#superlinguo

[superlinguo]

Superlinguo 2023 in review

I spent 2023 on leave to hang out with a new tiny human. I still found time for some linguistics, including regular Lingthusiasm episodes and even some intermittent blogging. I also got to reuse all my linguist pregnancy announcement jokes.

Lingthusiasm

Lingthusiasm turned 7 this year! We celebrated with a dozen main episodes as well as our monthly bonus episodes for patrons. We had some help to get through the year while I was on leave with interviews with linguists from around the world, including Lingthusiasm team members Martha Tsutsi-Billins and Sara Dopierela.

We released our new Etymology isn't Destiny merch, which is available alongside merch for all kinds of linguists and language fans.

Main episodes

Where language names come from and why they change (transcript)

How kids learn language in Singapore - Interview with Woon Fei Ting (transcript)

Bringing stories to life in Auslan - Interview with Gabrielle Hodge (transcript)

Tone and Intonation? Tone and Intonation! (transcript)

Word Magic (transcript)

The verbs had been being helped by auxiliaries (transcript)

Frogs, pears, and more staples from linguistics example sentences (transcript)

How kids learn Q’anjob’al and other Mayan languages - Interview with Pedro Mateo Pedro (transcript)

Look, it’s deixis, a word for linguistic pointing! (transcript)

Ergativity delights us (transcript)

Revival, reggaeton, and rejecting unicorns - Basque interview with Itxaso Rodríguez-Ordóñez (transcript)

If I were an irrealis episode (transcript)

Bonus episodes

Parrots, art and what even is a word - deleted scenes from Kat Gupta, Lucy Maddox and Randall Munroe interviews

Singapore, New Zealand, and a favourite linguistics paper - 2023 Year Ahead Chat

When books speculate on the future of English

Neopronouns, gender-neutral vocab, and why linguistic gender even exists - Liveshow Q&A with Kirby Conrod

2022 Survey Results - kiki/bouba, synesthesia fomo, and pluralizing emoji

Linguistic jobs beyond academia

LingthusiASMR - The Harvard Sentences

How we make Lingthusiasm transcripts - Interview with Sarah Dopierala

Field Notes on linguistic fieldwork - Interview with Martha Tsutsui Billins

Postcards from linguistics summer camp

Linguistic Advice - Challenging grammar snobs, finding linguistic community, accents in singing, and more

Frak, smeg, and more swearing in fiction - Ex Urbe Ad Astra interview with Jo Walton and Ada Palmer

LingComm: 2023 conference

The 2023 LingComm conference happened in February, and was once again in the LingComm conference space in Gather Town. I enjoyed being on the planning committee that put together an amazing event that built on the inaugural conference in 2021. Stay tuned for 2024 lingcomm updates!

Top Superlinguo posts in 2022

This year was a chance to reflect on the decade since I graduated, and to articulate the important role my main supervisor had in shaping my career.

After wrapping up the linguistics jobs interview series last year, this year was a chance to share some aggregated resources from 8 years and 80 interviews.

I also got to read a couple of great linguistics books for kids, keep up to date with linguistics podcasts, share some of my favourite linguistics books and check in on some things happening online.

General posts and reviews

10 years of a PhD

Barb Kelly

Gender Variations for Person in Suit Levitating Emoji - Emoji Proposal

Linguistics and Language Podcasts (2023 update)

Language Books for Kids: Highly Irregular, Arika Okrent & Sean O'Neill

Linguistics books for kids: Once Upon a Word - a Word-origin Dictionary, Jess Zafarris

Linguistics Jobs resources

Linguistics Jobs Interviews - directory of posts and resources

Linguistics Jobs resource set

Superlinguo Linguist Job Interviews full list

Linguistics education and its application in the workplace: An analysis of interviews with linguistics graduates (new publication in Language)

Information and advice

hapax legomenon and automated email replies

Lingthusiasm guide to pop linguistics books

Hello Grambank! A new typological database of 2,467 language varieties

What we can accomplish in 30 years of lingcomm: Opening keynote of #LingComm23

Australian Linguistic Society’s Accredited Linguist program

Academic articles in 2023

Although I was on leave, things that I was working on earlier made it through to publication. I like that there was one paper on lingcomm, one on gesture (including emoji!) and one on the linguistics job interviews, it feels like a nice mix of some of my current interests. Just a pity there wasn't a Tibeto-Burman paper in there!

