In this interview, we talk to Randy Harris about the controversies surrounding the generative semantics movement in American linguistics of the 1960s and 70s. Download | Spotify | Apple Podcasts | YouTube References for Episode 42 Chomsky, N. (2015/1965). Aspects of the theory of syntax (50th Anniversary edition.). The MIT Press. Harris, R. A. (202…

In this interview, we talk to Chris Knight about Chomsky, pure science and the US military-industrial complex. Download | Spotify | Apple Podcasts | YouTube References for Episode 41 Radical Anthropology Group. YouTube channel | Vimeo channel Allot, Nicholas, Chris Knight and Neil Smith. 2019. The Responsibility of Intellectuals; Reflections by Noa…

In this interview, we talk to Nick Riemer about how linguistic theory and political ideology can interact. Download | Spotify | Apple Podcasts References for Episode 40 Ahmed, Sara. 2012. On being included: Racism and diversity in institutional life. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Althusser, Louis 1996 [1965]. Marxism and Humanism. In For Marx …

In this interview, we talk to Ingrid Piller about her forthcoming co-authored book Life in a New Language. Download | Spotify | Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts References for Episode 39 Kachru, Braj B. 1985. ‘Standards, codification and sociolinguistic realism: The English language in the outer circle’, in English in the world: Teaching and learni…

In this interview, we talk to Dan Everett about the life and work of the American pragmatist philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce and Everett’s application of Peirce’s ideas to create a Peircean linguistics. Download | Spotify | Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts References for Episode 38 Cole, David. 2023. “The Chinese Room Argument”, The Stanford Enc…

In this interview, we talk to Michael Lynch about the history of conversation analysis and its connections to ethnomethodology. Download | Spotify | Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts References for Episode 37 Button, Graham, Michael Lynch and Wes Sharrock (2022) Ethnomethodology, Conversation Analysis and Constructive Analysis: On Formal Structures …

In this brief audio clip, we provide an update on what’s been happening with the podcast – and what’s coming up. Download | Spotify | Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts McElvenny, James. 2024. A History of Modern Linguistics: From the Beginnings to World War II. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Entry in the Edinburgh University Press catalogue…

In this interview, we talk to Ghil‘ad Zuckermann about language reclamation and revival in Australia and around the world. Download | Spotify | Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts References for Episode 36 The Barngarla trinity: people, language, land. The Barngarla trilogy: (1) Barngarlidhi Manoo (‘Speaking Barngarla Together’): Barngarla Alphabet & …

In this interview, we talk to Nick Thieberger about the value of historical documentation for linguistic research, and how this documentation can be preserved and made accessible today and in the future in digital form. Download | Spotify | Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts References for Episode 35 Crane, Gregory, ed. 1987–. Project Perseus. Web re…

In this episode, we talk to Mary Laughren about research into the languages of Central Australia in the mid-twentieth century, with a focus on the contributions of American linguist Ken Hale. Download | Spotify | Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts References for Episode 34 Hale, Kenneth L., and Kenny Wayne Jungarrayi. 1958. Warlpiri elicitation sessi…

In this episode, we examine the formalist aspects of the linguistic work of Edward Sapir and Leonard Bloomfield, and see how their methods were turned into the doctrines of distributionalism by the following generation. Download | Spotify | Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts References for Episode 33 Primary sources Bloch, Bernard (1948), ‘A set of p…

In this episode, we discuss the leading American linguist Leonard Bloomfield and his connections to the psychological school of behaviourism and the philosophical doctrines of logical positivism. Download | Spotify | Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts References for Episode 32 Primary sources Bloomfield, Leonard (1914), An Introduction to the Study o…

In this episode, we explore the historical background to linguistic relativity or the so-called ‘Sapir-Whorf hypothesis’. Download | Spotify | Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts References for Episode 31 Primary sources Boas, Franz, ed. (1911), Handbook of American Indian Languages, Part I, Washington DC: Government Printing Office. Google Books Carr…

This clip is a brief audio update on what’s been happening with the podcast, and what’s going to happen in the next few months. Download | Spotify | Apple Podcasts | Google PodcastsBy James McElvenny

In this episode we talk to Andrew Garrett about the life, work and legacy of American anthropologist Alfred Kroeber. Kroeber achieved a number of firsts in American anthropology: he was Boas’ first Columbia PhD and the first professor of anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley. But Kroeber is not only of historical interest. The rece…

