I was delighted to get the chance to review a new book from Laura Wagner & Cecile McKee all about doing lingcomm through hands-on demos and conversations at museums, science fairs and other public events. There’s a lot in the book for anyone who wants to start or refine the way they share linguistics with different audiences, particularly those that do face-to-face interactive work.
Communicating about linguistics to non-specialist audiences (lingcomm) is a specialist skill set in its own right. Equipping more linguists with these skills is vital if linguistics is going to stake a claim for its relevance to people’s lives as more than a passing curiosity. Until now, this skill set had to be learned mostly through emulation of existing practitioners, online resources and informal networks. Thankfully, Laura Wagner (Ohio State University) and Cecile McKee (University of Arizona) have distilled their extensive experience running lingcomm activities and events into a clear and practical book. How to Talk Language Science with Everyone (Cambridge University Press) illustrates the best of lingcomm practice; it is informed by linguistic research as well as insights from related fields, including psychology, education and anthropology. It also illustrates the best of the lingcomm community more broadly; it is accessible to those new to the practice, encouraging in tone, and passionate about introducing more people to how great linguistics is (a fact taken as given in this book).
The closing worksheets of each chapter are a sequence of activities that allow the reader to work towards what the authors call a ‘doable demo’, a well-planned hands-on demo that engages an intended audience in your topic of interest. While the activities in the early chapters are not particularly linked to the chapter topic, as the book builds the activities allow the reader to put the lessons of the chapter to work designing and refining a hands-on demo. The book can make a good classroom resource for anyone lucky enough to be able to run a lingcomm/scicomm subject, but the clear structure of the book means that it can be put to great use in the hands of an individual with time to work through the activities. It would be great to see more people working on short, engaging hands-on demos that capture people’s linguistic imagination (and, as the authors say in the book, sharing them!). Alongside initiatives like 3 Minute Thesis and 5 Minute Linguist, a hands-on demo can be an important part of a linguist’s toolkit for communicating with a range of audiences outside of academia. This book is perfect for you to share with your engaged graduate students or highly-enthusiastic undergraduates.
Thanks to Language for arranging for the review copy!
Wagner, Laura & Cecile McKee. 2023. How to Talk Language Science with Everybody. Cambridge University Press. [Review in Language]
The 2024 LingComm Grants awarded six $500 (USD) grants, thanks to the support of Lingthusiasm, Rob Monarch, Wordnik, Claire Bowern, and Kirby Conrod and friends. Some of these projects are already producing content for you to enjoy right now!
Marvin Nauendorff, Anthony Burger, Anna Sulaiman, Rebecca Hall, Alice Pol, Perla Camacho-Cedillo, Aline Vitaly, Yuka Kawasaki, Linguaphile Language Magazine
Grants were judged by Lauren Gawne and Gretchen McCulloch and also included a group mentoring meeting for advice and support. The 2024 LingComm Grants received 40 applications.
This handbook chapter is a behind-the-scenes of how the Crash Course Linguistics video series came together. I’m really proud that this article includes contributions from the linguistics writing team, including my co-writer Gretchen McCulloch, and our fact checker Jessi Grieser, but also from members of the Complexly team, who produced the show, including Nicole Sweeney, Rachel Alatalo, Hannah Bodenhausen and Ceri Riley. As with the actual videos themselves, this was a dream team. Lingcomm that is inclusive doesn’t just happen as an accident - in this article we discuss some of the ways we set things up to make the best series we could.
This chapter is also a dream project, because it’s part of the excellent double feature: Inclusion in Linguistics and Decolonizing Linguistics, both edited by Anne Charity Hudley, Christine Mallinson, & Mary Bucholz for Oxford University Press. These books are both be available through digital open access. They include some of your new favouite classics about the state of linguistics in research, education and outreach, even if you don’t know that just yet.
Abstract
This case study vignette provides an insight into the
choices made in the writing of Crash Course Linguistics (Complexly/PBS 2020).
This series of sixteen 10-minute videos cover core introductory level topics
for English speakers who consume online content. We discuss how the topics were
selected and arranged into a series order. We also discuss the ways we actively
built inclusion into the series workflow and content, including in the team
that worked on the content, the language examples selected and topics covered.
Throughout we discuss the challenges and benefits of working in a collaborative
team that includes a media production company and linguists with a commitment
to public engagement and communication linguistics to new audiences. Sharing
these observations about putting Crash
Course Linguistics together is part of our commitment to using public
communication to advance the standard of public engagement with the field, and
the field’s approach to inclusive practice.