Gawne, L. & A. Cabraal. 2023. Linguistics education and its application in the workplace: an analysis of interviews with linguistics graduates. Language, 99(1), e35-e57. [doi][Superlinguo post]

Freestone, P., J. Kruk & L. Gawne. forthcoming. From Star Trek to The Hunger Games: emblem gestures in science fiction and their uptake in popular culture. Linguistic Vanguard, 9(3), 257-266. [doi][Superlinguo post]

Gawne, L., & McCulloch, G. (2023). ‘Communicating about linguistics using lingcomm-driven evidence: Lingthusiasm podcast as a case study’, Language and Linguistics Compass, 17/5: e12499. DOI: 10.1111/lnc3.12499 [doi][Superlinguo post]

The year ahead

I'll be back to work full time. I've found the low-key level of blogging I managed this year to be sustainable, so expect it to be business-as-usual here. Lingthusiasm will also continue with monthly main and bonus episodes, thanks to the patrons who support the show and ensure we have a team that can keep everything rolling while begin to take on more administrative responsibilities in my job.

I'm looking forward to sharing some things that are in the final stages of peer-review and copy editing, and I'm excited to be spinning up some new projects.

Browsing old Superlinguo content?

I have a welcome page on the blog that points you to aggregate posts, and series of posts I've done over the years, as well as themed collections of posts that have appeared on the blog in the last twelve years.

Previous years

Superlinguo 2022 in review

Superlinguo 2021 in review

Superlinguo 2020 in review

Superlinguo 2020 (2019 in review)

Superlinguo 2019 (2018 in review)

Superlinguo 2018 (2017 in review)

Superlinguo 2017 (2016 in review)

Superlinguo 2015 highlights

[official-linguistics-post]

Other than becoming a linguistics teacher, what could I do with a linguistics degree? Because I find linguistics fascinating, but there doesn't seem to be much I could do with it.

good news, superlinguo already has a huge archive of interviews with people who studied linguistics!

[dollsahoy]

Words change their meanings over time, and when we remind ourselves that etymology isn’t destiny, we can also remember we’re free to grow and change over the course of our lives too.

[allthingslinguistic]

Field Notes is a new podcast about doing linguistic fieldwork, and the latest episode is an interview with @superlinguo. Description: 

This week’s episode is with Lauren Gawne who does fieldwork in Nepal working with speakers of Yolmo and Syuba. Lauren has experience as both a successful grant applicant and as a grant committee assessor. In this episode, she shares her advice for navigating applying for funding in an overly-competitive and under-resourced environment. One of the essential points Lauren makes is that struggling to find funding doesn’t necessarily reflect on the quality of your work or your project, or your commitment to the community you’re working with. In this episode, Lauren shares how she has funded her work and her advice to researchers looking to apply for fieldwork funding. Also, read the instructions.

Read the full shownotes page and listen to the episode here. 

[thegeekiary]

Do you love language? Do you often wonder about how words work? Do you enjoy listening to smart women discuss interesting stuff? If you answered yes to any of these questions, then I have the podcast for you – Lingthusiasm: a podcast that’s enthusiastic about linguistics.

READ MORE:  Podcast Recommendation: Lingthusiasm

[linguisten]

Our current “Tumblr Crushes”:

siancore (5%)

parksanddeserts (3%)

injerabae (1%)

transliterations (1%)

easternestablishmentarian (1%)

suplanguages (1%)

oupacademic (1%)

superlinguo (1%)

neurosciencestuff (1%)

[superlinguo]

Superlinguo 2022 in review

At the start of 2022 it was my aim to move gently through this year, after the general global upheaval the pandemic brought, and settling back into work after parental leave. I mostly think managed that for myself, and things worth sharing still happened this year.

Lingthusiasm

Lingthusiasm turned 6 this year. As well as regular episodes and bonus episodes every month, this year we ran a special offer for patrons and did a one-off print run of lens cloths with our redesigned aesthetic IPA.

