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Lingthusiasm - A podcast that's enthusiastic about linguistics

112: When language become-s(3SG) linguistic example-s(PL)

Lingthusiasm - A podcast that's enthusiastic about linguistics

Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne

Science

4.8791 Ratings

🗓️ 15 January 2026

⏱️ 49 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Language is all around us. This sentence right here, is language! But between the raw experience of someone saying something and a linguistic analysis of what they've said, there are certain steps that make it easier for that analysis to happen, or to be understood or reproduced by others later. In this episode, your hosts Lauren Gawne and Gretchen McCulloch get enthusiastic about how language becomes linguistic data. We talk about making recordings of language, transcribing real-life or recorded language, annotating recordings or transcriptions, archiving all those materials for future generations, restoring archival materials from decaying formats, and presenting this information in useful ways when writing up an analysis. Along the way, we touch on playing 100+ year old songs from cracked wax cylinders, the multi-line glossing format used so readers can understand examples in a language they're not already fluent in, analyzing spontaneous conversation using tapes from the Watergate Scandal, recognizing everyone who's contributed (including your own intuitions!), and Lauren's role on a big committee of linguists and archivists formalizing principles for data citation in linguistics. Click here for a link to this episode in your podcast player of choice: https://pod.link/1186056137/episode/dGFnOnNvdW5kY2xvdWQsMjAxMDp0cmFja3MvMjI0ODMzMjkyMA Read the transcript here: Announcements: If you wish there were more Lingthusiasm episodes to listen to or you just want to help us keep making this show, we have over a hundred bonus episodes available for you to listen to on Patreon. Not sure about committing to a monthly subscription? You can now sign up for a free trial and start listening to bonus episodes for free right away: https://www.patreon.com/lingthusiasm In this month’s bonus episode we get enthusiastic about about some of our favourite deleted bits from recent interviews that we didn't quite have space to share with you! First, an excerpt from our interview with Adam Aleksic about tiktok and how different online platforms give rise to different kinds of communication styles. Second, a return to our interview with Miguel Sánchez Ibáñez for a bit about Spanish internet slang, -och, and why "McCulloch" looks like a perfect name for an author of a book about internet linguistics. Finally, deleted scenes from our advice episode, in which we reveal some Lingthusiasm lore about pronouncing "Melbourne" and imitating each other's accents and answer questions about linguistics degrees and switching languages with people.. Join us on Patreon now to get access to this and 100+ other bonus episodes. You’ll also get access to the Lingthusiasm Discord server where you can chat with other language nerds: https://www.patreon.com/posts/147181832 For links to things mentioned in this episode: https://lingthusiasm.com/post/805852742418661376/lingthusiasm-episode-112-when-language

Transcript

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0:00.0

Welcome to Lingthusiasm, a podcast that's enthusiastic about linguistics. I'm Gretchen

0:24.1

McCallick. And I'm Lauren Gorn, and today we're getting enthusiastic about the data people

0:28.3

used to do linguistics. But first, if you wish there were more enthusiasm episodes to listen to,

0:33.5

or you just want to help us keep making the show. We have over 100 bonus episodes available

0:38.3

for you to listen to on Patreon. If you're not sure about committing to a monthly subscription,

0:43.0

you can now sign up for a free trial and start listening to bonus episodes for free right

0:46.9

away. Our most recent bonus episode was a whole collection of extra great material from

0:51.6

interviews we've done over the past year that was too good not to share.

0:54.9

You can hear more from Adam Alexic about how the differences between platforms shape how slang evolves

0:59.5

on them, and from Miguel Sanchezabanias about Spanish internet memes.

1:03.0

And we have some bonus linguistics advice questions that we answer in this episode as well.

1:08.6

For this and over 100 other bonus episodes, go to patreon.com

1:12.8

slash linkthusiasm.

1:26.7

Lauren, what is linguistic data? Like, I'm speaking a language right now. So does that mean I am linguistic data right now?

1:33.9

Absolutely. In fact, we have used recordings of this show with Bethany Gardner to make vowel plots of the two of us. So extremely yes.

1:43.0

That is true. So maybe this episode someday will be part of another

1:47.5

analysis. This is one of the things that I find so exciting about linguistics. There's always

1:53.4

language to analyze and there's language going on right inside my head that I could analyze

1:58.7

at any time. Indeed. And even with a recording of a conversation,

2:04.7

there are so many different things that you could do with the same single recording. You could look at,

2:10.4

as we've done, the way both of us pronounce different words, but you could also look at the choices

2:16.3

of words that we make, or the way our

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