Category: forensic linguistics

294: Trademarks and Slurs (featuring Simon Tam)

25 July 2017 / / Comments Off on 294: Trademarks and Slurs (featuring Simon Tam)

Freedom of expression is again in the news.

Simon Tam has won his case before the US Supreme Court, allowing him to trademark the name of his all-Asian rock band, the Slants. But this ruling opens the door to …

204: Shibboleths

12 May 2015 / / Comments Off on 204: Shibboleths

A shibboleth can mark you as a insider… or an outsider.

Shibboleths can be words, phrases, or even sounds, but getting them wrong can lead to social or political exclusion, and in some cases, they can be fatal.

Linguist Daniel …

160: Evidence for Innateness?

22 April 2014 / / Comments Off on 160: Evidence for Innateness?

Are we hard-wired for language?

New studies have found that infants (and even adults) seem predisposed to certain combinations of sounds and words. But is this evidence for innateness, or is there another explanation?

Linguist Daniel Midgley takes us into …

129: Light Warlpiri

23 July 2013 / / Comments Off on 129: Light Warlpiri

With so many dying languages in the world, it’s good to see new languages being born.

A brand new language has been discovered in the Northern Territory. It’s Light Warlpiri, and while it seems to combine English with the Australian …

31: Who Wrote the Bible?

12 July 2011 / / Comments Off on 31: Who Wrote the Bible?

Scholars have long supposed that certain books of the Bible were written by a number of different authors.

Now a team of language researchers is using computers to determine Bible authorship, and they’re coming up with some surprising findings. Can …

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