146: Beyond Words (with Karen Stollznow)

How do children learn language, and why can't other animals? Why are false friends between languages always naughty? And how is public perception of language changing? Dr Karen Stollznow is taking us through a tour of psycholinguistics, taboo language, and linguistic skepticism with her new book Beyond Words: How We Learn, Use, and Lose Language. We're also taking a look at Bitch: The Journey of a Word.

Timestamps

• 00:00 Start
• 00:32 Intros: Do you use Y'ALL?
• 06:46 New patron shoutout
• 08:07 News: Strathfield Council trying to control shop signage
• 17:37 News: Claude introduces watermarking
• 25:43 News: Welsh joins the Star Wars club
• 29:30 Related or Not: Theme from Hugh
• 30:25 Related or Not 1: cute and acute
• 34:48 Related or Not 2: skip
• 42:22 Related or Not 3: tribe, tribute, & tributary
• 46:51 Karen Stollznow on psycholinguistics
• 50:36 Language and animal communication
• 53:37 Skepticism in linguistics
• 59:48 Getting a book done
• 01:02:09 The attraction of taboo words
• 01:08:18 Daddy diaries and child language acquisition
• 01:15:00 False friends
• 01:19:09 Best way to learn a language?
• 01:22:05 Public awareness of linguistics
• 01:26:58 Word of the Week: forever war
• 01:29:56 Word of the Week: aegyo
• 01:31:20 Word of the Week: meat proxy
• 01:33:46 Word of the Week: Cyberno de Bergerac
• 01:37:31 Comment: vague v ambiguous
• 01:39:24 Comment: Okay if languages die?
• 01:41:59 Comment: Sudoku pronunciation in Japanese
• 01:43:20 The Reads
• 01:56:02 Outtake: Hedvig watches an eclipse
• 02:00:18 Outtake: Glottle