Reference
Gawne, Lauren, Gretchen McCulloch, Nicole Sweeney, Rachel Alatalo, Hannah Bodenhausen, Ceri Riley & Jessi Grieser. 2024. Creating Inclusive Linguistics Communication: Crash Course Linguistics. In Anne H. Charity Hudley, Christine Mallinson, and Mary Bucholtz (Eds), Inclusion in Linguistics, 383-396. Oxford University Press. [Open Access]
2024 LingComm Grants – Small Grants for Communicating Linguistics to Wider Audiences
The LingComm grants are running again in 2024! We have (at least) two $500 (USD) grants in 2024.
All of the info is on the LingComm website, including links for applying for a grant, or helping to fund additional grants, and an FAQ:
We want to see more linguistics in the world!
The 2024 LingComm Grants are $500 (USD) to support linguistics communication projects that bring pop linguistics to broader audiences in engaging ways. The grants also include a mentoring meeting with Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne to ask us your lingcomm process questions, and promotion of your project to our lingthusiastic audience.
The initial grants are funded by Lingthusiasm, thanks to the kind support of our patrons, and by Rob Monarch, and judged by Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne. You can help fund additional grants here.
Applications and funding close: 30th of April, midnight 2024 (i.e. as long as it is still April anywhere in the world)
Winners announced: Winners and Lingthusiasm patrons will find out by Friday, May 17th, 2024. We will publically announce the winner on Monday, May 20th, 2024. All applicants will find out before these dates.
Films have behind-the-scenes commentary tracks, Lingthusiasm now has a behind-the-scenes research article (a DOI rather than a DVD).
This new Open Access article in Language and Linguistics Compass is an introduction to a variety of evidence-based practice from linguistics, education, and psychology we have drawn upon and further developed in the first seven years of creating Lingthusiasm. We introduce you to a lot of the ways we think about framing, jargon, metaphor and putting feeling into our favourite linguistics topics. We argue that this is not just the basis of our work on the podcast, but a way of formalising the contribution that lingcomm (linguistics communication) can make to the larger field of scicomm (science communication). We also share some results from our 2022 listener survey that illustrate how our audience is receptive to the work we’re doing.
We hope that it provides a bit of an insight into how we do what we do, but also inspires other linguists to communication their research - whether that’s in a 3 minute thesis competition, a blog post for your institution, or “trying out [lingcomm] explanations during relevant, natural occasions in local communities” (i.e., chatting with friends and family, which is where we come up with some of our best episode ideas!).
Abstract
Communicating linguistics to broader audiences (lingcomm) can be achieved most effectively by drawing on insights from across the fields of linguistics, science communication (scicomm), pedagogy and psychology. In this article we provide an overview of work that examines lingcomm as a specific practice. We also give an overview of the Lingthusiasm podcast, and discuss four major ways that we incorporate effective communications methodologies from a range of literature in the production of episodes. First, we discuss how we frame topics and take a particular stance towards linguistic attitudes, second, we discuss how we introduce linguistic terminology and manage audience cognitive load, third, we discuss the role of metaphor in effective communication of abstract concepts, and fourth, we discuss the affective tools of humour and awe in connecting audiences with linguistic concepts. We also discuss a 2022 survey of Lingthusiasm listeners, which highlights how the audience responds to our design choices. In providing this summary, we also advocate for lingcomm as a theoretically-driven area of linguistic expertise, and a particularly effective forum for the application of linguistics.
Citation
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 [OA publication]
Lingthusiasm guide to pop linguistics books - available for newsletter subscribers
People often ask us to recommend interesting books about linguistics that don’t assume prior knowledge of linguistics, so we’ve come up with a list of 12 books that we personally recommend, including both nonfiction and fiction books with linguistically interesting elements!
This is a hand-crafted list of 12 linguistics-related books that don’t assume prior background in linguistics, which we’ve read ourselves and enjoyed and think you’ll enjoy too.
Email subscribers get an email once a month when there’s a new episode of Lingthusiasm, and this month existing subscribers will see a link to our linguistics books list! If you find this any time in the future, you’ll get the books list in the confirmation email after you sign up.
(Okay, it ended up being slightly more than 12. We tried.)
It was a fun challenge to try and narrow down our linguistics book recommendations to only a dozen(ish). Available now for all new Lingthusiasm newsletter subscribers!
When I first had the idea for what if there was a whole conference about communicating linguistics to broader audiences, a conference that took advantage of the pivot to online that happened during the covid-19 pandemic, to bring together that one panel that sometimes happens about linguistic topics at conferences serving broader audiences and that one panel that sometimes happens about engaging the public at linguistics conferences. To bring together all these people who are interested in lingcomm into a bigger conversation, into many panels and chances for people to meet. To take these conversations that happen at the margins and make them the focus of a whole event. To create a space where, for once, we didn’t have to justify why lingcomm needs to exist in the first place, WHY it’s important and interesting and exciting for people to have access to accurate information about the linguistic world around them, and we could instead get on with more of the doing, figuring out HOW to make this vital lingcomm work flourish in the world.
