The Strategic Linguist Podcast

The Strategic Linguist

Revealing how language shapes power, markets, and competitive advantage | Expert analysis from workplace dynamics to global strategy thestrategiclinguist.substack.com

  1. 5d ago

    Linguistics Lounge #5: Linguistics x Gender Inequality

    🛋️ Welcome to the Linguistics Lounge The Linguistics Lounge is where I talk to other writers on Substack about how language works in their fields and areas of expertise. From therapy to philosophy, billingualism to localisation—we’ll be learning how language and all of the linguistic frameworks I’ve written about apply to others. 🎥 🎧 A different format: video and audio posts that bring this work to life I talked with Mike Underell, who writes Closing the Gap, about how we each try to get people to see what they can’t see yet. Mike is one of the kindest and patient men I know on Substack. I first came across his work when this landed on my feed: The honesty and transparency of this headline — and the post — made me realise who exactly Mike was and what he was doing. This post has stuck with me since I read it back in March 2025. It echos every time I come across a man who has decided they don’t quite believe me. Since then, Mike has been someone I read quite a lot (and I have a BIG reading list). What struck me, as I mention in the interview, was how I’d never quite read anything like it. It wasn’t a man being defensive about not believing women, nor was it a tidy “how to guide” that was more interested in sounding smart than thoughtful. Here was a man, simply explaining how he thinks, what made him change, and why changing it has a lasting impact to the women in your life. I’m so excited to share what I hope will be a few of these conversations with Mike about gender inquality. Enjoy! ⚠️ Important note: this was a 50 minute conversation. What follows are a few key short observations from that conversation that have kept me thinking and by no means is the full representation of what was discussed. Like all these episodes, the true meaning and value is from the entire episode not just sound bites. The problems that matter most are usually invisible to the people who benefit from them. This is something I know from my own work and it’s something Mike has recognised too. I’ve hinted at the perfect reader in some of my work, neither of us are going after readers who don’t already understand there could be a problem. Mike’s trying to make the pattern clear enough that the right reader can say, “oh, I see it” not convince someone that there’s something there they cannot yet see. Recognition works better than accusation. We discussed how people rarely change because someone tells them they’re wrong. They change when they see themselves in a situation they’d have otherwise brushed off. Both our work requires the reader to know the exact moment we’re talking about. Some have never been there, some may have been there but won’t recognise it. It’s why we noticed this in the ways we both write our posts — I start with a scene, and Mike writes from his own life so that the abstract feels more tangible and approachable. Intent matters less than we like to think. I can’t judge what someone meant in the moment, only what happened and what they said. What Mike can see is that good intentions don’t undo the impact, and his writing has to reckon with that. Observation beats judgement every time. Once you label someone as good or bad, you’ve made it about them, and the bigger pattern disappears. Observation keeps the habits and institutions in view, which is where the leverage is. Mike shares a story he’s written about describing a conversation with his daughter. It took self-observation not judgement, to help him see what he needed to change. Small actions are crucial. The ask itself has to be small enough to act on. Mike doesn’t ask men to solve feminism. He asks them to be less of an obstacle to the women and girls in their lives. That’s something a person can actually do this week. The value of perspectives. I’ve written about this before but the value of perspectives in how we come to a middle ground knowing people experience the world differently. When something doesn’t align to your worldview, having the patience to sit with someone else’s brings us closer together. This conversation’s best moments were the unfinished ones, and the ones where we had no clear answer, just perspectives, and ideas of ways we can come to the middle together. Read more about gender bias in feedback. I take existing research and show you how the moves are made with linguistics This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thestrategiclinguist.substack.com/subscribe

  2. Oct 13

    Linguistics Lounge #4: Linguistics x Philosophy of the Mind

    🛋️ Welcome to the Linguistics Lounge The Linguistics Lounge is where I talk to other writers on Substack about how language works in their fields and areas of expertise. From therapy to philosophy, billingualism to localisation—we’ll be learning how language and all of the linguistic frameworks I’ve written about apply to others. 🎥 🎧 A different format: video and audio posts that bring this work to life I sat down with Ellen Burns, PhD, a philosopher who writes AIs Without Minds on Substack, to talk about language, consciousness, and why the AI industry keeps getting this wrong. We landed on something she and I have talked about for a while: you can’t reduce language to statistics and then act surprised when the statistics reproduce society’s biases. We need more people in the humanities included in the AI discussion, something a lot of us call for. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thestrategiclinguist.substack.com/subscribe

