New Books in Language and Translation

Mainland Southeast Asia is one of the most fascinating and complex cultural and linguistic areas in the world. This book provides a rich and comprehensive survey of the history and core systems and subsystems of the languages of this fascinating region. Drawing on his depth of expertise in mainland Southeast Asia, Enfield includes more than a thousand data examples from over a hundred languages fr...

A thrilling journey deep into the heart of language, from a rather unexpected starting point. Keith Kahn-Harris is a man obsessed with something seemingly trivial – the warning message found inside Kinder Surprise eggs: "WARNING, read and keep: Toy not suitable for children under 3 years. Small parts might be swallowed or inhaled." On a tiny sheet of paper, this message is translated into dozens o...

Listen to this interview of Ayelet Baram-Tsabari. We talk about the accessibility of science using Google to scholars and students in languages beyond English and how scholars can de-jargonize their research to ensure increase their reach. Avi Staiman is the founder and CEO of Academic Language Experts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a pr...

In this episode, Howard Burton talks with Ester Salgarella, Junior Research Fellow at St John's College, University of Cambridge, about her groundbreaking work on the intriguing relationship between Linear A and Linear B and its consequent sociohistorical implications. Howard Burton is the founder of Ideas Roadshow and host of the Ideas Roadshow Podcast. He can be reached at howard@ideasroadshow.c...

This episode of the New Books in Education features English Learners at Home and at School: Stories and Strategies (Harvard Education Press, 2021), by Joyce Nutta. Published in 2021 by the Harvard Education Press, English Learners at Home and at School sheds light on the lived experience of English Learners and their families through presenting six research-based and carefully crafted non-fictiona...

In this episode of How To Be Wrong we talk with Dr. Sher Wells-Jensen, a professor of linguistics at Bowling Green State University and an expert in xenolinguistics or the study of how alien languages might work. It’s a wide-ranging conversation that explores issues related to humility and language, disability, music, and even the study of astrobiology and extraterrestrial intelligence. John W. Tr...

Today I talked to Sarah and Larry Nannery about their new book What to Say Next: Successful Communication in Work, Life, and Love with Autism Spectrum Disorder (Tiller Press, 2021). What’s it like to live a life where there’s a time delay as you process what others are saying, what it might mean, and how you feel in response? Sarah Nannery knows that experience intimately, gaining in ability over...

Hoping to unite all of humankind and revolutionize the world, Ludwik Zamenhof launched a new international language called Esperanto from late imperial Russia in 1887. Ordinary men and women in Russia and all over the world soon transformed Esperanto into a global movement. Esperanto and Languages of Internationalism in Revolutionary Russia (Bloomsbury, 2021) traces the history and legacy of this...

Mediatized Taiwanese Mandarin: Popular Culture, Masculinity, and Social Perceptions (Springer, 2021) explores how language ideologies have emerged for gangtaiqiang through a combination of indexical and ideological processes in televised media. Gangtaiqiang (Hong Kong-Taiwan accent), a socially recognizable form of mediatized Taiwanese Mandarin, has become a stereotype for many Chinese mainlanders...

Can We Be Wrong? The Problem of Textual Evidence in a Time of Data (Cambridge UP, 2020) by Andrew Piper tackles the problem of generalization with respect to text-based evidence in the field of literary studies. When working with texts, how can we move, reliably and credibly, from individual observations to more general beliefs about the world? The onset of computational methods has highlighted ma...

Traditions of Eloquence: The Jesuits and Modern Rhetorical Studies (Fordham UP, 2016) explores the important ways Jesuits have employed rhetoric, the ancient art of persuasion and the current art of communications, from the sixteenth century to the present. Much of the history of how Jesuit traditions contributed to the development of rhetorical theory and pedagogy has been lost, effaced, or dispe...

Investigating the communicative practices of indigenous Santali speakers in eastern India, this book examines the overlooked role of script in regional movements for autonomy to provide one of the first comprehensive theoretical and ethnographical accounts of 'graphic politics'. Based on extensive fieldwork in the villages of southwestern West Bengal, Nishaant Choksi explores the deployment of San...

One pervasive stereotype about mathematics is that it is objective, unbiased, or otherwise exempt from the influence of human passions. James Wynn and G. Mitchell Reyes's edited collection will be a revelation even to mathematics professionals who don't take this strict view. The essays in Arguing with Numbers: The Intersections of Rhetoric and Mathematics (The Pennsylvania State UP, 2021) explore...