When I first had this idea, in 2020, I was excited enough that the organizing committee of Lauren Gawne, Jessi Grieser, Laura Bailey, and Liz McCullough (no relation) were willing to get on board. I was excited enough that people were willing to give yet another online event a chance in 2021 after a year of lockdowns and too much Zoom. I was excited enough that over a hundred people came and talked with each other and held panels and posters and meetups, that I met people from around the world and had deeper conversations with the people I already knew. I was excited enough that on the last day of LingComm21, people resoundingly told me that we wanted this energy and this community to continue to exist.
But now, now that the LingComm conference is back, now that I’m not even on the organizing committee, now that I don’t even know what all’s on the program because I didn’t make it! Now that this project has been taking on a life of its own beyond any one individual person, beyond me — now I’m not just excited enough. I’m overjoyed.
So when the organizing committee asked me to give this opening keynote, I started reflecting on what sort of effects can happen from a big talk in front of a whole bunch of people? What sort of things happen when someone gets in front of a big room and says, hey, this is important, these are the sorts of things that we could be collectively caring about?
In this opening plenary speech from the LingComm23 conference, my Lingthusiasm co-host Gretchen McCulloch looks at the big picture for what lingcomm could be in a very big-picture way.
I was disappointed to miss the LingComm23 events (but for the Very Nice Reason of there being a New, Small Person), and so I’m thankful that Gretchen took the time to share a written version of the plenary. There’s also some of the Lingthusiasm origin story incorporated into it.
The LingComm23 participation form is now open! Help shape the program by indicating what topics you’d be interested in hearing about, nominate yourself or your project to participate in a panel or have a poster, or put your hand up to volunteer to help out during the conference.
Just as the conference format likely deviates from your past
experiences, so too does this submission form (unless you participated
in LingComm21, in which case you get it!). LingComm23’s programming will
forefront discussions rather than presentations, and as such does not
demand a traditional abstract.
LingComm is held entirely online, using the platform Gather, which allows you to create a tiny avatar of yourself and use it to wander around the virtual conference space, join discussion sessions with other tiny LingCommers, have informal chats next to the sandwich bar, hang out by the swimming pool, and visit the magic duck. It’s safe to say that it’s not a traditional conference experience, but it allows for the same rich in-depth discussions and chance informal encounters that we get from in-person conferences, without the travel costs.
Registration fees haven’t been decided yet, but they will be on a sliding scale, including fee waivers for those who need it.
The LingComm website has a new series of posts, featuring tips for starting lingcomm/scicomm writing, events, podcasts and video as well as a post on tips for funding.
These tips were distilled from discussion panels of lingcomm experts at LingComm21 in April 2021. I’ve shared a summary of one interesting tip from each of the posts below.
Make sure your success doesn’t outpace your resources.
To read all six of the Tips for LingComm series, and to stay up to date with LingComm events, opportunities and resources, visit the News section of the LingComm website.
The 2022 LingComm Grants awarded twelve $100 (USD) Startup Grants and
five $500 (USD) Project Grants to support linguistics communication
projects bringing linguistics to new audiences in engaging ways. Each
grant also included support in the form of a mentoring meeting. The 2022
LingComm Grants received more than 80 applications.
Ten Startup Grants and one Project Grant were funded by Lingthusiasm, thanks to the kind support of the show’s patrons.
Two Startup Grants were funded by contributions from donors. Four
additional Project Grants were funded by Manish Goregaokar, Rob Monarch,
friends of Kirby Conrod, and one anonymous donor. Grant applications
were judged by Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne.
LingComm Project Grants
Carolina Rodriguez Alzza and Gesica Perez Rodriguez, Living voices: a podcast of endangered languages in the Amazon (podcast, in Spanish)
The second International Conference on Linguistics Communication, LingComm23, will take place online, the week of February 6-10, 2023.
LingComm23 will once again bring together lingcommers from a variety
of backgrounds, including linguists communicating with public audiences
and communicators with a “beat” related to language.
The 2022 LingComm Grants consist of ten $100 (USD) LingComm Startup
Grants and one $500 (USD) LingComm Project Grant to support linguistics
communication projects that bring linguistics to new audiences in
engaging ways. The grants also include a group mentoring meeting with
Gretchen and Lauren to refine your idea, and promotion of your project
to our lingthusiastic audience.
The grants are funded by Lingthusiasm, thanks to the kind support of our patrons, and judged by Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne.
