Bonus 64: There’s like, so much to like about “like”

“Like” is a word that’s super flexible and versatile (it can be a verb, a noun, a particle, and more), and each of these functions has its own patterns of use and history that we can trace back, sometimes suprisingly long ago. For example, the version that’s equivalent to “I mean” (as in, “like, you’d need to see it to believe it”) is found among speakers who were born in the UK and New Zealand as early as the mid-1800s, while the only version of “like” that seems to be new in recent decades or originate in North America is the one that introduces quotations, attitudes, and even gestures (“and then I was like…”).

In this bonus episode, your hosts Lauren and Gretchen get enthusiastic about the word “like”! Specifically, we take as our springboard a paper by the linguist Alexandra D'Arcy called “Like and language ideology: Disentangling fact from fiction”.  It turns out there are nine different functions of “like”,  five very old (“I like cheese” and “like an arrow” go back to Old English) and four new…ish (from the 1800s to the surprisingly minor involvement of the Valley Girls). We also talk about why “like” falls prey to the frequency and recency illusions, why linguists get excited about “like” and other function words, and other important dispatches from the world of “like” (apparently people who use “like” are perceived as more attractive? look, like, I’ll take it.).

Listen to the episode about “like” and get access to, like, lots more bonus episodes by supporting Lingthusiasm on Patreon

When someone else is telling a story, you might encourage them to keep talking or to elaborate on a particular point by making various words, sounds, phrases, or gestures, such as “oh really?” and “mhm-hm” and nodding. In a digital context, you might also show that you’re following along by liking a message or sending a carefully-chosen emoji. This linguistic behaviour is known as backchannelling. In this episode, our first virtual liveshow, we get enthusiastic about the linguistics of backchannelling, all the while giving you the chance to backchannel to us and each other in the chat alongside (so meta). We also talk about backchannelling in Tactile ASL, the ingressive “yeah” and its distribution beyond the Vikings, backchannelling to tomato plants, and more listener questions!  

Listen to the backchanneling liveshow episode, watch the original video stream, and get access to 50 more bonus episodes by supporting Lingthusiasm on Patreon.

Lingthusiasm Episode 39: How to rebalance a lopsided conversation  

Why do some conversations seem to flow really easily, while other times, it feels like you can’t get a word in edgewise, or that the other person isn’t holding up their end of the conversation? 

In this episode of Lingthusiasm, your hosts Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne have a conversation about the structure of conversations! Conversation analysts talk about a spectrum of how we take turns in conversation: some people are more high-involvement, while other people are more high-considerateness, depending on how much time you prefer to elapse between someone else’s turn and your own. These differences explain a lot about when conversations feel like they’re going off the rails and how to bring them back on track. 

Click here for a link to this episode in your podcast player of choice or read the transcript here

Announcements:

This month’s bonus episode is about onomatopoeia! We talk about words that take their inspiration from the sounds and experiences of the world around us, and how these words vary across languages. Support Lingthusiasm on Patreon to gain access to the onomatopoeia episode and 33 previous bonus episodes.

Lingthusiasm merch makes a great gift for yourself or other lingthusiasts! Check out IPA scarves, IPA socks, and more at lingthusiasm.redbubble.com

Here are the links mentioned in this episode:

• Twin Babies Conversation (YouTube)
  
• Kingston’s conversation with Me (YouTube)
• Conversation Analysis (Wikipedia)
  
• Discourse Analysis—What Speakers Do in Conversation (LSA)
  
• Deborah Tannen (Wikipedia) has several pop linguistics books about conversation, which are very accessible and fun to read! 
• Who’s got the floor? (Carole Edelsky, Language in Society)
• High-involvement and high-considerateness (Wikipedia)
  
• Lingthusiasm Episode 13: What Does it Mean to Sound Black? Intonation and Identity Interview with Nicole Holliday
  
• Lingthusiasm Episode 23: When Nothing Means Something

You can listen to this episode via Lingthusiasm.com, Soundcloud, RSS, Apple Podcasts/iTunes, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also download an mp3 via the Soundcloud page for offline listening.

To receive an email whenever a new episode drops, sign up for the Lingthusiasm mailing list.

You can help keep Lingthusiasm ad-free, get access to bonus content, and more perks by supporting us on Patreon.

Lingthusiasm is on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Tumblr. Email us at contact [at] lingthusiasm [dot] com

Gretchen is on Twitter as @GretchenAMcC and blogs at All Things Linguistic.

Lauren is on Twitter as @superlinguo and blogs at Superlinguo.

Lingthusiasm is created by Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne. Our senior producer is Claire Gawne, our production editor is Sarah Dopierala, our production manager is Liz McCullough, and our music is ‘Ancient City’ by The Triangles.

This episode of Lingthusiasm is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike license (CC 4.0 BY-NC-SA).

This is a transcript for Lingthusiasm Episode 23: When Nothing Means Something. 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 23 show notes page.

[Music]

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

Gretchen: And I’m Gretchen McCulloch, and today we’re talking about how nothingness fits into language. But first: We’re very excited to announce the location for our live show, thanks to meeting our latest goal on Patreon, which we announced first in the bonus episode and now you get to find out here!