In this interview, we talk to Marcin Kilarski about the history of the documentation and description of the languages of North America. Download | Spotify | Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts References for Episode 29 Primary sources Bloomfield, Leonard. 1946. “Algonquian”. Linguistic structures of native America ed. by Harry Hoijer, 85-129. New York…

In this episode, we begin our exploration of American linguistics by looking at the innovative contributions of Franz Boas (1858–1942) and his circle of students. Download | Spotify | Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts References for Episode 28 Primary sources Bastian, Adolf (1893), Controversen in der Ethnologie I, die geographischen Provinzen in ih…

In this interview, we talk to Peter Trudgill about how the structure of speaker communities may influence the structure of languages. Download | Spotify | Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts References for Episode 27 Aronoff, Mark. 1994. Morphology by itself: stems and inflectional classes. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Dahl, Östen. 2004. The growth and m…

In this interview, we talk to Philipp Krämer about the history of the study of creole languages and present-day efforts to standardise creoles around the world. Download | Spotify | Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts References for Episode 26 Primary sources Adam, Lucien (1883): Les idiomes négro-aryen et maléo-aryen. Essai d’hybridologie linguistiqu…

In this interview, we talk to Felicity Meakins about Pidgins, Creoles, and mixed languages. We discuss what they are, and how they are viewed in both linguistic scholarship and in speaker communities. Download | Spotify | Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts References for Episode 25 Bakker, Peter, Daval-Markussen, Aymeric, Parkvall, Mikael, & Plag, In…

In this interview, we talk to Lorenzo Cigana about Louis Hjelmslev and the Copenhagen Linguistic Circle. Download | Spotify | Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts References for Episode 24 Primary Sources ‘Travail collectif du Cercle linguistique de Copenhague’, in Proceedings of the Sixth International Congress of Linguists, Paris, Klincksieck, 1949, …

In this interview, we talk to Noam Chomsky about the intellectual environment in which generative grammar emerged. Download | Spotify | Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts References for Episode 23 Primary Sources Bloomfield, Leonard (1933). Language. New York: Henry Holt and Co. Carnap, Rudolf (1936). ‘Testability and meaning’, Philosophy of Science …

In this interview, we talk to Christopher Hutton about linguistic scholarship under National Socialism and how this relates to linguistics today. Download | Spotify | Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts References for Episode 22 Primary Sources Boas, Franz (1911), Handbook of American Indian languages, vol. 1, Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 40…

In this episode, we look at psychologist Karl Bühler’s (1879–1963) Organon model of communication and observe its influence on the linguists Nikolai Trubetzkoy (1890–1938) and Roman Jakobson (1896–1982), who were associated with the Prague Circle. Download | Spotify | Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts References for Episode 21 Primary Sources Bühler…

In this interview, we continue the theme of the previous episode and talk to Jacqueline Léon about John Rupert Firth (1890–1960), Bronisław Malinowski (1884–1942) and the London School. Download | Spotify | Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts References for Episode 20 Primary Sources Archives Firth : John Rupert Firth collection, PP MS75, School of Or…

In this episode, we look at the central role the analysis of meaning played in British linguistics in the first half of the twentieth century. We focus on the work of John Rupert Firth (1890–1960) and Bronisław Malinowski (1884–1942) and their varying versions of the ‘context of situation’. Download | Spotify | Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts Refe…

In this interview, we talk to H. Walter Schmitz about pioneer of semiotics Victoria Lady Welby. Download | Spotify | Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts References for Episode 18 Primary Sources Hayakawa, Samuel Ichiyé (1939), Language in Thought and Action, New York: ‎ Harcourt, Brace and Co. Ogden, Charles Kay and Ivor Armstrong Richards (1923), The…

In this episode, we take a step back to explore the earliest beginnings of functional linguistics as represented by the work of Philipp Wegener. Download | Spotify | Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts References for Episode 17 Primary Sources Bréal, Michel (1866), ‘De la forme et de la fonction des mots’, Revue des Cours Littéraires de la France et d…

In this episode, we talk to Chloé Laplantine about the life and work of French structuralist Émile Benveniste. Download | Spotify | Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts References for Episode 16 Primary Sources Annuaire du Collège de France. 1937-1938. Paris: Ernest Leroux. Benveniste, Émile. 1937. La négation. (Manuscript notes). Bibliothèque national…

In this episode, we enter the age of classical structuralism by exploring the phonological research of Roman Jakobson and his colleague Nikolai Trubetzkoy undertaken within the Prague Linguistic Circle. Download | Spotify | Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts References for Episode 15 Primary Sources Baudouin de Courtenay, Jan (1877), ‘Podrobnaja prog…