105 episodes
The Vocal Fries The Vocal Fries
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- Society & Culture
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4.5 • 135 Ratings
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The monthly podcast about linguistic discrimination. Learn about how we judge other people's speech as a sneaky way to be racist, sexist, classist, etc. Carrie and Megan teach you how to stop being an accidental jerk. Support this podcast at www.patreon.com/vocalfriespod
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John Mary Bill Sue
Megan and Carrie talk with Dr Hadas Kotek, a linguist at Apple, about two of her papers: Gender bias in linguistics textbooks: Has anything changed since Macaulay & Brice 1997? and Gender bias and stereotypes in linguistic example sentences.
See the two graphs Hadas had us look at here.
This episode is sponsored by FindingFive, a tech non-profit.
Promotional code for listeners of the Vocal Fries for a complimentary one-month Pro subscription:
FF-US-FRIES (US server, https://www.findingfive.com only)FF-EU-FRIES (EU server, https://eu.findingfive.com only)Redemption of code expires on August 31, 2022, midnight EDT
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Tongues
Carrie and Megan talk with two of the editors of Tongues: On Longing and Belonging Through Language, Eufemia Fantetti, Professor of English at Humber College, and Ayelet Tsabari, who teaches creative writing at the MFA Program in Creative Writing at the University of Guelph and University of King’s College, about their new book, writing in English as a second language, Molisan, Hebrew, and Yemeni Arabic.
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FindingFive
Megan and Carrie talk with Dr. Noah Nelson, trustee of FindingFive. FindingFive is a tech nonprofit that enables academic researchers to create and run online behavioral research studies in the cloud!
This is a sponsored episode, where you learn all about how FindingFive works!
You can get a complimentary one-month Pro subscription that comes with premium features and 100 free participants for the redeemed monthly cycle:
FF-US-FRIES (US server, https://www.findingfive.com only)FF-EU-FRIES (EU server, https://eu.findingfive.com only)This offer expires on August 31, 2022, midnight EDT.
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Hyper Specific Genres We Love
Renee and Natalia are back with a conversation about some of the books they love that fall into super niche genres. For example, Natalia has an entire bookshelf dedicated to books about bananas and Renee will never say no to a thriller with an unlikeable 20-something woman protagonist who works in a startup. Tune in to hear all the weird things they’re both into.
Books Mentioned:
Four Treasures of the Sky by Jenny Tinghui Zhang
How Much of These Hills is Gold by C. Pam Zhang
Diamond Head by Cecily Wong (interview here)
Siren Queen by Nghi Vo
Black Sun & Fevered Star by Rebecca Roanhorse (interview here)
The Poppy War by R. F. Kuang
Lobizona & Cazadora by Romina Garber (interview here)
Binti by Nnedi Okorafor
She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan
Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi
Where the Wild Ladies Are by Aoka Matsuda
Certain Dark Things by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Catch and Kill by Ronan Farrow
Bad Blood by John Carreyrou
We Keep the Dead Close by Becky Cooper
She Said by Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey
My Friend Anna by Rachel DeLoache Williams
Self-Care by Leigh Stein
The Assistants by Camille Perri
The Other Black Girl by Zakiya Dalila Harris
Smile and Look Pretty by Amanda Pellegrino
A Special Place for Women by Laura Hankin (interview here)
Hooked: How Crafting Saved My Life by Sutton Foster
The Power of Knitting by Loretta Napoleoni (review here)
Bananas, Beaches and Bases by Cynthia Enloe
Skin: A Natural History by Nina G. Jablonski
The Address Book: What Street Addresses Reveal about Identity, Race, Wealth, and Power by Deirdre Mask
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Save the Saguaro 🌵
Carrie and Megan talk with Dr Jessica Hernandez, a transnational Indigenous scholar, scientist, and community advocate based in the Pacific Northwest, about her new book Fresh Banana Leaves: Healing Indigenous Landscapes through Indigenous Science.
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Myanmar? I Hardly Know Her!
Megan and Carrie talk with Katie Craig about Myanmar/Burma, the languages spoken there and her organization Myanmar Indigenous Community Partners, which works with local communities to develop and celebrate these languages – and the people who speak them – in developing quality, locally relevant education in order to preserve languages and ways of life as well as to promote equality and social cohesion.
#GLAD22
Myanmar Dance Workout Video during the coup (action starts around 1:45)
Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/vocalfriespod)
Customer Reviews
Amazing podcast for language nerds who care!
This podcast is such a pleasure to listen to! I learn so much and Carrie and Megan’s personalities are so fun. 10/10 recommend I love them.
Not really sure who this podcast is for…
Many of the concepts are very basic intro linguistics concepts, but I don’t feel like they explain them thoroughly enough for someone who is unfamiliar with linguistics to understand. On the other hand, anyone who is already familiar with these concepts won’t find much groundbreaking material here.
The first episode I listened to was about prescriptivism vs descriptivism. The hosts spent a long time covering how non-standard grammar was not “wrong” per se, but just different, from a different cultural perspective. Then, not ten minutes later, they talk about how annoying it is when people use “whom” wrong. Isn’t the concept of “wrong” here the prescriptivism they just made a point of poo-pooing?
I feel they also did not really cover the idea that standardized grammar DOES have a purpose, which is to find common clarity. Whether or not it is always successful is perhaps another story, but they don’t seem to address that having a codified grammar model has ANY benefits at all, which it most certainly does. Sure, it’s not helpful in all situations at all times, but having standardized grammar does have many benefits.
I might give this podcast a few more episodes to see if they found their groove any more in later episodes, but the start was pretty rocky.
One of my favorite podcasts!!
I learn so much from Carrie, Megan, and their guests. Vocal fries is one of my fave podcasts ever 😻!