Elizabeth Stokoe, professor of social interaction at Loughborough University, joins us to talk about how personal interactions and niceties reveal our motives – and we’ll get tips for having more meaningful conversations.
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Why We’re Not All Speaking Esperanto
Stephanie Tam joins us to tell the story of one man’s quest for a lingua franca that would bridge communication and why it was blocked by colonial ideas of English superiority.
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How We Got To BIPOC
Christopher MacDonald-Dennis is chief diversity officer at Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts, and he joins us to talk about the evolution of BIPOC and similar terms – and why some people embrace them while others don’t.
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Is Appropriation In Art Always Wrong?
Paisley Rekdal, Distinguished Professor of English at the University of Utah and the state’s poet laureate, joins us to discuss the places where identity intersects with politics, and why it’s important to confront the language we use when defining cultures.
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You’re Being Judged By How You Talk
Katherine Kinzler, professor of psychology at the University of Chicago, joins us to talk about the biased ways we view dialects and accents.
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What Grandstanding Says About You
Justin Tosi, assistant professor of philosophy at Texas Tech University, joins us to discuss why getting off the soapbox is the best way to make the world a better place.
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Who Am I Without My Mother Tongue?
Journalist Melissa Hung joins us to talk about reconciling the loss of a generational language in the face of her mother’s mortality.
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Esperanto: A Universal Language
This hour, we’ll talk about the invention – and ultimate failure – of Esperanto with Princeton professor Esther Schor, author of “Bridge of Words: Esperanto and the Dream of a Universal Language” (Metropolitan Books).
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Me Talk Pretty One Day
This hour, we’ll talk about common expressions and terms that may set off the language police with Ammon Shea, author of Bad English: A History of Linguistic Aggravation
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The Differences In Dialects Of English
If someone says that you’re “quite” attractive, are you offended or pleased? The answer depends on whether you hail from across the pond or not, says Erin Moore, author of “That’s Not English: Britishisms, Americanisms, and What Our English Says About Us.”
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The Language Of Food
Priscilla Parkhurst Ferguson examines the language of food.
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