodes from Laélia Véron.

Sozusagen A German language podcast of weekly 10 minute episodes.

Talking Bodies A German language podcast about speech, gesture and communication.

Registergeknister A German language linguistics podcast of the Collaborative Research Center 1412 at the Humboldt University of Berlin.

Språket A Swedish language podcast from Sveriges Radio about language use and change.

Språktalk A Norwegian language podcast with Helene Uri and Kristin Storrusten from Aftenposten.

Klog på sprog A Danish language podcast that playfully explores the Danish language.

Kletshead A Dutch language podcast about bilingual children for parents, teachers and speech language therapists from Dr. Sharon Unsworth. Also in English.

Over taal gesproken A Dutch language podcast from the Institute for the Dutch language and the Dutch Language Society.

BabelPodcast A Portuguese language podcast from Brazil, hosted by Cecilia Farias and Gruno.

El Racionalista Omnívoro a Portuguese language podcast about linguistics, history, cinema, literature and more, hosted by Antonio Fábregas.

War of Words A Spanish language podcast about linguistics from Juana de los Santos, Ángela Rodríguez, Néstor Bermúdez and Antonella Moschetti.

Con la lengua fuera A Spanish language podcast from Macarena Gil y Nerea Fernández de Gobeo.

Hablando mal y pronto A Spanish language conversational podcast from Santiago, Juan and Magui.

Rhapsody in Lingo Cantonese podcast on language and linguistics.

Back Catalogue

These are podcasts that had a good run of episodes and are no longer being produced.

• Spectacular Vernacular A podcast that explores language … and plays with it Hosted by Nicole Holliday and Ben Zimmer for Slate. Transcripts available. 19 episodes from 2021 and 2022.
  
• Science Diction a podcast about words—and the science stories behind them. Hosted by Johanna Mayer, this is a production from WNYC Science Friday. 42 episodes from 2020-2022.
• Troublesome Terps The podcast about the things that keep interpreters up at night. 70 episodes from 2016-2022.
  

• The World in Words From PRI, episodes from 2008-2019.

• How Brands are Build (season 1 of this show focuses on brand naming)
• Very Bad Words A  podcast about swearing and our cultural relationship to it. 42 episodes from 2017 and 2018.
  
• The Endless Knot is not strictly a language podcast, but they often include word histories, linguistics podcast fans episode may find their colour series particularly interesting.
• Given Names (four part radio series from 2015, all about names. My review)

Odds & Ends

There are also a number of podcasts that have only a few episodes, are no longer being made, or are very academic in their focus:

• The Black Language Podcast Anansa Benbow brings you a podcast dedicated to talking about Black people and their languages. Five episodes from 2020.
  
• Speculative Grammarian Podcast (from the magazine of the same name, about 50 episodes from Dec 2009-Jan 2017)
• Linguistics Podcast (on YouTube, around 20 episodes in 2013 introducing basic linguistic concepts)
• Evolving English: Linguistics at the Library (8 episodes 2018), from the British Library.
• Language Creation Society Podcast (8 episodes, 2009-2011)
  
• LingLab (very occasionally updated podcast from graduate students in the Sociolinguistics program at NC State University)
• Hooked on Phonetics five episodes from Maxwell Hope from 2019 and 2020.
• Glossonomia Each episode is about a different vowel or consonant sound in English. 44 episodes from 2010-2014.
  
• Distributed Morphs An interview-based podcast about morphology, from Jeffrey Punske. Eight episodes in 2020.
• Word to the Whys a podcast where linguists talk about why they do linguistics. Created by TILCoP Canada (Teaching Intro Linguistics Community of Practice). 10 episodes in 2020 and 2021.
  
• The Weekly Linguist An  interview podcast about the languages of the world and the linguists who study them from Jarrette Allen and Lisa Sprowls. 21 episodes in 2021.
  
• Silly Linguistics (ad hoc episode posting, but episode 7 is an interview with Kevin Stroud for History of English fans)
• Linguistics After Dark Eli, Sarah and Jenny answer your linguistics questions in hour-ish long episodes.
• WACC Podcast (guest lectures at Warwick Applied Linguistics)
• Sage Language and Linguistics
• Let’s Talk Talk
• Queer Linguistics has a couple of episodes, with a bit of classroom vibe
• GradLings An occasionally-updated podcast for linguistics students at any stage of study, to share their stories and experiences.
  
• Canguro English A podcast about language for people learning languages. 103 episodes from 2018-2021.
  
• Why is English? A podcast about how the English language got to be the way it is, from Laura Brandt. Seven episodes from 2020 and 2021. 
• Animology Vegan blogger Colleen Patrick Goudreau uses her love of animals as a starting point for exploring animal-related etymologies. 27 episodes from 2017-2020.
  
