Word of Mouth

Michael talks to linguist Dr Andreea Calude about her research into how language is used on Facebook, TikTok, YouTube, LinkedIn and Twitter/X. And he asks if we're witnessing the death of email.Dr Andreea Calude is the author of The Linguistics of Social Media: An Introduction.Produced for BBC Audio Bristol by Beth O'Dea. Subscribe to the Word of Mouth podcast and never miss an episode: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/brand/b006qtnz Read less

Michael hears from zoologist Arik Kershenbaum about the latest research on how and why different types of animals communicate, from wolves howling to dolphins whistling: a world of soundscapes. He also explains how animal communication can help to shed light on the human variety.Dr. Arik Kershenbaum is a zoologist and the author of: Why Animals Talk: The New Science of Animal Communication. Produced for BBC Audio Bristol by Beth O'Dea. Subscribe to the Word of Mouth podcast and never miss an episode: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/brand/b006qtnz

How best to write about love and other things. Nabeela Ahmed talks about writing in a second language and how her early life in Kashmir shaped the language she uses to express different aspects of her life. She is also a champion for the Pahari language in her home city of Bradford. Pahari is a language spoken by people in Northern areas of India, Kashmir and Pakistant. It fell out of favour as an official language of the courts but is still widely spoken in many British Asian homes today. Nabeela works with groups of budding poets and writers to help them express themselves in whichever language they feel comfortable with alongside English.Producer: Maggie Ayre

Eli Burnstein talks about fine distinctions between words, including Michael's personal bugbear of forewords, prefaces and introductions, some clarity on clementines, satsumas, tangerines and mandarins, and of course the lunch, dinner and tea debate.Produced for BBC Audio Bristol by Sally Heaven. Subscribe to the Word of Mouth podcast and never miss an episode: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/brand/b006qtnz

Colonel Chris Hadfield is a veteran of three spaceflights. He crewed the US space shuttle twice, piloted the Russian Soyuz, helped build space station Mir and served as Commander of the International Space Station. Getting words and language right in as clear and a concise way is a matter of life and death for astronauts. Crews are traditionally made up of different nationalities and Russian is second to English on board. Chris Hadfield who flew several missions and captained the International Space Station talks about how astronauts communicate and the special language they use that he dubs NASA speak. He speaks several languages and lived in Russia for twenty years. As an author he has written several novels based on his experience in Space and as a fighter pilot the latest of which is The Defector. His books The Apollo Murders are being made into a series for TV. He tells Michael about the obligation he feels to share in words as best he can an experience that so few people have - of being in space and seeing Earth from afar.Producer: Maggie Ayre

How we talk about getting older can affect how we age, both mentally and physically. Michael asks Dr Lucy Pollock for her advice on ageing well and happily.Dr Lucy Pollock has been an NHS consultant geriatrician, a doctor specialising in the care of older people, for over 30 years. She is the author of The Book About Getting Older, and her new book is The Golden Rule: lessons in living from a doctor of ageing.Produced for BBC Audio Bristol by Beth O'Dea. Subscribe to the Word of Mouth podcast and never miss an episode: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/brand/b006qtnz

Recently a video went viral of a baby talking - or babbling - with a Liverpool accent. Professor Julian Pine from Liverpool University explains how babies and young children learn language, including the rules we take for granted. Including the surprising reasons who children make mistakes like saying "nana" instead of banana, or "I play football yesterday" instead of "I played football yesterday." Plus, did you know verbs and nouns go to different parts of the brain?Produced for BBC Audio in Bristol by Sally Heaven Subscribe to the Word of Mouth podcast and never miss an episode: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/brand/b006qtnz

Michael explores the mysterious rules of word order with linguist Dr Laura Bailey. We all know them instinctively, without knowing that we know them. Contains the truth about killer whales and also why Yoda sounds like an alien.Produced for BBC Audio Bristol by Beth O'Dea.

Michael meets fellow children's author Michael Morpurgo - author of over 150 books - including Kensuke's Kingdom, Private Peaceful and Warhorse. They talk words, writing, books and language and why it's so important that children learn to love reading at an early age.Producer: Maggie Ayre

Joshua Reno talks about how Charlie, his non-verbal son who is on the autism spectrum, communicates with him very effectively using gestures known as "home signs". Joshua is the author of Home Signs: An Ethnography of Life beyond and beside Language.Produced for BBC Audio Bristol by Sally Heaven