Making sense of sound is one of the hardest jobs we ask our brains to do. In Of Sound Mind: How Our Brain Constructs a Meaningful Sonic World (MIT Press, 2021), Nina Kraus examines the partnership of sound and brain, showing for the first time that the processing of sound drives many of the brain's core functions. Our hearing is always on—we can't close our ears the way we close our eyes—and yet w...

This interview continues the conversation with Martin Gluckman, Researcher at University of Capetown and Director at Sanskrit Research Institute. We discuss his Panini Research Tool, Sanskrit Writer, Text to Speech Sanskrit tool and research into the Indus Valley Script. Raj Balkaran is a scholar, educator, consultant, and life coach. For information see rajbalkaran.com. Learn more about your ad c...

This interview features amazing open-access digital Sanskrit projects spearheaded by Martin Gluckman, Researcher at University of Capetown and Director at Sanskrit Research Institute. We discuss Martin’s Sanskrit and computer science backgrounds as well as the on-line Sanskrit dictionary.  Raj Balkaran is a scholar, educator, consultant, and life coach. For information see rajbalkaran.com. Learn m...

In their open-access publication, Making AI Intelligible: Philosophical Foundations (Oxford University Press, 2021), Herman Cappelen and Josh Dever argue that philosophers of language can contribute to a deeper understanding of artificial intelligence. AIs known as “neural nets” are becoming commonplace and we increasingly rely on their outputs for action-guidance, as when an AI like Siri hears yo...

Appreciating Analytic Philosophy is based on an in-depth filmed conversation between Howard Burton and Scott Soames, Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at University of Southern California. Scott Soames is specialized in the philosophy of language and the history of analytic philosophy. This detailed conversation provides a thoughtful introduction to analytic philosophy, including some examples...

Though typically considered oral cultures, ancient Greece and Rome also boasted textual cultures, enabled by efforts to perfect, publish, and preserve both new and old writing. In Editorial Bodies: Perfection and Rejection in Ancient Rhetoric and Poetics (University of South Carolina Press, 2018) Michele Kennerly argues that such efforts were commonly articulated through the extended metaphor of t...

Hate speech can happen anywhere - in Charlottesville, Virginia, where young men in khakis shouted, "Jews will not replace us"; in Myanmar, where the military used Facebook to target the Muslim Rohingya; in Cape Town, South Africa, where a pastor called on ISIS to rid South Africa of the "homosexual curse." In person or online, people wield language to attack others for their race, national origin,...

Sign Language Linguistics is based on an in-depth filmed conversation between Howard Burton and renowned researcher of sign languages Carol Padden, the Sanford I. Berman Chair in Language and Human Communication at UC San Diego. This extensive conversation covers a wide range of topics related to sign language, such as growing up with ASL, Carol’s early work with Bill Stokoe, the linguistic comple...

An Introductory Sanskrit Reader: Improving Reading Fluency (Brill, 2021) aims to help students start reading original Sanskrit literature. When we study ancient languages, there often is quite a gap between introductory, grammar-based classes and independent reading of original texts. This Reader bridges that gap by offering complete grammar and vocabulary notes for 40 entertaining, thought-provok...

At the turn of the nineteenth century, European philologists were engaged in the study of Semitic languages and Indology, breaking with the past in many ways. To understand this period, Henning Trüper argues for the importance of a broad-ranging investigation into the production of scholarly knowledge, focusing especially on Semitic Orientalism, as a way to understand the deep epistemological cris...

Professor James Diggle, editor in chief of the Cambridge Greek Lexicon (Cambridge UP, 2021), joins us to explain the background to this extraordinary project. Setting out to provide a standard for students and professional readers of ancient Greek texts, Diggle's lexicon reflects a wider range of usage than Liddell and Scott, and provides translations that move significantly beyond the often modes...

When Sarah Nannery got her first job at a small nonprofit, she thought she knew exactly what it would take to advance. But soon she realized that even with hard work and conscientiousness, she was missing key meanings and messages embedded in her colleagues' everyday requests, feedback, and praise. She had long realized her brain operated differently than others, but now she knew for sure: she had...