• Wordy Wordpecker Short weekly episodes from Rachel Lopez, charting the stories of English words. 14 episodes from 2018.
• Speaking of Translation A monthly podcast from Eve Bodeux & Corinne McKay. 10 episodes from 2020-2021.
• Se Ve Se Escucha (Seen and Heard) Language justice and what it means to be an interpreter, an organizer and bilingual in the US South, from the Center for Participatory Change. Episodes from 2020.
  

This is an updated listing from December 2024. I’m always excited to be able to add more podcasts to the list, so if you know of any linguistics/language podcasts not here, please let me know! I wait until a show has at least 5 episodes before I add it to the list, and I like to let people know when transcripts are available.

The 2024 update to the Linguistics and Languages podcast list!

Click through to the original post to see the latest version.

I was delighted to get the chance to review a new book from Laura Wagner & Cecile McKee all about doing lingcomm through hands-on demos and conversations at museums, science fairs and other public events. There’s a lot in the book for anyone who wants to start or refine the way they share linguistics with different audiences, particularly those that do face-to-face interactive work.

I have written a full review that is in Language. Below you can read a couple of excerpts from the longer review.

Communicating about linguistics to non-specialist audiences (lingcomm) is a specialist skill set in its own right. Equipping more linguists with these skills is vital if linguistics is going to stake a claim for its relevance to people’s lives as more than a passing curiosity. Until now, this skill set had to be learned mostly through emulation of existing practitioners, online resources and informal networks. Thankfully, Laura Wagner (Ohio State University) and Cecile McKee (University of Arizona) have distilled their extensive experience running lingcomm activities and events into a clear and practical book. How to Talk Language Science with Everyone (Cambridge University Press) illustrates the best of lingcomm practice; it is informed by linguistic research as well as insights from related fields, including psychology, education and anthropology. It also illustrates the best of the lingcomm community more broadly; it is accessible to those new to the practice, encouraging in tone, and passionate about introducing more people to how great linguistics is (a fact taken as given in this book).

The closing worksheets of each chapter are a sequence of activities that allow the reader to work towards what the authors call a ‘doable demo’, a well-planned hands-on demo that engages an intended audience in your topic of interest. While the activities in the early chapters are not particularly linked to the chapter topic, as the book builds the activities allow the reader to put the lessons of the chapter to work designing and refining a hands-on demo. The book can make a good classroom resource for anyone lucky enough to be able to run a lingcomm/scicomm subject, but the clear structure of the book means that it can be put to great use in the hands of an individual with time to work through the activities. It would be great to see more people working on short, engaging hands-on demos that capture people’s linguistic imagination (and, as the authors say in the book, sharing them!). Alongside initiatives like 3 Minute Thesis and 5 Minute Linguist, a hands-on demo can be an important part of a linguist’s toolkit for communicating with a range of audiences outside of academia. This book is perfect for you to share with your engaged graduate students or highly-enthusiastic undergraduates.

Thanks to Language for arranging for the review copy!

Wagner, Laura & Cecile McKee. 2023. How to Talk Language Science with Everybody. Cambridge University Press. [Review in Language]

Feeling inspired? For more lingcomm resources visit: https://lingcomm.org/resources/

In Thinking With Your Hands, Susan Goldin-Meadow meets the challenge of summarising a lifetime of research for a non-specialist audience. Since the early 1970s Goldin-Meadow has been researching the role of gesture in thinking, communicating and learning. This book captures her passion for this work, and the enthusiasm for collaboration that has resulted in the Goldin-Meadow lab being a powerhouse of Gesture Studies scholarship over the last three decades. There are some black line images throughout the book that illustrate some key gestural moments. I was delighted to read a physical review copy from the publisher. 

Goldin-Meadow’s work spans a range of topics in child language acquisition, the emergence of homesign and signed languages, and the use of gesture in educational contexts. The book is divided into three sections. The first section, “Thinking with our hands”, introduces the ways that gesture provides a more expansive understanding of language and what we communicate. In this book, as in her research, Goldin-Meadow focuses on the gestures we use alongside speech. These gestures can provide visual information alongside the structured linguistic content of spoken or signed languages. Sometimes that information is not found in the linguistic content and instead offers a different perspective on the thought processes of the person using gesture, other times, gesturing appears to not only show, but help, the thinking process. 