  3. Sep 29

    The Linguistics of the Sale: Why “No Pressure” Can Feel Like a Hard Sell

    This breakdown of sales language includes: * Why the most pressured sales pitch you’ll get this year won’t contain a single command * How the exit clause and the gift frame, two moves you already know from the meeting room, carry a sales pitch almost all the way to close * The modality shift: the moment a question about the product becomes a question about you * The split in the modals: why the seller’s claims come hedged and your obligations never do * Why a no costs more than a yes in these exchanges, and why that cost was designed in * Why “what’s the worst that can happen?” only counts one side of a cold email, and what a genuine ask leaves alone * Where the obligation register shows up in sales, and who ends up paying for it * Where the same register turns up next: the way AI gets sold This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thestrategiclinguist.substack.com/subscribe

  4. Sep 22

    Let’s Just Chat: What Goffman Discovered About the Frame Around Every Conversation

    This post is about what’s actually happening underneath a phrase you’ve heard a hundred times — “let’s just chat” — and the specific ways a linguistic frame can shift under you before you’ve said a word. * Why “let’s just chat” can turn a career-affecting conversation into a casual one — and why that’s a specific linguistic move, not just a change of mood. * The three ways a frame can change hands: one disclosed to both people, one engineered by only one of them, one nobody’s doing at all — and how to tell, in the room, which of the three you’re standing inside. * Why “difficult,” “negative,” “not a team player” isn’t an improvised reaction to someone naming a frame out loud — it’s a role the frame had built and left empty before that person ever walked in. * What changes when the thing answering you is a language model: the frame you carry into a prompt shapes what comes back, and nothing on the other end had to read it to return it. * Where Goffman’s own account runs out — the question he never gets to about a frame, and what it costs to ask it yourself. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thestrategiclinguist.substack.com/subscribe

    Let’s Just Chat: What Goffman Discovered About the Frame Around Every Conversation

