Advertise on podcast: Life and Language

Gavin Brookes provides insights into the language that people use when they talk about dementia. Language plays an important part in making sense of a health condition. In this episode we cover a wide range of topics - from stigma tohumour. Gavin has some very concrete messages for all of us - whether you have lived experience of dementia, work in social care, or do not know that much about the condition yet. Dr Gavin Brookes is a UKRI Future Leader Fellow in the Department of Linguistics and English Language at Lancaster University (UK). His research uses corpus linguistic, critical and multimodal approaches to discourse analysis in order to examine how language and image are used to representhealth and illness. He is Associate Editor of the International Journal of Corpus Linguistics and Co-Editor of the BloomsburyCorpus and Discourse book series.

In this episode, I chat to Lauren Tilton about digital humanities and the ways we can teach AI to view the world. Distant viewing is a theory and method for how computer vision works. It enables a critical view of the social, political, and cultural values and beliefs that are built into computer visionsystems. You will also learn about digital humanities morewidely. And if you want to get the Distant Viewer Explorer that’s mention in the episode, you find that here Lauren Tilton is the E. Claiborne Robins Professor ofLiberal Arts and Professor of Digital Humanities in the Department of Rhetoric and Communications at the University of Richmond. She is the author (togetherwith Taylor Arnold) of Distant Viewing: Computational Exploration of Digital Images. MIT Press (2023).   Lauren Tilton is the Constituent Organisation Board (COB) President of the Alliance of Digital Humanities Organizations (ADHO).

Don’t we all love it when we visit places that we know from stories in books and films? In the first episode of Season 5, my guest is the wonderful Lee Jackson. We are talking about his book ‘Dickensland’ and literary tourism. Lee Jackson takes us to places that Dickens’s writing has brought into the public imagination. Some of them are more real than others, but all of them are exciting!

Today’s world is in much need of change. But what can we do as individuals and as a society? And how can we bring a humanities perspectives to the change that the world needs? Who better to talk to than Lyndsey Stonebridge, author of the book “We are free to change the world”. Lyndsey refers to her book a "critical creative biography of Hannah Arendt". It is very topical in the way it helps us to think about our troubled political times.

Have you given Victorian gothic fiction a try? The Fascination by Essie Fox will certainly be a good one to get you started. It is a novel that takes you to the Victorian country fairgrounds, the glamour of the Drury Lane pantomimes, and a museum in London’s Oxford Street filled with anatomical wonders. It is a story about belonging and finding your family. In this episode, I talk to Essie about her novel, but also about the craft of writing historical fiction, the very practical challenges of navigating the expectations of sales and marketing, and the research that is part of the creative process.   Essie Fox is a member of the Historical Writers Association, and The Historical Novelists Association. Her novels have been selected for the UK National Book Awards, the Channel 4 TV Book Club, and The Times newspaper’s Historical Book Of The Month. Visit Essie’s blog for some fascinating images, too!

Charles Dickens has captured the public imagination like no other. What always fascinates me about him and his work is how fiction and reality intersect. In this episode, I talk to Pete Orford to get his take on the relationship between lived experience and literary examples in the world of Charles Dickens. Pete has recently published the book The Life of the Author: Charles Dickens, which gives us plenty of fascinating examples to talk about. Pete Orford is the Course Director of the MA in Charles Dickens Studies run by the University of Buckingham and the Charles Dickens Museum in London. He is the author of The Mystery of Edwin Drood: Charles Dickens’ Unfinished Novel & Our Endless Attempts to End It, and the editor of Pictures from Italy for the Oxford Dickens.

What makes the First Folio so important and unique? 2023 marks the 400th anniversary of the first published collection of Shakespeare’s plays. In this episode, I talk to Chris Laoutaris, author of Shakespeare’s Book: The Intertwined Lives Behind the First Folio. Chris gives us fascinating insights into the human story of this book that was produced seven years after Shakespeare’s death. The story of the people, places, and contexts that were all part of the creation of this work still have their effect on what Shakespeare means to us today. Chris Laoutaris is associate professor at The Shakespeare Institute at the University of Birmingham. He is a biographer, historian & a poet. Shakespeare's Book has been selected as a BBC History Magazine Book of the Year (selected by Tracy Borman). It was also a Financial Times Best Summer Book.

How do you become a successful children’s author? I invited the brilliant Hannah Gold so I could learn her secret. What I really liked was Hannah’s insights into the value of a holistic career including a range of professions as well as life experience before becoming an award-winning author of fiction for children. In Hannah’s books, friendships between children and animals play an important role. Making these friendships come alive requires descriptions of how people and animals communicate – Hannah shares some the techniques she has developed to show this kind of communication. In this episode, Hannah tells us about her research into polar bears and her passion for the natural world. She also explains how thinking about the climate crisis is a necessary part of writing a modern day story. And guess what song Hannah likes to start events with?  Well, I do like Katy Perry, too!   Hannah Gold’s first book, The Last Bear – won the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize in 2022 and the same year also the Blue Peter Book Award. Her second book The Lost Whale was the Winner of the Edward Stanford Children's Book of the Year 2023.