The second section, “Speaking with our hands”, is built around Goldin-Meadow’s expertise in children’s communication, particularly in contexts without spoken language. This includes discussion of homesign, where a deaf child is raised in a hearing household without signed language and develops a way of communicating with their family. These homesign systems are more than gesture, but less structured than a language, although as Goldin-Meadow’s work has shown, it’s the child driving the structure, not their caregivers. Goldin-Meadow is exceedingly diplomatic about the choices made by parents in these contexts, but at least makes it clear how the oralism approach does not benefit children. We also get to read about the birth of signed languages in contexts like Nicuagua, where the first school for deaf children was set up in the 1980s. In a context of support and input, children are able to collaboratively build a full language, often drawing on local gestures as one of their resources.  

The third section, “Why you should care about hands”, draws on insights from the research introduced in earlier chapters to make a case for gesture being relevant to parents, clinicians and teachers. The final chapter “what if gesture were considered as important as language?” is an opportunity that Goldin-Meadow uses for a vision for the use of the many remarkable insight from her work and that of collaborators and colleagues. 

Although this book draws mostly on research conducted by her own lab, or by people from her lab who have gone on to become leaders in the field in their own right, the book still draws on research from others across the field as well. It’s clear that Goldin-Meadow is demonstrating the ways she’s honed the message about her work, and its wider relevance, for a general audience. For someone with a passing familiarity with work from the Goldin-Meadow lab, there’s a great deal of charm in learning the stories behind some iconic pieces of research. Goldin-Meadow is very happy to let us know that had shown students some classic gesture mismatch footage in her classes for years before Brecky Church coded the data and noted that the mismatches preceded a developmental advance. Goldin-Meadow is exceedingly charming in her enthusiasm for name-checking her junior collaborators and students, as well as their students (who she gleefully points out are her academic grandchildren). 

In Thinking with your Hands Goldin-Meadow’s expertise and depths of enthusiasm are exceedingly evident, but so is her commitment to finding ways to share her work with people beyond psychology and Gesture Studies. This has become one of my go-to recommendations for Gesture Studies scicomm.  

Susan Goldin-Meadow, Thinking With Your Hands (Basic Books, 2023)

Related posts:

• Blind people gesture (and why that’s kind of a big deal)
• The relationship between gesture and thinking/speaking

I spent 2023 on leave to hang out with a new tiny human. I still found time for some linguistics, including regular Lingthusiasm episodes and even some intermittent blogging. I also got to reuse all my linguist pregnancy announcement jokes.

Lingthusiasm

Lingthusiasm turned 7 this year! We celebrated with a dozen main episodes as well as our monthly bonus episodes for patrons. We had some help to get through the year while I was on leave with interviews with linguists from around the world, including Lingthusiasm team members Martha Tsutsi-Billins and Sara Dopierela.

We released our new Etymology isn’t Destiny merch, which is available alongside merch for all kinds of linguists and language fans.

Main episodes

• Where language names come from and why they change (transcript)
• How kids learn language in Singapore - Interview with Woon Fei Ting (transcript)
• Bringing stories to life in Auslan - Interview with Gabrielle Hodge (transcript)
• Tone and Intonation? Tone and Intonation! (transcript)
• Word Magic (transcript)
• The verbs had been being helped by auxiliaries (transcript)
• Frogs, pears, and more staples from linguistics example sentences (transcript)
• How kids learn Q’anjob’al and other Mayan languages - Interview with Pedro Mateo Pedro (transcript)
• Look, it’s deixis, a word for linguistic pointing! (transcript)
• Ergativity delights us (transcript)
• Revival, reggaeton, and rejecting unicorns - Basque interview with Itxaso Rodríguez-Ordóñez (transcript)
• If I were an irrealis episode (transcript)

Bonus episodes

• Parrots, art and what even is a word - deleted scenes from Kat Gupta, Lucy Maddox and Randall Munroe interviews
• Singapore, New Zealand, and a favourite linguistics paper - 2023 Year Ahead Chat
• When books speculate on the future of English
• Neopronouns, gender-neutral vocab, and why linguistic gender even exists - Liveshow Q&A with Kirby Conrod
• 2022 Survey Results - kiki/bouba, synesthesia fomo, and pluralizing emoji
• Linguistic jobs beyond academia
• LingthusiASMR - The Harvard Sentences
• How we make Lingthusiasm transcripts - Interview with Sarah Dopierala
• Field Notes on linguistic fieldwork - Interview with Martha Tsutsui Billins
• Postcards from linguistics summer camp
• Linguistic Advice - Challenging grammar snobs, finding linguistic community, accents in singing, and more
• Frak, smeg, and more swearing in fiction - Ex Urbe Ad Astra interview with Jo Walton and Ada Palmer

LingComm: 2023 conference

The 2023 LingComm conference happened in February, and was once again in the LingComm conference space in Gather Town. I enjoyed being on the planning committee that put together an amazing event that built on the inaugural conference in 2021. Stay tuned for 2024 lingcomm updates!