Main episodes

Love and fury at the linguistics of emotions (transcript)

Who questions the questions? (transcript)

The linguistic map is not the linguistic territory (transcript)

What If Linguistics - Absurd Hypothetical Questions with Randall Munroe of xkcd (transcript)

Various vocal fold vibes (transcript)

Language in the brain - Interview with Ev Fedorenko (transcript)

What we can, must, and should say about modals (transcript)

Tea and skyscrapers - When words get borrowed across languages (transcript)

What it means for a language to be official (transcript)

Word order, we love (transcript)

Knowledge is power, copulas are fun (transcript)

Making speech visible with spectrograms (transcript)

Bonus episodes

Speakest Thou Ye Olde English?

103 ways for kids to learn languages

Linguistics and science communication - Interview with Liz McCullough

Behind the scenes on making an aesthetic IPA chart - Interview with Lucy Maddox

Using a rabbit to get kids chatting for science

Language inside an MRI machine - Interview with Saima Malik-Moraleda

There’s like, so much to like about “like”

What makes a swear word feel sweary? A &⩐#⦫& Liveshow

Approaching word games like a linguist - Interview with Nicole Holliday and Ben Zimmer of Spectacular Vernacular

Behind the scenes on how linguists come up with research topics

Emoji, Mongolian, and Multiocular O ꙮ - Dispatches from the Unicode Conference

LingComm: 2022 grants and conference posts

This year we ran another round of LingComm Grants, and we’ve been enjoying seeing new linguistic communication projects come to life. We also published summaries of top tips from plenary panels of the 2021 LingComm conference, and I teamed up with Gabrielle Hodge to write about how to plan communication access for online conferences. The LingComm conference will be back in 2023!

Tips for LingComm series

Planning communication access for online conferences: A Research Whisperer post about LingComm21

LingComm23 conference (February 2023)

2022 LingComm Grantees: New linguistics projects for you to follow

Top Superlinguo posts in 2022

Superlinguo remains a place where I can test out ideas or share things that aren’t necessarily the shape of an academic publication. I also continued my slow series of posts about linguistics books for kids, with a gem from 1966!

General posts

Superlinguo turns 11!

New Superlinguo Welcome page

Linguistics books for kids: How You Talk

Long form blog posts

Notes and observations about air quote gestures

Fictional gestures in scifi and fantasy

Information and advice

Doing your own Linguistics Job Interviews

Planning communication access for online conferences: A Research Whisperer post about LingComm21

Managing Breakout Rooms in online Tutorials and Workshops

Adopting the Trømso Recommendations in academic publishing

Linguistics Job Interviews

In 2022 the Linguistics Job Interviews series was edited by Martha Tsutsui-Bilins. After 8 years and 80+ interviews, the regular monthly series is coming to an end. There were 12 new interviews this year: 

Interview with a  Director of Conversation Design

Interview with an Artist

Interview with a Research Scientist

Interview with a Language Engineer

Interview with a Data Manager & Digital Archivist

Interview with a Natural Language Annotation Lead

Interview with an EMLS/Linguistics instructor & mother of four

Interview with a Performing Artiste and Freelance Editor

Interview with a Hawaiian and Tahitian language Instructor, Translator & Radio Host

Interview with a Customer Success Manager

Interview with an Impact Lead

Interview with an Online Linguistics Teacher

Regular interviews may have ended, but I’ll have more on linguistics, jobs and careers in 2023. I also wrote this post about doing your own Linguistics Job Interviews, to encourage other people to share their stories or interview others about their experiences.

Academic articles in 2022

This year I had two academic articles published. I also published one academic review of a monograph:

Gawne, L. & S. Styles. 2022. Situating linguistics in the social science data movement. In A.L. Berez-Kroeker, B. McDonnell, E. Koller & L.B. Collister (Eds), The Open Handbook of Linguistic Data Management, 9-25. MIT Press. [Open Access PDF][Superlinguo summary]

Gawne, L. & T. Owen-Smith. 2022. The General Fact/Generic Factual in Yolmo and Tamang. Studies in Language. Issue number forthcoming doi: 10.1075/sl.21049.gaw [published version][Green OA version][blog summary]

Gawne, L. 2022. Review of Repetitions in Gesture by Jana Bressem. The Linguist List. [HTML]

The year ahead

I will be on parental leave in 2023 🎉

Last time I went on leave with a newborn I had no idea if I would have a job to return to. I’m very grateful to not have that stress hanging over me this time around. Lingthusiasm will continue as regularly scheduled. It will be interesting to see how things here go without the monthly job interview posts. I’ll still have new publications, and various linguistics resources and observations to share, if maybe on a less than weekly basis. You can always follow Superlinguo on Tumblr @superlinguo), join the mailing list (in the sidebar), go retro and use the RSS feed, or follow me on Twitter (@superlinguo)

