We've all seen style guides that tell us what to say and what not to say. Has a style guide ever asked you what you wanted to say? Or challenged you to examine your thinking? This one does. It's the Conscious Style Guide by Karen Yin, and she joins us for this episode.

Timestamps

• Cold open: 0:00
• Intros: 0:35
• News: 5:52
• Related or Not: 31:13
• Interview with Karen Yin: 48:43
• Words of the Week: 1:30:10
• Comments: 1:44:07
• The Reads: 1:47:45
• Outtake: 1:54:06

How did language start? What do all languages have in common? How does language really work? Many answers have been posed to these questions, but one thing is for sure: interaction is the combustion chamber where everything happens. We're having a chat with linguistic lion Stephen Levinson, author of The Interaction Engine.

Timestamps

• Introductions: 0:19
• These fascinating facts about language will make you (or Dr Levinson) a hit at any party: 3:47
• The mechanics of speech production: 06:01
• What's going on when we're talking or listening? 8:46
• Cultural differences in conversational norms: 20:33
• Universals of interaction: 22:10
• Metaphors of space may have been a motivator for language: 25:53
• The role of gesture in language development: 28:47
• Cooperation and empathy in language: 34:59
• What one thing explains the most about language?: 45:56

Disclosure: Hedvig is employed at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, where Dr Levinson is an emeritus director.

How do large language models (LLMs) do their thing, and it is anything like how we do our thing? What can we learn about human language from this software? The answer might involve constructions — pairings of form and meaning that we use to make language. And here to discuss it with us is constructionist pioneer and linguistic legend, Professor Adele Goldberg.

Timestamps

• Intros: 1:14
• News: 7:13
• Related or Not: 34:18
• Interview with Adele Goldberg: 46:40
• Words of the Week: 1:38:19
• The Reads: 1:56:50
• Bonus chat with Adele Goldberg: 2:03:16
• Outtakes: 2:13:11