Top Superlinguo posts in 2022

This year was a chance to reflect on the decade since I graduated, and to articulate the important role my main supervisor had in shaping my career.

After wrapping up the linguistics jobs interview series last year, this year was a chance to share some aggregated resources from 8 years and 80 interviews.

I also got to read a couple of great linguistics books for kids, keep up to date with linguistics podcasts, share some of my favourite linguistics books and check in on some things happening online.

General posts and reviews

• 10 years of a PhD
• Barb Kelly
• Gender Variations for Person in Suit Levitating Emoji - Emoji Proposal
• Linguistics and Language Podcasts (2023 update)
• Language Books for Kids: Highly Irregular, Arika Okrent & Sean O'Neill
• Linguistics books for kids: Once Upon a Word - a Word-origin Dictionary, Jess Zafarris

Linguistics Jobs resources

• Linguistics Jobs Interviews - directory of posts and resources
• Linguistics Jobs resource set
• Superlinguo Linguist Job Interviews full list
• Linguistics education and its application in the workplace: An analysis of interviews with linguistics graduates (new publication in Language)

Information and advice

• hapax legomenon and automated email replies
• Lingthusiasm guide to pop linguistics books
• Hello Grambank! A new typological database of 2,467 language varieties
• What we can accomplish in 30 years of lingcomm: Opening keynote of #LingComm23
• Australian Linguistic Society’s Accredited Linguist program

Academic articles in 2023

Although I was on leave, things that I was working on earlier made it through to publication. I like that there was one paper on lingcomm, one on gesture (including emoji!) and one on the linguistics job interviews, it feels like a nice mix of some of my current interests. Just a pity there wasn’t a Tibeto-Burman paper in there!

• Gawne, L. & A. Cabraal. 2023. Linguistics education and its application in the workplace: an analysis of interviews with linguistics graduates. Language, 99(1), e35-e57. [doi][Superlinguo post]
• Freestone, P., J. Kruk & L. Gawne. forthcoming. From Star Trek to The Hunger Games: emblem gestures in science fiction and their uptake in popular culture. Linguistic Vanguard, 9(3), 257-266. [doi][Superlinguo post]
• Gawne, L., & McCulloch, G. (2023). ‘Communicating about linguistics using lingcomm-driven evidence: Lingthusiasm podcast as a case study’, Language and Linguistics Compass, 17/5: e12499. DOI: 10.1111/lnc3.12499 [doi][Superlinguo post]

The year ahead

I’ll be back to work full time. I’ve found the low-key level of blogging I managed this year to be sustainable, so expect it to be business-as-usual here. Lingthusiasm will also continue with monthly main and bonus episodes, thanks to the patrons who support the show and ensure we have a team that can keep everything rolling while begin to take on more administrative responsibilities in my job.

I’m looking forward to sharing some things that are in the final stages of peer-review and copy editing, and I’m excited to be spinning up some new projects.

Browsing old Superlinguo content?

I have a welcome page on the blog that points you to aggregate posts, and series of posts I’ve done over the years, as well as themed collections of posts that have appeared on the blog in the last twelve years.

Previous years

• Superlinguo 2022 in review
• Superlinguo 2021 in review
• Superlinguo 2020 in review
• Superlinguo 2020 (2019 in review)
• Superlinguo 2019 (2018 in review)
• Superlinguo 2018 (2017 in review)
• Superlinguo 2017 (2016 in review)
• Superlinguo 2015 highlights

English spelling, pronunciation and grammar have been fertile ground for Pop Ling books (up there with swearing), and it’s a delight to see this often-covered topic in the hands of one of the best lingcomm writers.

This book grew out of Okrent & O'Neill’s videos for Mental Floss that were made between 2015 and 2018, which featured Okrent’s voice over O'Neill illustrating onto a whiteboard. The book covers similar terrain to the video series, but with a tighter focus.

The book takes a tone of playful exasperation that never gets too heavy-handed. There are five sections, each focusing on a different place we can lay ‘blame’ for the state of English; The barbarians (English’s Germanic origins), the French, the printing press, the snobs, ourselves (a final catch-all section). As with the videos, each chapter is short and tightly focused. There are 40 chapters of around 5 pages each, with or or two of O'Neill’s illustrative examples in each chapter. Chapters can be read consecutively, allowing the reader to build a larger picture of these five different pressures on English, or you can dip in at any point that takes your fancy.

With this focus, there is a lot of focus on writing system and historical processes, but different chapters also cover topics in morphology, syntax, semantics and idioms.

