Do you know where your data is?
Language researchers can learn a lot from publicly available internet data. But what are the ethical issues surrounding the collection and use of this information? What about data that comes from home assistants? Does it …
Would you think differently if you spoke a different language? And does the structure of your language have any perceptible effect on your behaviour?
We’re revisiting the Sapir Whorf Hypothesis. Is this an idea that’s coming in from the cold? …
Koko the Gorilla has passed away.
Koko was claimed to have learned words through modified sign language, and even spoken English. But how do these claims stack up? What was she able to do, and what does this teach us …
Dictionaries don’t just write themselves, you know. And lexicographers have some pretty cool tricks to do what they do.
How do they spot new words? And how can their definitions influence our lives?
We’re talking to lexicographer Jane Solomon on …
What is the meaning of um?
We make hesitation noises and tiny pauses in conversation all the time, but what’s the meaning behind them? And is it true that different cultures have different tolerances for silence?
We’re talking to …
Babies are linguistic super-geniuses!
They know a lot about their own language, and they’re able to infer things from other languages. But a new study shows that unloading bulk language upon them isn’t as important as the conversational turns that …
When we got numbers, things really started to happen.
How do other languages handle numbers? How do pre-linguistic children conceptualise them? And how did the development of numbers influence our development as humans?
We’re talking to anthropological linguist and author …
Boiling with rage. A warm embrace. A cool time in a hot town.
How do we think about heat and cold, and how does this work its way into language? And does this have anything to do with what the …
What’s the relationship between climate and sound?
A linguist has released a trio of papers showing that the sounds we use may be influenced by the air we breathe.
Is there anything to it? How have other scientists reacted? And …
Does language influence the way we think?
Many people have thought so. And this thought has worked its way into an enormously popular idea called the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis. Yet linguists often dismiss this idea as unfounded. So what’s the …
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