Welcome back to Season 3 of Much Language Such Talk! To kick off season 3 we have invited a guest that has been on our wish list for a long time. And hold on to your seats because what you’re about to hear is extraordinary. Our guest for today is Richard Simcott. Richard is a hyperpolyglot, which means he is fluent in more languages than the entire podcast team combined - and there is 9 of us. He has studied over 50 languages, and speaks about 25-30 regularly. How impressive is that! Richard was born in England and is now considered one of the most multilingual people from the UK. He has stu ..read more

The end of season 2 is here, but we have a great episode for you! In this episode, we’re going to talk about bilingual reading development with a leading expert in the field – Dr Holly Joseph. Holly is an Associate Professor of Language Education and Literacy Development at the Institute of Education, at University of Reading. Her research focuses on reading development and difficulties, vocabulary  learning, eye movements during reading, developmental disorders, and, what we are going to discuss further today, bilingual reading development, especially in children who speak English as an ..read more

Welcome back to another episode of MLST! In this episode, we’re going to talk about how our emotions, and identity, are tied to our languages to the leading expert in the field - Jean-Marc Dewaele. Jean-Marc is a Professor of Applied Linguistics & Multilingualism at the Department of Languages, Cultures and Applied Linguistics at Birkbeck University of London. His research focuses on language and emotions very broadly, and from many different perspectives, with his main interests being individual differences, psychology of language learning, foreign language acquisition and multilingualism ..read more

Welcome to another episode of Much Language Such Talk! We have been talking about this episode for a long time, and it's finally here! For this episode, we interviewed Joe Pearce. He is a PhD researcher at the University of Glasgow. His research looks at gender differences in the production and perception of voice quality in contemporary Scotland from a trans-focused perspective. They have investigated whether listeners use creaky voice and breathy voice as cues to a speaker’s gender before, and his current research is looking at voice quality across three regions of Scotland with an in-d ..read more

Welcome to another exciting episode of Much Language Such Talk! Did you know that March 27th is International Day of Multilingualism?  To celebrate this awesome day we’re joined by Dr. Thomas Bak, a researcher at the University of Edinburgh. Born and raised in Cracow, Poland, Dr Thomas H Bak studied medicine  and worked as a clinician in psychiatry and neurology in Bern, Berlin,  Cambridge, and Edinburgh. From 2010-2018 he was the president of the World Federation of Neurology Research Group on Aphasia, Dementia and Cognitive Disorders (WFN RG ADCD). His main research interest i ..read more

Welcome back to another episode of Much Language Such Talk!  Today's episode will be about Language and Art, and how language (learning) can be visualized through art. To discuss this we have invited two wonderful guests: Marion Geoffray and Dobrochna Futro. Marion Geoffray is a performer, theatre-maker, creative practitioner, and she is the artistic director of Theater Sans Accents,  a bilingual theatre company here in Edinburgh. Her work explores  questions of home, identity, relationships and communication while  playing with linguistic and cultural boundaries on and off ..read more

Happy Valentines Day! Welcome to our very first special episode, just in time for that international day of love. Have you ever wondered why you use a specific language to express certain emotions? Why it feels so much stronger to more intense to say "I love you" in your first language? In this episode we're going to be talking about just that! How we say we care for those around us and learning a bit on why our languages and emotions are connected! In this special episode we're joined by our friends and family, as well as Dr. Jean-Marc Dewaele a language and emotion researcher at Birkbeck Uni ..read more

Happy new year everybody! For this episode, we will talk about language invention! We are delighted to welcome two of the world’s most renowned conlangers, Jessie Sams and David Peterson. Jessie Sams is a Professor of Linguistics at Stephen F. Austin State University at the Department of Languages, Cultures and Communication. She generally teaches linguistic courses such as English grammar and the history of English, but she also established a course on language invention at the University where students get to create their own languages throughout the semester. Her research primarily fo ..read more

This episode is dedicated to Human Rights Day, which we celebrated on Dec 10th. For this, we have invited a very special guest, and we are honoured to have him with us today: Fernand de Varennes. Prof. de Varennes was appointed United Nations Special Rapporteur on Minority Issues by the Human Rights Council and assumed his functions in August 2017. His work and commitment focuses on the human rights of minorities, as well as the prevention of ethnic conflicts, the rights of migrants, the relationship between ethnicity, human rights and democracies, and the use of federalism and balancing comp ..read more

Did you guys know that it’s estimated that half of the world’s 7000 languages are going to be extinct by the end of this century? Have you ever wondered how this happens, or would you like to know how we can combat this? Then this episode is for you! Our guest today is Guillem Belmar Viernes. Guillem is a PhD student at the University of California in Santa Barbara, but originally from Girona in Catalonia, Spain. Guillem did his BA in Translation, has a Master in Language Science and Hispanic Linguistics and a Masters in Multilingualism. For his PhD, he is working on Minoritized Languages fro ..read more