The framing of whimsical affront at the state of English never gets too heavy-handed, and Okrent’s writing is a masterclass in the judicious deployment of both terminology and humour. I’ve used her videos in my undergraduate teaching, and plan to borrow some of her explanations (and jokes) in this book for future teaching.

I would use this as a gateway to Crystal’s A Little Book of Language (review here), you can safely leave it with a keen middle grader who is flummoxed by spelling bees or asks questions about linguistic oddities, or enjoy reading the short chapters with them.

Get the book: Bookshop, Amazon [buying through these links provides financial support to Superlinguo]

See also: Linguistics Books for Kids - the Superlinguo list

Once Upon a Word is, as it says, a word-origin dictionary. If you were the kind of child who enjoyed reading through the dictionary, or you know such a kid, Jess Zafarris has created a resource that is both educational and a pleasure to browse.

The book opens with an introduction to the concept that words carry their own history in them, with origins in other languages and earlier meanings. There are some handy lists of common Latin and Greek roots and affixes (which helps get your head around the concepts of roots and affixes!).

The bulk of the book is an A to Z of etymologies of common words. Each letter of the alphabet gets around 6-12 pages with around four entries on each page. There’s a good mix of words with interesting and varied histories that might be relevant to a middle-grader; K takes us from karate to kayak to kennel, in W we  waltz past weird and warewolf. Each entry focuses on the relationship between the current meaning and the linguistic origin of the word in plain language, without getting bogged down in dates.

There are two short sections at the end of thematic lists of etymologies related to food and music, two topics that don’t appear to be covered in the alphabetical main body of the book.

There are cute breakout boxes and illustrations throughout, and coloured headwords and page-edges help with navigating. It’s perhaps hit and miss as to whether you’ll actually find the history of a word you’re looking for in the 200 pages of entries, but if you’re just looking to be entertained by an author with a good eye for an etymological story, this book is great to have on your shelf. You could even share it with a kid, I guess.

See also: Linguistics Books for Kids - the Superlinguo list

At the start of 2022 it was my aim to move gently through this year, after the general global upheaval the pandemic brought, and settling back into work after parental leave. I mostly think managed that for myself, and things worth sharing still happened this year.

Lingthusiasm

Lingthusiasm turned 6 this year. As well as regular episodes and bonus episodes every month, this year we ran a special offer for patrons and did a one-off print run of lens cloths with our redesigned aesthetic IPA.

Main episodes

• Love and fury at the linguistics of emotions (transcript)
  
• Who questions the questions? (transcript)
  
• The linguistic map is not the linguistic territory (transcript)
  
• What If Linguistics - Absurd Hypothetical Questions with Randall Munroe of xkcd (transcript)
• Various vocal fold vibes (transcript)
• Language in the brain - Interview with Ev Fedorenko (transcript)
• What we can, must, and should say about modals (transcript)
• Tea and skyscrapers - When words get borrowed across languages (transcript)
• What it means for a language to be official (transcript)
• Word order, we love (transcript)
• Knowledge is power, copulas are fun (transcript)
• Making speech visible with spectrograms (transcript)

Bonus episodes

• Speakest Thou Ye Olde English?
  
• 103 ways for kids to learn languages
  
• Linguistics and science communication - Interview with Liz McCullough
• Behind the scenes on making an aesthetic IPA chart - Interview with Lucy Maddox
• Using a rabbit to get kids chatting for science
• Language inside an MRI machine - Interview with Saima Malik-Moraleda
• There’s like, so much to like about “like”
• What makes a swear word feel sweary? A &⩐#⦫& Liveshow
• Approaching word games like a linguist - Interview with Nicole Holliday and Ben Zimmer of Spectacular Vernacular
• Behind the scenes on how linguists come up with research topics
• Emoji, Mongolian, and Multiocular O ꙮ - Dispatches from the Unicode Conference

LingComm: 2022 grants and conference posts

This year we ran another round of LingComm Grants, and we’ve been enjoying seeing new linguistic communication projects come to life. We also published summaries of top tips from plenary panels of the 2021 LingComm conference, and I teamed up with Gabrielle Hodge to write about how to plan communication access for online conferences. The LingComm conference will be back in 2023!

• Tips for LingComm series
• Planning communication access for online conferences: A Research Whisperer post about LingComm21
  
• LingComm23 conference (February 2023)
  
• 2022 LingComm Grantees: New linguistics projects for you to follow
  

Top Superlinguo posts in 2022

Superlinguo remains a place where I can test out ideas or share things that aren’t necessarily the shape of an academic publication. I also continued my slow series of posts about linguistics books for kids, with a gem from 1966!

General posts

• Superlinguo turns 11!
  
