This is a transcript for Lingthusiasm episode ‘The linguistic map is not the linguistic territory’. It’s been lightly edited for readability. Listen to the episode here or wherever you get your podcasts. Links to studies mentioned and further reading can be found on the episode show notes page.

[Music]

Lauren: Welcome to Lingthusiasm, a podcast that’s enthusiastic about linguistics! I’m Lauren Gawne.

Gretchen: I’m Gretchen McCulloch. Today, we’re getting enthusiastic about mapping languages in space. But first, we’re heading into our anniversary month.

Lauren: November is Lingthusiasm’s anniversary month, and it’s been six years this year.

Gretchen: Wow! The podcast is so big! In celebration of our anniversary, we’d like to get you to share a link to your favourite episode or share your enthusiasm for linguistics and for Lingthusiasm. Most people still find podcasts through word of mouth, and a lot of them don’t yet realise they could be having a fun linguistics chat in their ears every month.

Lauren: Or eyes. All Lingthusiasm episodes have transcripts, too.

Gretchen: They do. We’re asking you to help connect us with people who’d be totally into a linguistics podcast if only they knew it existed.

Lauren: This is a bit of an anniversary tradition for us. We always see it in the stats that all of your recommendations really do help people find the show.

Gretchen: If you want to share Lingthusiasm on social media and tag us so we can see it and like it and so on. If you share in private, we won’t know about it, but you can feel a warm glow of satisfaction. Feel free to tell us about sharing it in private on social media if you want us to see it, and thank you, and interact.

Lauren: We are also doing a listener survey for the first time. It’s your chance to tell us what you’re enjoying about Lingthusiasm so far and what else we could be doing in the future.

Gretchen: This is your chance to suggest topics, as well as give us other kinds of comments and feedback.

Lauren: Also, we couldn’t resist the opportunity to add a few linguistics experiments in there as well, which we’ll be sharing the results of after the survey. We might even write up a paper about the survey one day. We’ve got ethics board approval from La Trobe University to do the survey.

Gretchen: Always fun to have your day job coming in with Lingthusiasm.

Lauren: Yeah, it’s been nice to bring the two together for this. To do the survey or to read more details about it, go to bit.ly/lingthusiasmsurvey22 or follow the link from our website and social media.

Gretchen: Also, our stylish, minimal, reimagined IPA chart is now available as a poster. Thank you to our patrons for funding our stretch goal to fit the design into poster-rectangle shape in addition to the square shape on the lens cloths. For IPA posters and other Lingthusiasm merch, which makes a great gift, head to lingthusiasm.com/merch.

Lauren: Our most recent bonus episode was a chat with Liz McCullough, Lingthusiasm’s former production manager.

Gretchen: Liz and I chat about how doing science communication relates to linguistics from Liz’s other former job at a science museum as well as non-academic careers related to linguistics more generally.

Lauren: To listen to this episode and all of our other bonus episodes, go to patreon.com/lingthusiasm.

[Music]

Gretchen: I have a brilliant travel idea that, as far as I know, people aren’t doing yet.

Lauren: Okay.

Gretchen: You know how you can go on architectural tours of places or historical tours? What if you could go on language tours?

Lauren: Ah, sign me up. That sounds great.

Gretchen: Right? You could just have a local guy tell you about all the different language things that are going on in a particular area.

Keep reading

When you talk to someone who speaks a different version of English than you do, do you keep talking the way you do otherwise or do you find yourself slightly edging towards the way they speak? What about if you travel and you’re surrounded by people with another accent or dialect?

This episode features a special behind the scenes chat with a member of the Lingthusiasm team, our audio producer Claire Gawne, who’s the person responsible for making sure that the show reaches your ears sounding crisp and with only the funny digressions left in! (Yes, she’s also Lauren’s sister and very kindly agreed to help fill in while Lauren is occupied with her tiny human.)

Claire is not a linguist by training, but she does have linguistic experience that’s highly relevant to this episode! She’s an Australian who’s been living in Edinburgh for the past few years, and of course Gretchen is a Canadian who recently got back from visiting Australia. In this episode, Gretchen and Claire get enthusiastic about how our ways of speaking change when we move around, some of their favourite words that we’ve noticed across different varieties, and more about linguistic accommodation.

We also want to hear your stories! Are you an accommodator? What have you picked up from another person? (Or noticed but not picked up?) Have you ever noticed someone accommodating towards you?

To listen to this episode and 24 more bonus episodes, support Lingthusiasm on Patreon!