How Do We Know What Words Mean? with Dr. Jessica Rett

Getting Better with Jonathan Van Ness

Sony Music

Society & Culture, Comedy, Education, Self-improvement

4.9 • 21.6K Ratings

🗓️ 21 November 2018

⏱️ 38 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Dr. Jessica Rett is an Associate Professor in UCLA's Linguistics Department who joins Jonathan to discuss the power and nuances of words, breaks down the concepts of what "dog whistles" are, code-switching, how words evolve, endangered languages, and more. Find Jessica’s work at http://linguistics.ucla.edu/people/Rett/index.html. Find out what today’s guest and former guests are up to by following us on Instagram and Twitter @CuriousWithJVN. Transcripts for each episode are available at JonathanVanNess.com. Check out Getting Curious merch at PodSwag.com. Listen to more music from Quiñ by heading over to TheQuinCat.com. Jonathan is on Instagram and Twitter @JVN and @Jonathan.Vanness on Facebook. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Getting Curious!
0:04.5	I'm Jonathan Bennes and every week I sit down for a gorgeous 30 minute conversation
0:07.8	with a brilliant expert to learn all about something that makes me curious.
0:10.8	You know what?
0:11.8	I'm going to start saying that so I'm going to get present because I feel like sometimes
0:13.6	I say it so much I say too fast I'm not going to right now but just next time that's
0:16.3	no for me I love you guys!
0:18.3	This week I'm curious about the meaning of words and how do we decide what they mean?
0:22.0	So I'm joined by associate professor in UCLA's linguistics department Jessica Rat.
0:30.9	Welcome to Getting Curious!
0:31.9	This is Jonathan Bennes.
0:32.9	This week I'm very excited.
0:33.9	We are knocking out a subject that I've wanted to long knock out and I needed to find someone
0:38.6	who studied words and you are a semantissist.
0:46.1	Let's say your name first Jonathan let's start with that.
0:48.0	Jessica, welcome Jessica Rat.
0:49.4	That's how I say it right?
0:51.4	Yeah that's perfect.
0:52.4	I nailed it today.
0:53.4	So you are an associate professor at UCLAA and you are in the like linguist department.
1:02.7	Yeah I'm a linguist and like you said I'm a semantissist.
1:06.6	Well I feel like the world that we live in is very confusing.
	...

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