• New Superlinguo Welcome page
• Linguistics books for kids: How You Talk
  

Long form blog posts

• Notes and observations about air quote gestures
• Fictional gestures in scifi and fantasy
  

Information and advice

• Doing your own Linguistics Job Interviews
  
• Planning communication access for online conferences: A Research Whisperer post about LingComm21
  
• Managing Breakout Rooms in online Tutorials and Workshops
  
• Adopting the Trømso Recommendations in academic publishing

Linguistics Job Interviews

In 2022 the Linguistics Job Interviews series was edited by Martha Tsutsui-Bilins. After 8 years and 80+ interviews, the regular monthly series is coming to an end. There were 12 new interviews this year: 

• Interview with a  Director of Conversation Design
• Interview with an Artist
  
• Interview with a Research Scientist
• Interview with a Language Engineer
  
• Interview with a Data Manager & Digital Archivist
  
• Interview with a Natural Language Annotation Lead
• Interview with an EMLS/Linguistics instructor & mother of four
• Interview with a Performing Artiste and Freelance Editor
• Interview with a Hawaiian and Tahitian language Instructor, Translator & Radio Host
• Interview with a Customer Success Manager
• Interview with an Impact Lead
• Interview with an Online Linguistics Teacher

Regular interviews may have ended, but I’ll have more on linguistics, jobs and careers in 2023. I also wrote this post about doing your own Linguistics Job Interviews, to encourage other people to share their stories or interview others about their experiences.

Academic articles in 2022

This year I had two academic articles published. I also published one academic review of a monograph:

• Gawne, L. & S. Styles. 2022. Situating linguistics in the social science data movement. In A.L. Berez-Kroeker, B. McDonnell, E. Koller & L.B. Collister (Eds), The Open Handbook of Linguistic Data Management, 9-25. MIT Press. [Open Access PDF][Superlinguo summary]
• Gawne, L. & T. Owen-Smith. 2022. The General Fact/Generic Factual in Yolmo and Tamang. Studies in Language. Issue number forthcoming doi: 10.1075/sl.21049.gaw [published version][Green OA version][blog summary]
• Gawne, L. 2022. Review of Repetitions in Gesture by Jana Bressem. The Linguist List. [HTML]

The year ahead

I will be on parental leave in 2023 🎉

Last time I went on leave with a newborn I had no idea if I would have a job to return to. I’m very grateful to not have that stress hanging over me this time around. Lingthusiasm will continue as regularly scheduled. It will be interesting to see how things here go without the monthly job interview posts. I’ll still have new publications, and various linguistics resources and observations to share, if maybe on a less than weekly basis. You can always follow Superlinguo on Tumblr @superlinguo), join the mailing list (in the sidebar), go retro and use the RSS feed, or follow me on Twitter (@superlinguo)

Previous years

• Superlinguo 2021 in review
  
• Superlinguo 2020 in review
  
• Superlinguo 2020 (2019 in review)
  
• Superlinguo 2019 (2018 in review)
  
• Superlinguo 2018 (2017 in review)
  
• Superlinguo 2017 (2016 in review)
  
• Superlinguo 2015 highlights

Language Books for Kids is a series of four books that introduce elementary/primary school aged children to fundamental concepts of how language works in the world.

Each pages is a combination of cartoon illustration and stock images. At the back is a glossary of four key terms, an activity, and an index, and there’s scaffolding information for parents and teachers for how to make the most of these books. I was delighted that each of the books shares an introduction from the author, Dr Nandi Sims, introducing readers to linguistics and language variation.

The four books cover separate, but interrelated, topics:

Language in Society A young student introduces us to some of the other students in her classroom and some of the languages they speak. The student uses African American English in the book and explains the difference between this variety and other varieties of English, including the history of slavery in the USA.

Spanish in the United States We are introduced to Ángel, who speaks Spanish. We learn about the history of Spanish and English in the North America, and some of the differences between Spanish and English words and grammar.

Languages are Everywhere We learn about how English is just one of many languages in the world. Some of the world’s languages are spoken, some are signed, and different languages can be written in different ways.

Language Varies We learn about how language varies, and people can have different words for the same thing. Sometimes this is because people come from different places, or have different experiences and interests.

As these summaries suggest, these books are very much for an audience from the United States of America. This makes sense, given the fact that the social dimension of language is entirely about the specific context that it’s used in. The book ‘Language Varies’ probably will appeal most to audiences outside of the context of the USA. 

I’m delighted that these books exist, and it’s great that parents of younger children have multiple linguistics books in this series to add to their bookshelves.