Dates
Applications and funding close: 31 March
2022, midnight (i.e. as long as it is still March anywhere in the
world). Any contributions to LingComm Grants made before this date will
count towards more grants existing in 2022; after this date
contributions will count towards future years.
The final post sharing our experience of running LingComm21 online is all about planning communication access and is available on the Research Whisperer. This is a piece that I wrote with Gabrielle Hodge, who attended the conference. We talk about communication access, interpreting, live captions and auto captions. I appreciate that Gab shared her experience as a participant at LingComm as well.
From the post:
Communication access is about ensuring people can bring their best to
the event and for everyone to engage in all directions. We want our
academic communities to reflect the same variation in lived experience
and expertise as the rest of our lives. Planning for communication
access should be the same as planning physical access or catering: you
don’t wait until people turn up and tell you they’re hungry to plan
catering for an event. Communication access should be built into every
event, much like making sure accessible toilets are available, that
everyone can get into the building and use facilities with ease and that
there’s a range of food, not just egg sandwiches. Here are some common
and easy-to-implement communication access options for you to engage
with your deaf and hard of hearing colleagues.
The list below outlines the languages that feature in Crash Course Linguistics (Nielsen 2020). For each episode we list both illustrative examples and other languages mentioned. We created a running list of languages used in the videos while writing, to help us actively move towards a greater diversity of language examples. This table might be of interest to you if you want to jump to a particular episode, or if you want to do some critical reflection on your own teaching or lingcomm work.
Looking at the episodes in a single table, I can see the ebb and flow of our focus. It’s much easier to talk about phonetics using a range of examples from different languages than it is to talk about semantics, where you’re focused on the nuance of meaning. I can also see the interests of various members of the production team show through in some example choices, which is why I appreciated working with a team on this project.
The introduction of every video also included an opening animation that had facts about language in English, but also some facts in French, Russian, Chinese, Arabic, German, Korean, Vietnamese and Klingon, reflecting the linguistic diversity and interests of the animation team.
We’ve made this table available as a document on FigShare as well:
In April 2021 I was part of the organising committee for the International Conference on Linguistics Communication (LingComm21). In putting togehter this conference we learnt a lot about running online events, and condensed everything we learnt into a series of blog posts. Some of these posts were written by Gretchen on the All Things Linguistic blog, and the others were posted on the LingComm website. Below I link to each post with a short paragraph of content.
Physical events come with decades and centuries of social
infrastructure disguised as practical necessity and conference ritual
that organizers have never really had to think about as social.
Organizers put coffeebreaks in the schedule because every other
conference they’ve been to has coffeebreaks and because of a vague
assumption that people need caffeine, without considering the social
benefits of giving people a reason to move around and shared objects to
strike up conversations about. Imagine if every conference organizer
also had to take on the architecture and interior design and urban
planning of the conference space, and we can understand why the pivot to
online conferences has gotten off to a rough start.
Physical conferences that move online are beholden to the expectations of the attendees from previous years, expectations which may not map particularly well onto an online domain. A new online-first conference can set an entirely new pattern, potentially providing a model for useful features to be added onto other kinds of events as well.
When people don’t have to travel for a conference, there’s sometimes a temptation to spread conference events across an entire month, or to assign conference homework of watching talks in advance, which makes it difficult for people to have a shared joint conference experience as an event that’s bounded in time. Pre-recorded talks and/or allowing talks to remain available after the conference may make sense for some conferences, but we’ve observed that watching talks as homework plus a live Q&A part often leads to live Q&A audiences who haven’t watched the talks, making presenters either deliver a short recap of the talk or else suffer in silence, and in any case not accomplishing our goals for this conference of encouraging participants to interact. Instead, we debuted each talk as a live presentation with live breakout groups and Q&A, and recorded only the larger sessions, which were available to attendees for a week following the conference (but not forever, to encourage more candid conversation).
We wanted attending this event to be as simple as walking into a conference center and being handed a paper program, rather than regularly leaving the conference platform to check on an informational email, to view a separate video feed, and so on. In addition to being frustrating technologically, frequent program-surfing would increase the number of potential distractions each attendee might face. Thus, as much as possible, we embedded things within Gather, including the programming schedule, the editable list of meetups, and video feeds of larger panel sessions. The physicality of the schedule, meetups, and intros documents also gave people an object of joint attention to use as an excuse to move around the space and interact with fellow attendees.
Physical conference budgets are massive, and that’s even taking into
account that the conferences outsource most of the costs of travel,
accommodation and feeding people to the participants. People are used to
getting things for free on the internet, and online conferences are
much, much more financially accessible than physical events, but for a
good conference to be run well, people should expect there to be some
cost.
ALT