  5. Sep 15

    Linguistics Lounge #3: Linguistics x Therapy

    Welcome to the Linguistics Lounge 🛋️ The Linguistics Lounge is where I talk to other writers on Substack about how language works in their fields and areas of expertise. From therapy to philosophy, billingualism to localisation—we’ll be learning how language and all of the linguistic frameworks I’ve written about apply to others. 🎥 🎧 A different format: video and audio posts that bring this work to life An Introduction to @OrdinaryTherapist Somebody walks out of their boss’s office and says he was gaslighting them. A friend says her therapist finally helped her stop people-pleasing. A colleague calls a bad meeting psychologically unsafe. Today, this is quite ordinary language. I spent an hour in the Linguistics Lounge with Ordinary Therapist, a therapist of over sixteen years, working out what happens when clinical vocabulary walks out of the consulting room without the training that built it 1 00:00 — Welcome to the Linguistics Lounge Introducing the show, the guest, and the link between linguistics, psychology, and everyday communication. 01:12 — Gaslighting: what it actually means Why gaslighting is a sustained pattern, not a single disagreement—and how casual misuse can minimise real abuse. 07:13 — Narcissism vs. narcissistic traits The difference between displaying self-centered behavior and having a personality disorder. 12:14 — People pleasing and survival patterns How people pleasing can begin as protection in childhood, then make authenticity and adult relationships harder. 15:28 — Psychological safety at work What psychological safety can mean in practice, why leaders can’t simply declare themselves safe, and how workplace language can dilute the idea. 20:30 — The “Let Them” theory and simplified self-help A critique of reducing complicated emotional situations into easy, one-size-fits-all advice. 23:21 — Life coaching, therapy, and professional responsibility Training, regulation, lived experience, and the distinction between giving advice and therapeutic support. 26:09 — Bias, worldview, and helping others Why no one is free of bias, and how therapists work to avoid making a client’s experience fit their own. 30:52 — The precision of therapeutic language Reflection, emotional attunement, and why clinical communication is a learned skill rather than ordinary conversation. 34:13 — Emotional labor and the limits of quick-fix advice The intensity of therapy work, individual histories, and why productivity or leadership advice doesn’t land equally for everyone. 39:18 — Caveats, research, and personal truth The importance of acknowledging limitations, interpretation, and context when discussing research or giving public advice. 41:24 — Social media, disagreement, and scrolling on Choosing when to challenge bad information—and when it’s healthier to disengage. 44:48 — The “compression tax” of short-form writing Why a short post can’t contain every caveat, worldview, or nuance behind an argument. 46:27 — The myth that communication is mostly nonverbal Revisiting the commonly misused Mehrabian statistic and the risks of oversimplifying research. 48:37 — Tone, context, and emotional triggers How words, volume, body language, and personal history shape how communication is received. 51:29 — Family dynamics replayed in the workplace Why authority, hierarchy, tone, and interpersonal patterns at work can activate old relational experiences. 53:11 — Accents, status, and snap judgments How accents can carry assumptions about class, intelligence, belonging, and intent. 55:28 — Voice, presence, and therapeutic context Why face-to-face interaction matters, and how therapists help people separate immediate fear responses from what is actually being said. 58:15 — Other clinical terms used too casually ADHD, neurodivergence, introversion, attachment, and “saboteurs.” 59:19 — Closing takeaway: language matters Labels can be useful, but they carry far more history, context, and meaning than a quick post or casual conversation can hold. 62:22 — Closing As always, read and subscribe to @thestrategiclinguist on Substack for more. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thestrategiclinguist.substack.com/subscribe

  6. Sep 8

    The Sentence That Works Twice: What Implicature Does to a Listener

    We’ve covered the framework this sits on in Part One, this post will cover where the chasm of meaning gets swallowed in one big gulp by implicature: * Why a sentence like can sit in a meeting doing real damage while remaining, on paper, a comment about something very normal. * Three specific constructions — not tone, not delivery, the grammar itself — that let a speaker mean something without the sentence ever committing to meaning it * Why the usual account of this (”deniability,” “reading between the lines”) undersells what’s actually happening: there is often no single hidden meaning to find, only a range of them, and that range is the whole mechanism * What it costs the person who has to turn that range into a single reading before they can respond to it — and why “you’re reading too much into that” is the exit the sentence was built with, not a comment on their judgement * Where the difference sits between a sentence built to hold two meanings open and a person simply being tactful This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thestrategiclinguist.substack.com/subscribe

  7. Sep 1

    The Unspoken Contract: What Grice Discovered About Conversation

    Today, we’re going to learn about a Grice’s Maxims of Cooperative Speech * Every message has two layers: what’s said, and what’s meant on top of it. The second does most of the work. * The maxims aren’t rules for speaking. They’re assumptions you run while listening — and meaning appears when someone breaks one on purpose. * Implicature isn’t “subtext.” It’s a specific claim you rebuild by inference, and rebuilding it is real work. * That work isn’t shared evenly. Cooperation assumes equals; most consequential talk isn’t between equals. * AI breaks the maxims differently — fluent surface, missing uncertainty markers, no way to answer only what was literally asked. You’re going to want to share this with your work bestie This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thestrategiclinguist.substack.com/subscribe

  8. Aug 25

    Measuring Up: The Curry Powder Test

    When I first started writing about linguistics, I gave myself a break every few posts to be a little more like Rebecca and a little less like The Strategic Linguist. They are, for the record, the same person but TSL is a very specific part of me, my experience and expertise. I teach, I illustrate, I don’t really take a side, I let you see the language for what it is. Today, we’re taking a little detour and I’m going to share something of me that goes beyond the linguistics and writing. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thestrategiclinguist.substack.com/subscribe

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Revealing how language shapes power, markets, and competitive advantage | Expert analysis from workplace dynamics to global strategy thestrategiclinguist.substack.com

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