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Sociolinguistics

The phrase ‘Wha gwan’ (whaa gwaan) means ‘what’s going on’ in Jamaican Patois. The spelling varies but the meaning does not change.

Pidgin, patois, slang, dialect, creole — English has more forms than you might expect

Culture

There’s a growing body of English literature that isn’t written in standard English at all, but rather different dialects and vernaculars. So when does a vernacular language become a language of its own?

Yusuf Sarwar and Mohammed Ahmed ordered "The Koran For Dummies" from Amazon before leaving the UK to fight in the war in Syria.

No, buying ‘The Koran for Dummies’ doesn’t mean you’ll get Islam right

Global Politics

Straight outta ESL class: learning English by learning slang

Arts, Culture & Media
Sara Loscos working on an accent exercise. (Photo provided by Sara Loscos)

Having an Accent in America: An Actor Speaks

Arts, Culture & Media

Fake accents, well-done, can make all the difference

Arts, Culture & Media

New Yorker contributor Adam Gopnik reflects on Colorado shooting

Global Politics

One week after the Colorado shooting, Adam Gopnik takes a look back at what happened and what needs to change. Though it’s impossible to say that violence in American pop culture causes mass murdering, Gopnik says, the two are connected. Has the cost of movie violence gotten too high?

The benefits of being bilingual

Environment

Fluency in just one language in the 21st century is a competitive disadvantage, and it could be holding back your brain. In a recent New York Times Op-Ed piece, Yudhijit Bhattacharjee wrote that bilingual people outperform single language speakers in cognitive tests of all kinds.

How to Fake an Accent and Get Away With It

Arts, Culture & Media

“Matilda,” now a Broadway hit, has a cast full of Americans doing British accents. We usually think of actors as carrying off the best fake accents. But others do it, sometimes with great success. What’s the secret?

Why Slang Is Good For You

Today’s program puts special attention on language and identity – how they coincide and why those intersections matter.  Michael Adams  is an associate Professor of English at Indiana University who studies one important intersection of language and identity: slang. He says slang keeps us sharp – and that there is creative value in the creation of new […]

The World

Rudresh Mahanthappa Finds His Roots

Arts, Culture & Media

When jazz saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa was still a student at Berklee College of Music, his older brother gave him an album called Saxophone Indian Style – as a joke. Mahanthappa had been suspicious of American jazz’s sampling of Indian music.