Previous years

Superlinguo 2021 in review

Superlinguo 2020 in review

Superlinguo 2020 (2019 in review)

Superlinguo 2019 (2018 in review)

Superlinguo 2018 (2017 in review)

Superlinguo 2017 (2016 in review)

Superlinguo 2015 highlights

[official-linguistics-post]

In relation to this ask, what does one typically major in (or I guess, get a Bachelor's in) before doing a Master's in linguistics? Does English work? A specific linguistics degree?

Also, what does a person with a linguistics degree generally do? Is it just research? I'm super interested in linguistics but I don't want to be a researcher. I just want to...know things XD

(Not a first time student, just considering going back to school.)

i think the most expected undergrad majors would be linguistics, specific languages, literature, classics, maybe computer science. there are a huge number of trajectories that can lead into linguistics, though, not just these. i personally know people who've come from sociology and from archaeology, and surely from even farther afield.

superlinguo (lauren gawne) has over 80 interviews about the jobs of people who studied linguistics!

[dsm-wannabe-linguist]

Rules: Tag 20 blogs you’d like to get to know better!

Mad shouts to @alpine-langblr for tagging me in this, thank you for willingly requesting me to bore you!

Nickname: DSM, Em, ya boi

Gender: Non-Binary

Astrological sign: Pisces

Myers-Briggs: ENFP

Height: 5′6”

Sexuality: yes

Hogwarts House: Ravenclaw

Favorite Animal(s): Cats, most reptiles

Number of Blankets: All of them

Where I’m from: London, UK.

Dream Trip: All of them

When I created this account: 2 years ago, I think!

Why I created this account: Because education and shitposting go hand in hand more than people realise

Tagging: @allthingslinguistic | @aspoonfuloflanguage | @wtfduolingo | @superlinguo | @mapsontheweb | @shit-duolingo-says | @hownottolearnalanguage | @dagenssvenska | @gorillaprutt | @being-a-lingua | @languageoclock | @linguisticsyall | @languagesandshootingstars | @languageloveaffair | @language-aholic | @linguisticmaps | @linguisten | @linguist-to-be | @oxytephoto | @vocalfriespod

[myfluentpodcast]

104 - Every voice is valid! Accentricity Podcast - Sadie Ryan from Scotland

Sadie Ryan, linguist and host of the Accentricity podcasts shares her insights into different linguistic topics. 

Sadie has been learning Gaelic and Polish. She is currently a university lecturer in linguistics. 

Sadie has a podcast called Accentricity I highly recommend you to listen to it:

www.accentricity-podcast.com 

Twitter: @accentricitypod 

Time stamps / different topics:

0:05 Introduction: Who is Sadie Ryan?

1:08 How people react when they hear of Sadie's profession as a linguist/sociolinguist

2:52 The term "Linguist" has more than one meaning

7:20 How Sadie got involved into linguistics

10:26 Speaking with a posh accent  (ep. 1 of Accentricity)

14:33 Remember: Everyone has an accent!

18:19 Schools should teach more the listening skill

29:27 The best thing Sadie learned about language (Ep. mentioned)

34:40 Sadie's PhD research

40:01 Podcast recommendations (Linguistics)

42:58 Language documentation (a specific branch in linguistics)

47:23 The Podcast Accentricity - Every voice is valid

50:38 Speaking of a specific episode of The Podcast Accentricity (Sadie interviewed her mother)

5246 Sadie's language journey (Polish/Gaelic)

53:42 Is it easier to learn a language as a linguist?

58:20 Accentricity got an award!

0:59:37 Future seasons of the Accentricity podcast

1:02:01 Sadie's favorite expression: not my circus, not my monkeys.

Recommendations and mentions: 

Superlinguo (a compilation of links to a lot of linguistics podcasts and other sources - a must for linguist lovers)

https://www.superlinguo.com/post/158448074588/linguistics-and-language-podcasts 

The linguistic atlas of Scots: https://scotssyntaxatlas.ac.uk/ 

Podcasts:

Lingthusiasm

The Vocal Fries Podcast 

Field notes

Others:

The Accentism Project

Vocabulary (not finished yet)

I work at the university of Glasgow as a lecturer in languages and intercultural studies: a person who gives lectures, especially as a profession

(Syn.: university teacher)

Sociolinguistics: Sociolinguistics is the descriptive study of the effect of any and all aspects of society, including cultural norms, expectations, and context, on the way language is used, and society's effect on language. It differs from sociology of language, which focuses on the effect of language on society.

