Related

I sometimes get asked to go on the radio to talk about the things I’ve blogged about, and this page contains links to some programmes which are still available to listen to.

First up, an episode of The Why Factor, a BBC World Service programme, on ‘Men, women and language’. First broadcast on 20 November 2017, it examines some common beliefs about the way women communicate, especially in the workplace. I’m not the only linguist featured: there’s also Janet Holmes talking about her long-running project on gender and workplace communication in New Zealand, Bjarke Frellesvig discussing gendered language norms in Japanese, and Lilian Lem Atanga on the treatment of women speakers in sub-Saharan Africa (her own recent research focuses on the case of the Cameroonian Parliament). I’m glad this one has stuck around, because it’s definitely one of the most interesting and thoughtful features I’ve contributed to.

In July 2020 I was one of the contributors to an episode of BBC Radio 3’s The Verb about domestic violence in language, story, song and myth. It also features three fantastic women writers–the poet and memoirist Natasha Trethewey, the poet Louise Fazackerley and the singer-songwriter Kathryn Williams, who read/perform their own work during the programme.

Also broadcast in July 2020: this episode of BBC Radio 4’s regular language programme Word of Mouth, in which I talk to Nikki Bedi about words used for women, what they tell us and why they matter.

And in August 2021 I contributed to Speak Up, a BBC Radio 4 programme presented by Mary Ann Sieghart about why women talk less than men in public settings.

Of course, radio isn’t the only medium for spoken word content: here I am talking to Michaela Mahlberg about being a linguist and a feminist on her Language and Life podcast in October 2021.

And while I’m on the subject of podcasts, in April 2023 I was honoured to be Kate Lister’s guest on the 100th episode of the podcast Betwixt the Sheets, where by popular request the topic was the C-word. (Kathy Burke is on too). Catch it at https://access.historyhit.com/betwixt-the-sheets/videos/040423-bts-cword-vimeo-1

And here’s a link to a recording of a talk I gave in March 2022 to a feminist group at UCL about feminism and verbal hygiene. (Apologies to people who need closed captions, these are not good–if you don’t need them I’d recommend turning them off.)