Can the law be the same if the language is different? I invited Karen McAuliffe, an expert in multilingual law, to shed some light on this question. Different languages represent reality in different ways. This has an impact on the legal system, too. So how can law be created that will have the same effect across multiple jurisdictions? Especially in the context of the European Court of Justice this is a critical question. Language and storytelling play an important role for law – from the pricing of football jerseys to the UN Declaration of Human Rights. Karen McAuliffe is Professor of Law and Language at the University of Birmingham. Her research focuses on the relationship between law, language and translation in multilingual legal orders, particularly the European Union. She has run a number of large, funded, research projects in the field of law and language, including the Law and Language at the European Court of Justice project and The EU Case Law Corpus project. You can find out more about Karen’s research on her website: www.karenmcauliffe.com Here are some links to the things mentioned in this episode: Jessica Whyte (2014) The Fortunes of Natural Man: Robinson Crusoe, Political Economy, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Humanity Vol 5(3), p. 301-321   Karen McAuliffe (2013), The Limitations of a Multilingual Legal System, International Journal for the Semiotics of Law Vol 26(4)   Legal Recognition of Sign Languages Project

Are you be able to spot fake news? Can you even define what fake news is? According to Jack Grieve, ‘fake news’ is deceptive, it is intentionally trying to misinform its audience. Fake news is not the same as news that is untrue or false. But what exactly makes news fake? Are there any linguistic clues? Anything that gives away the intention to deceive? Can linguistic methods help us to find out? Surely there is lots of fake news out there that can serve as a data set for computational analysis? But not so fast! A key challenge is to find ‘real’ news that you can usefully compare to fake news in order to see what the difference is. Listen to Jack Grieve explain his linguistic methodology for such a comparison. Hear about an intriguing case study that looks at a journalist who used to work for the New York Times. This journalist, Jason Blair, would sometimes produce real and fake news on the same day! Now, that’s an exciting data set for linguists to work with! Jack Grieve is a Professor of Corpus Linguistics at the University of Birmingham. His research focuses on the quantitative analysis of language variation and change. He also conducts applied research in authorship analysis. Together with Helena Woodfield he has written the book The Language of Fake News.

What is the link between Oscar Wilde, Judy Garland and Arnold Schwarzenegger? Find out in this episode, where I talk to Paul Baker about his new book Camp! The Story of the Attitude that Conquered the World. Paul looks at the history of camp - a phenomenon that went from marginal to mainstream. He explains why laughter is so important in today’s world and how popular culture can help to ground us. The book is full of incredibly fabulous examples, and in this episode we get a selection of these camp confections. In the show, Paul reads a passage from the book. He tells us what it is like to record an audiobook, and he shares brilliant tips for writers! If you want to recognise the camp in yourself, this is the episode for you! Also check out Paul’s Instagram account @campthebook. Paul Baker is a Professor of English Language at Lancaster University. He has written numerous books for academic and popular audiences. These include Fabulosa: The Story of Polari, and Outrageous! The Story of Section 28 and the Battle for LGBT Education. Paul is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences.

Water is fundamental to life. Water affects us all. But do we talk about water enough to raise awareness of its value? What do we do to accelerate change to solve the water crisis? Are we aware of the various connections that make the water crisis a wicked problem? I am speaking to David Hannah, Professor of Hydrology and UNESCO Chair in Water Sciences at the University of Birmingham. David explains the kind of work he does as a water scientist, we speak about water cycle diagrams and the human impact on the water cycle. We consider how the language we use to talk about water relates to our perception of reality, and how it can help us to become more hopeful. Oh … and there’ll be polar bears, too! David Hannah is the Director of the Birmingham Institute for Sustainability and Climate Action. He is included in the Reuters list of top 1000 climate scientists.

What can historical fiction do for today’s society? Paterson Joseph’s first novel tells the story of Charles Ignatius Sancho, the first known Black person to have voted in a British election. In this episode, we talk about Black presence in history, the challenges of writing historical fiction, and seeing the world through narratives (on the page, on the stage or in films). Paterson tells us about his personal experience of becoming an actor and a writer, and shares his thoughts on the writing of history as performance. As a special treat Paterson will read passages from his new book. Paterson Joseph is an acclaimed British actor and writer. He has starred in Peep Show, Green Wing, Safe House as well as in Royal Shakespeare productions. His debut novel, The Secret Diaries of Charles Ignatius Sancho will be out on 6 October 2022.

What makes Dickens enduringly popular and relevant to modern life? Who’d be better to talk to about this question than Sean Grass, the President of the Dickens Society. In this episode, we look at Charles Dickens in the context of commodity culture. Sean explains how autobiographical writing developed into a commercial genre. We look at the implications of exposing lives to public view and the social costs of commodifying identity. It won’t come as a surprise that we’ll touch upon questions of gender, too. Sean explains, for example, why in the 19th century Dickens’s novels were not really seen as appealing to a male audience. There's an opportunity to hear about portraits and Lady Audley’s Secret, too. Sean reads some wonderful extracts from 'Our Mutual Friend' and 'Great Expectations'. We talk about the art of compelling storytelling and what Dickens can teach us about community, empathy and personal well-being. And here a special treat: you will get some great advice for your own writing! Have a listen! Sean Grass is Professor of English Literature at Rochester Institute of Technology, in New York. He is an expert on Victorian literature and culture and he is the President of the Dickens Society. His many publications include The Commodification of Identity in Victorian Narrative(Cambridge University Press, 2019) and Charles Dickens's Our Mutual Friend A Publishing History (Routledge, 2014).

What is the connection between software development and Tolkien? In this episode, I talk to James Tauber. He is the founder and CEO of Eldarion, a company that develops web applications for a wide range of clients with a special focus on educational contexts. James leads the Digital Tolkien project and also teaches at Signum University. We talk about fantasy fiction, and how Tolkien creates worlds, names places, and invents languages. Obviously, James reads some fantastic text passages, too. He tells us about the Digital Tolkien project and shares his views on what makes a good software development team.