Gaelic: Gaelic is an adjective that means "pertaining to the Gaels". As a noun it refers to the group of languages spoken by the Gaels, or to any one of the languages individually. Gaelic languages are spoken in Ireland, Scotland, the Isle of Man, and Canada.

multilingualism: Multilingualism is the use of more than one language, either by an individual speaker or by a group of speakers. It is believed that multilingual speakers outnumber monolingual speakers in the world's population.

If you're to ask what a linguist does, day-to-day it varies an incredible amount. 

Linguist: someone who studies the structure and development of language, or someone who knows several languages.

Black and white: in a way that involves a simple choice between two opposite things (such as good and bad or right and wrong) She sees everything in black and white. 

(I missused the expression by saying white and black instead of black and white)

A compulsory class: a compulsory course is a course within a major, minor or specialisation, which must be satisfactorily completed to fulfil the requirements of that major, minor or specialisation

And our teacher was like a little bit sheepish because I think she knew that we wouldn't really necessarily all want to be learning posh French.: embarrassed or bashful   / in a refined or upper-class way. --> elegant or stylishly luxurious.

To have a stake in: 

The first ones that spring to mind: 

prestigious:

Scots language:  read the Wikipedia article

        Check out this language related episode! Learn with a learner and become fluent!

[allthingslinguistic]

Linguistics Merch Gift Guide 2019

Looking for gift ideas for a linguistics major, linguistics grad student, or linguistics professor in your life? Are you a linguist and want to help your friends and family with linguistic gift suggestions for you? Here are some ideas!

From top to bottom, left to right, the items in the pictures above are:

Socks with IPA and esoteric symbols prints on them (also available on scarves and ties) 

Mugs with IPA print (also available as notebooks)

“Congrats” and “thanks” cards transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet

Liquids for your liquids water bottle (also available as a mug) 

Little longitudinal language acquisition project baby onesie (also available with “not judging your grammar, just acquiring it”)

“Glottal bottle” water bottle 

Vocal Fries mug (redbubble) 

Yoda best linguistics professor (etsy)

fffffff hard enamel pin (etsy)

Praat phonetics logo t-shirt (redbubble)

Other gift ideas: 

There are several linguistics projects which have Patreon pages, and some come with bonus content or other behind-the-scenes perks: 

Lingthusiasm (at the $15 level you get you own IPA character and a place on our supporter wall)

History of English

Vocal Fries

Talk the Talk

Etymonline

The entire original Wug Test as a book, featuring wugs and other fantastical nonce creatures, to try on any children in your life. 

Other linguistics merch lists and gift guides:

I’ve avoided duplication from year to year on gift guides, so do check out the guides below, as many of the items are still available and awesome! 

A very long list of pop linguistics books and lingfic

A very long list of linguistics movies, documentaries, and TV show episodes

My 2015 Linguistics Merch list (including schwa earrings, which I now own)

My 2016 Linguistics Gift Guide (including The Ling Space’s ugly linguistics holiday sweater/cushion, which continues to be great)

My 2017 Linguistics Gift Guide (including IPA scarves, which I now own in several colours) 

My 2018 Linguistics Gift Guide (including tree diagram scarves and several earring/sticker options)

Superlinguo’s Seasonal Gift Guide 2018

Superlinguo’s Seasonal Gift Guide 2019

Lingthusiasm merch page

[babbelcause]

My brother’s leaving tomorrow to Nepal with two friends for 2 months. I suggested @superlinguo‘s grammar of Yolmo to read in the plane to kill time but oddly they declined. 

Go figure.

[linguisticrelativity]

Training in linguistics is training to think creatively, associatively, and in systems. We linguists see beneath the surface, we see solutions to puzzles, we see patterns in chaos, we are not afraid of ambiguity–all of which can (and should) be brought to bear on the challenges and needs of our world. We can and should find wide application of our powerful analytical skills, systems-thinking and problem-solving

Anna Marie Trester, The Career Linguist (quote taken from an interview by Superlinguo)