See also: Linguistics Books for Kids - the Superlinguo list

I’ve been keeping a casual eye on the market for kids linguistics books for a while, but it turns out one of the most delightful I’ve encountered was printed in 1966.

How You Talk provides a brief introduction to the development of speech in children, the use of breath in producing speech and the basic articulators that are used to make different sounds.

The book includes a demonstration of how the larynx works using balloons, and uses tongue twisters to show the different articulators. And yes, the book uses the word larynx. Why not? The other day a three year old told me their favourite dinosaur was Dipolodocus, and another said they liked Quetzalcoatlus. I didn’t even know that was a dinosaur.

The book received a reprint with new illustrations in 1992. The updated version has some minor tweaks to the content; baby Kate goes from 7 months to 10 months, and Solomon the bunny becomes Benji the bunny. There’s some repagination work, but overall it’s pretty much the same book.

I’m torn as to which edition I prefer. The 1992 version has more educationally insightful illustrations. The stylised illustrations of the 1960s edition are utterly charming, but also very much of their time (including a kid in a Native American Headdress in a couple of illustrations for no particular reason).

I’m so delighted this book exists, both editions have their advantages, and a reprint that combined and updated them would be a forever favourite.

You can still pick up secondhand copies of both editions. For Australians Booko is a great aggregator, for those overseas, WorldCat links to some secondhand sites.

See also: Linguistics Books for Kids - the Superlinguo list

This year was much like last year, but with more teaching and less energy in reserve. Putting this overview together has been a good reminder that even when it feels like nothing is getting done, there’s still actually a lot going on! 

Lingthusiasm and Superlinguo have continued on for another year, we ran LingComm21 and LingFest for the first time, and I said farewell to Mutual Intelligibility and By Lingo.

Mutual Intelligibility wrap up

In February this year we wrapped up the Mutual Intelligibility newsletter. Across a year we published 16 guides to the Crash Course Linguistics videos, 6 Resource Guides and 23 of our 3 Links short posts. The final Mutual Intelligibility post is a directory of all of these posts.

LingComm21 conference

In April 2021 I ran the inaugural Conference on Linguistics Communication (LingComm21), with Gretchen McCulloch, Jessi Grieser and Laura Bailey, with Liz McCullough as Conference Manager. We had 200 registered participants join us for three days of conference on the Gather platform.

We learnt so much putting this conference together that along with Liz McCullough and Gretchen McCulloch we wrote a series of posts about virtual conferences, which appeared on the LingComm.org website:

1. Why virtual conferences are antisocial (but they don’t have to be)
2. Designing online conferences for building community
3. Scheduling online conferences for building community
4. Hosting online conferences for building community
5. Budgeting online conferences or events
6. Planning accessible online conferences

After LingComm21 we ran LingFest, a program of online linguistics events aimed at a general audience in April and May of 2021, with over a dozen events.

Lingthusiasm

This year Lingthusiasm celebrated its fifth anniversary, and received a shiny new website, developed by Liz McCullough. I love the new site, which is designed to make it easier to find what you’re looking for - whether your a brand new listener or a long time lingthusiast. It’s worth visiting, if only to check out the cute new icons Lucy Maddox created for us.

In April we ran a liveshow “The Listener Talks Back - A Lingthusiasm liveshow about backchannelling” as part of LingFest, an online festival of linguistics (you can listen to it as our May bonus episode). In November we ran a sticker special offer and got custom Lingthusiasm green kiki & bouba stickers printed, alongside a bunch of others, to sent to Ling-phabet level patrons.

Main episodes

• Writing is a technology
• Listen to the imperatives episode!
• How linguists figure out the grammar of a language
• R and R-like sounds – Rhoticity
• Not NOT a negation episode
• Making machines learn Fon and other African languages - Interview with Masakhane
• A Fun-Filled Fricative Field Trip
• Are you thinking what I’m thinking? Theory of Mind
• That’s the kind of episode it’s - clitics
• Corpus linguistics and consent - Interview with Kat Gupta
• Cool things about scales and implicature
  
• Where to get your English etymologies
  

Bonus episodes

• Linguistics puzzles for fun and olympiad glory
• Linguistic 〰️✨ i l l u s i o n s ✨〰️
• Lingwiki and linguistics on Wikipedia
• Q&A with Emily Gref from language museum Planet Word
• Sentient plants, proto-internet, and more lingfic about quirky communication
• Language under the influence
• Gotta test ‘em all - The linguistics of Pokémon names
• Lingthusiasm liveshow: The listener talks back (on backchannelling)
• Talking to babies and small children
• The episode-episode (reduplication)
• 100th episode Q&A about naming dogs, modifying English, linguistics research, and more
• Deleted scenes - Outtakes from Lingthusiasm interviews

Top Superlinguo posts in 2020

This year Superlinguo turned 10! I still love my typo riddled home on the internet, where I can share research, links to lingcomm work I’ve been doing, and stray linguistic thoughts. After eight years and about 200 editions I said goodbye to By Lingo, my column in The Big Issue. It is now in the excellent hands of Lee Murray and I enjoy being a reader each edition.