Lauren: So our last live show was in Gretchen’s hometown of Montreal and we decided it’s only fair that our next official show means that I get to repay the favour, and so we’re going to have it in my hometown of Melbourne.

Gretchen: I’m so excited to get to go to Australia. I have never been to Australia before.

Lauren: I’m so excited to show you around Melbourne when you come to visit.

Gretchen: I wanna see a kangaroo – maybe not in Melbourne, I hear they’re not super urban.

Lauren: That’s okay. We have zoos. You’ll get to see kangaroos.

Gretchen: Okay, okay. This is important, I’m also very excited to be going to the Centre of Excellence for the Dynamics of Language Summer School in Canberra and the annual Australian Linguistic Society Conference in Adelaide, where I’m going to be talking about linguistics communication, doing workshops there, and if anyone else in Australia is listening to this and wants to invite me to do an event, now’s your chance!

Lauren: We will have more details about the date and location of the live show, should be sometime in November, and, hopefully, some other events that we can do while we have Gretchen in the country.

Gretchen: I’m super excited to spend a bunch of time there. I’m sure the weather will be much nicer than Montreal in November. I’ll get all the sunshine. And, yeah, looking forward to meeting a bunch of Australian linguists.

Lauren: The live show is all thanks to our amazing patrons who support us on Patreon. Our latest bonus episode for them was an inside view into the conference circuit. Gretchen and I had caught up about what we’ve been up to over the last couple of months of conferencing. That episode is available on patreon.com/lingthusiasm.

Gretchen: So you can hear about the two different emoji conferences that I went to, and the gesture conference and the International Congress of Linguists that Lauren went to, as well as 17 previous bonus episodes, which is quite a lot of bonus material, if you go to Lingthusiasm on Patreon.

[Music]

Lauren: Today we’re gonna talk about nothing! And it’s gonna be great.

Gretchen: Actually, this whole episode is just us not saying anything. The rest of it is just silence.

Keep reading

Lingthusiasm Episode 23: When Nothing Means Something

When we think about language, we generally think about things that are visible or audible: letters, sounds, signs, words, symbols, sentences. We don’t often think about the lack of anything. But little bits of silence or invisibility are found surprisingly often throughout our linguistic system, from the micro level of an individual sound or bit of meaning to the macro level of sentences and conversations.  

In this episode of the podcast that’s enthusiastic about linguistics, your hosts Lauren Gawne and Gretchen McCulloch get enthusiastic about four different kinds of linguistic nothings: silence in between turns, silence in between sounds, invisible units of meaning, and invisible words. (Officially known as turntaking, glottal stops, zero morphemes, and traces.) 

Click here for a link to this episode in your podcast player of choice or read the transcript here

Announcements:

We also announced some details about our upcoming liveshow! Our last liveshow was in Montreal where Gretchen lives, so it’s only fair that our next official show is in Lauren’s hometown of Melbourne! It’ll be sometime in November. Stay tuned for the exact date and venue - you can sign up for Lingthusiasm email updates if you want to be sent it directly  bit.ly/LingthusiasmEmailList  

Gretchen will also be around for the Centre of Excellence for the Dynamics of Language Summer School in Canberra and the annual Australian Linguistics Society conference in Adelaide. If anyone else in Australia wants to invite her to anything in November or early December 2018, now’s your chance! 

This month’s bonus episode was an inside view into the linguistics conference circuit which Lauren and Gretchen are recently returned from, featuring emoji, gesture, and the International Congress of Linguists! Support the show on Patreon to get access to this and all 18 bonus episodes. 

Here are the links mentioned in this episode:

• Of speaking and silence
  
• How We Talk (Nick Enfield) (Superlinguo review)
• See a glottal stop in an MRI (click the ʔ under ‘glottal) (John Esling, Dani Byrd)
• Hawaiian language (Wikipedia
  
• Aleph (Wikipedia)
• Hamza (Wikipedia)
• Null morpheme (Wikipedia)
  
• Indonesian plural
• Pāṇini and zero morphs
• Pāṇini (Wikipedia)
  
• Ella Minnow Pea (Superlinguo review)
• Ella Minnow Pea (All Things Linguistic post)
• Lingvids video on trace blocking
• The Ling Space video on trace effects
• Wanna Contraction (by Prof. Yehuda N. Falk) (PDF)
  

You can listen to this episode via Lingthusiasm.com, Soundcloud, RSS, Apple Podcasts/iTunes, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also download an mp3 via the Soundcloud page for offline listening.

To receive an email whenever a new episode drops, sign up for the Lingthusiasm mailing list.

You can help keep Lingthusiasm ad-free, get access to bonus content, and more perks by supporting us on Patreon.

Lingthusiasm is on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Tumblr. Email us at contact [at] lingthusiasm [dot] com

Gretchen is on Twitter as @GretchenAMcC and blogs at All Things Linguistic.

Lauren is on Twitter as @superlinguo and blogs at Superlinguo.

Lingthusiasm is created by Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne. Our senior producer is Claire Gawne, our editorial producers are Emily Gref and A.E. Prévost, our production assistants are Celine Yoon & Fabianne Anderberg, and our music is ‘Ancient City’ by The Triangles.

This episode of Lingthusiasm is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike license (CC 4.0 BY-NC-SA).