In conversation with Michael about his book "32 Words For Field" Manchán Magan reveals Ireland's deep connection with the landscape expressed through the Irish language. The author traces his country's relationship with the natural world and its corresponding belief system that encompasses the 'otherworld'. He lists many similarities between Irish and Sanskrit and even Arabic - suggesting a link between the ancient Islamic word Shamrakh and the Irish Seamróg (shamrock). It's a fascinating discussion of a rich and poetic language that survives in traditional communities on the west coast and is being enthusiastically revived in the cities. Manchán also lists the many words that we use in English that have come from Irish and Scots Gaelic: words like 'bog' 'whisky' 'hooligan' and Tory. We also learn a bit of Hiberno-English along the way.Producer: Maggie Ayre for BBC Audio BristolA longer version of this programme is available on the podcast

Professor Lucy Easthope explains why language is important in the aftermath of a disaster, why some words are useful and some can be damaging.Produced for BBC Audio Bristol by Sally Heaven

Dominic Fifield explains how football clubs got their names, uncovering a fascinating social history behind the Wanderers, Wednesdays and Villas.Produced for BBC Audio Bristol by Sally Heaven

"If you want to hide something in the 21st century world, you don't need to create a James Bond style plot. Just cover it in acronyms". Gillian Tett is a columnist at the Financial Times, but she initially trained as a cultural anthropologist, studying marriage rituals in Tajikistan. She joins Michael Rosen to discuss how the study of language has been vital to her work, who continues to see the world through the lens of an anthropologist. The pair talk about the etymology of words like 'company', 'office', and 'bank', why we should all speak more like the Dutch, how Brits in the workplace are more similar to the Japanese, and why it would be useful for all of us to think more like an anthropologist. Gillian Tett is the author of Fool's Gold, The Silo Effect, and Antho-Vision. Producer: Eliza Lomas, BBC Audio Bristol.

Michael shares listeners' stories about the words and phrases passed down in their families that they keep using, and what they mean to them. With Rob Drummond, Professor of Sociolinguistics at Manchester Met University, and author of You’re All Talk: why we are what we speak. Producer Beth O'Dea, BBC Audio Bristol

Michael Rosen talks to neuroscientist Dr Julia Ravey about whether we think and act differently when speaking a non-native language.More and more people are finding themselves speaking multiple languages in our cross-cultural societies. But when we communicate in a different tongue, do we become a different person? From the decisions we make to the memories we form, research in neuroscience and psychology has begun exploring this fascinating area, which not only offers insights into the linguistic brain, but also calls into question if our ‘core self’ is a as stable as we like to think it is…Producer: Becky Ripley

Michael Rosen explores how language has become an online commodity, with Dr Pip Thornton, Chancellor's Fellow at the University of Edinburgh. Dr Thornton explains, with the help of auction props and a receipt machine, what happens to the words that we put into an online search and how the engines make money from our words and phrases. We discover why William Wordsworth's daffodils and clouds have had their context 'stolen', how Lewis Carroll wrote an incredibly 'cheap' poem and why mesothelioma is the most 'expensive' word. Plus Michael proposes a new form of poetry - the Monetised School of Poetry. Produced for BBC Audio in Bristol by Ellie Richold

Michael Rosen is joined by language scholar Ruanni Tupas, to discuss Unequal English - how native English is perceived differently, depending on where you come from.Ruanni, who's from the Philippines and also spent two decades in Singapore, has spent his career thinking about what it means to be a native English speaker when you come from somewhere other than the West. He chats with Michael about his own experience of speaking four languages (English and three Philippine languages), how being judged by how he spoke English at university affected the rest of his life and research, and what it means for his children speaking English as a first language, havng grown up in Singapore. They also discuss what is really meant by English as a 'global language', and why he prefers thinking of multi-lingualism as having a language repertoire. Ruanni Tupas is Associate Professor of Sociolinguistics at UCL, London.Produced by Eliza Lomas for BBC Audio Bristol

Grant Barrett is a lexicographer, linguist, author, editor, founder of Wordnik and Head of Lexicography at Dictionary.com. He also co-hosts A Way With Words, a phone in show about language, which airs coast to coast across the United States. He and Michael discuss the joy of flicking through a dictionary with friends vs the fast return of an online look-up, the history of dictionaries, and Grant's favourite area of language: sociolinguistics - "where the rubber meets the road", as he puts it. Producer: Ellie Richold

Isy Suttie is an actor and comedian best known for her role in Peepshow and her one woman show Love Letters on Radio 4 as well as many other shows and podcasts. Here she talks to Michael Rosen about writing her comedy and what informs it. She grew up in Matlock in Derbyshire and a deep love as well of knowledge of the place and its people find their way into her humour. Words ending in consonants too are much funnier than those ending in a vowel she says. And as for learning Welsh to impress her partner her song written to show off her language skills to him is a linguistic masterpiece!Producer: Maggie Ayre