Milestones

• 10 years of Superlinguo
  
• Goodbye By Lingo
  

Long form blog posts

• The linguistics of hyperlinks
  
• Conversation, cooperation and dementia
• Gestures in podcasting
• By Lingo: Beforetimes
  

Information and advice

• Gesture emoji: contributing to the Unicode standard
  
• Practical advice if you want to start a podcast (updated post)
• Crash Course Linguistics for VCE English Language Units
• Review: The Language Lover’s Puzzle Book, Alex Bellos
  

Linguistics Job Interviews

There are now over 60 interviews in this series, with 12 new interviews this year:

• Interview with a TV Writer
• Interview with a Senior Analyst, Strategic Insights & Analytics
• Interview with a Social Media Lead
• Interview with a CEO of a SaaS company
• Interview with a Communications and Engagement Assistant
• Interview with a Technical Writer
• Interview with a Legislative Drafter
  
• Interview with a Stay-at-home Mom and Twitch Streamer
  
• Interview with a Peer Review Program Manager
• Interview with an Associate at the Children’s Center for Communication, Beverly School for the Deaf
• Interview with a Metadata Specialist and Genealogist
• Interview with an Academic Linguist
  

I have started building a resource kit to help people use the interviews, both for their own career planning and as a resource in linguistics classrooms: (bit.ly/ling-jobs). I’m also excited that in 2022 Martha Tsutsui-Billins will be running the interviews on Superlinguo.

Other things around the internet

This is a very incomplete list of miscellaneous internet things I did in 2021:

• Aramteskan Grammar, now available at Fiat Lingua 
• The hand gestures that last longer than spoken languages (BBC Future article I’m quoted in)
  
• Ask Me Another (NPR) podcast interview alongside Gretchen McCulloch
  
• Language Chats, World Forge and Conlangery: Lingthusiasm visits 3 other podcasts
• Nonsense words make people around the world think of the same shapes (Science article I’m quoted in)
• Emojis aren’t debasing language (Guardian article quoting Gretchen and me)
• What the sound of your name says about you (BBC Future article featuring Suzy Styles and mentions our work)
  

Academic articles in 2021

This year I had four academic articles published. I love how they cover four different facets of my research interests: one was about gesture (particularly away gestures), one was about Tibeto-Burman grammar (particularly reported speech evidentiality), one was about emoji (and gesture!) and one was about lingcomm (and Linguistics in the Pub). References, and links to the papers and the Superlinguo summaries:

• Gawne, Lauren & Jennifer Daniel. 2021. The past and future of hand emoji. Proceedings of the 4th International Workshop on Emoji Understanding and Applications in Social Media (Emoji 2021). [Open Access PDF]
  [full citation and conference proceedings coming soon][blog post]
  
• Gawne, Lauren. 2021. ‘Away’ gestures associated with negative expressions in narrative discourse in Syuba (Kagate, Nepal) speakers. Semiotica https://doi.org/10.1515/sem-2017-0163 [Green OA version embargoed until March 2022][blog post]
• Gawne, Lauren & Ruth Singer. 2021. Ten Years of Linguistics in the Pub. Australian Journal of Linguistics. 41(2). doi: 10.1080/07268602.2021.1974341 [PDF][FigShare PDF - embargoed until April 2023][blog post]
• Gawne, Lauren. 2021. Reported evidentiality in Tibeto-Burman languages. Himalayan Linguistics, Vol. 20(3): 80-115. doi: 10.5070/H920152301 [Open Access publication][blog post]
  

The year ahead

After a year of parental leave, and two years of the rollercoaster of teaching and parenting through a pandemic, my plan for this year is to (try to) work slowly and thoughtfully. I’m still working on projects that I thought would be much further ahead, but I’m still so excited to hopefully be able to start sharing them in the next year or so. The last couple of years have really forced me to think about what to prioritise, and this year is all about figuring out how to prioritise it. Not a very glam ambition for the year, but an important one as I learn more about the ebbs and flows of a full teaching schedule!

Previous years

• Superlinguo 2020 in review
  
• Superlinguo 2020 (2019 in review)
  
• Superlinguo 2019 (2018 in review)
  
• Superlinguo 2018 (2017 in review)
  
• Superlinguo 2017 (2016 in review)
  
• Superlinguo 2015 highlights