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…

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 …

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 Universit…

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 f…

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 a…

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 artisti…

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…

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 …

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.…

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…

For today's episode, we have invited Dr. Isabelle Barth. Isabelle is originally from France, and works as a consultant in languages, plurilingual education and intercultural communication. Isabelle conducts research on family language policies, in particular how they affect families with mixed cultural backgrounds and migrant families. In addition …

For this episode, we invited Dr. Sharon Unsworth, who is a lecturer and researcher on second language acquisition at Radboud University in the Netherlands. Her research focuses on how to best raise children bilingually and which factors play a role in this process and best predict success. She is involved in various projects on early foreign langua…

Welcome back to another episode! Today we are joined by Professor Ludovica Serratrice. She is a Professor of bi-multilingualism at the University of Reading and was the Director of the Centre for Literacy and Multilingualism for 3 years. She is also a co-investigator on a project as part of the ESRC (Economic and Social Research Council) internatio…

If you have ever studied bilingualism and/or cognition, you will know today's guest, and are probably as excited as we are. Professor Ellen Bialystok is a Distinguished Research Professor of Psychology and Walter Gordon Research Chair of Lifespan Cognitive Development at York University in Canada, and an Associate Scientist at the Rotman Research I…

Today, we're joined by Dr. Nicci MacLeod. She is a Senior Lecturer in English Language and Linguistics at Northumbria University. She got her PhD from Aston University in Birmingham where she conducted discourse analysis on police interviews with women reporting rape. Until 2018 she was employed as a Research Associate at the Aston Institute for Fo…

Today’s episode is dedicated this episode to World Refugee Day on June 20th, and we have a very special guest for you, Debora Kayembe. Debora grew up in Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. She earned her law degree in Kinshasa and began her career as a human rights activist. After interning at the UN, she was called to th…

Thomas Chaurin holds a Master’s degree in French as a Foreign Language from the University of Rennes 2. He has an extensive experience in language teaching, language teachers’ training, curriculum development, the Common European Framework of Reference for languages and its applications (e.g. European Language Portfolio, Reference Level Descriptors…

For the International Day of Families, we have two special guests: Dr. Ute Limacher-Riebold and Korina Topalidou. Ute is a multilingual Family Language Consultant and Intercultural Communication Trainer at Ute's International Lounge. Ute holds a PhD in Romance Philology and has taught Italian historical linguistics at the Department of Romance Stud…

Dr. Carlos Soler Montes is a Lecturer at the School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures at the University of Edinburgh, where he teaches Hispanic Linguistics and advanced Spanish Language courses. He started working at The University of Edinburgh in 2015 as a Teaching Fellow and e-Learning Coordinator and now is the Learning and Teaching Directo…

In this episode, in honour of World Autism Awareness month, we are joined by Dr Bérengère Digard and Sonny Hallett to talk about Austin and Bilingualism in research and real life. Dr Bérengère Digard has just finished her PhD in Psychiatry at the University of Edinburgh. Her research focused on how being bilingualism shapes the way autistic and non…

Today we are joined by Nandi Sims. Nandi is a PhD Candidate at The Ohio State University in the Department of Linguistics. Her primary interests lie in language variation and change stemming from situations of ethnic contact in the US. To explore the variation related to social identities, institutional ideologies, and the hegemonic structure of ra…

Welcome to another episode of Much Language Such Talk. Today, we are joined by Prof. Rob Dunbar of the University of Edinburgh. Prior to assuming the Chair of Celtic at Edinburgh in June 2013, he was Senior Research Professor at the University of the Highlands and Islands, and Research Director of the inter-university Soillse Research Project. Prev…

In this episode, we are joined by Dr. Katerina Strani who is an Associate Professor and Head of Cultural Studies at the Department of Languages and Intercultural Studies at Heriot-Watt University. Katerina has a background in Languages and Politics, having taught translation and interpreting for 10 years, and worked as a freelance translator, inter…

In this episode, we are joined by Prof. Monika S. Schmid from the University of Essex. Monika obtained her PhD in English Linguistics in 2000 from the Heinrich-Heine Universität Düsseldorf. The topic of her thesis was First Language Attrition, Use and Maintenance: the case of German Jews in Anglophone Countries - and currently Monika's work focuses…

In this episode, we talk with Professor Itziar Laka, a researcher at the Department of Linguistics and Basque Studies, and the director of The Bilingual Mind research group at the University of the Basque Country. Itziar completed her PhD at MIT and was an Assistant Professor in Linguistics at the University of Rochester in New York before returnin…

Dr. Ania Byerly is a Senior Teaching Fellow in Language Education at the Moray House School of Education and Sport, University of Edinburgh. She has worked with a variety of the university’s undergraduate and postgraduate programmes, such as MSc TESOL and MSc Language Education, Initial Teacher Education, BA Childhood Practice. Ania is a qualified …

2020 really has been a year like no other, but we managed to start a podcast! Each of us at MLST has had such a great time getting to meet new people, learn new things about language learning, and figuring out that Murphy's Law is 100% real. Mistakes were made, people were called the wrong name, we realized we cannot sing (looking at you, Brittany …

Dr Vicky Chondrogianni is a Senior Lecturer in Bilingualism at the University of Edinburgh and the Programme Director in Bilingual Development and Developmental language disorders at Bilingualism Matters. Prior to joining the University of Edinburgh, she held research and teaching positions at various universities in the UK and overseas. Her resear…

In this episode, we are joined by Dr. Ella Jeffries, a lecturer in linguistics at the University of Essex, and her research interests lie in the field of sociolinguistics, with a particular focus on regional accent variation. Her PhD research looked into children's developing perceptual awareness of phonological regional accent differences. She is …

In this episode, we talk with Robbie Norval, a social entrepreneur who founded the organisation Lingo Flamingo in 2015. He is passionate about empowering individuals, especially those with cognitive impairments, and wanted to create an organisation which provides both stimulating and interactive activities. His goal is to show that it is never too …

In this episode, we talk with the two members of staff at the Edinburgh Bilingualism Matters (BM) office, Dr. Katarzyna (Kat) Przybycien and Christy Brewster. Before joining BM, both Kat and Christy were navigating life, family, and work has bilinguals across many countries and continents! Christy Brewster is the Bilingualism Matters Centre's Admin…

In this episode, we talk with Dr. Helen Koulidobrova who is an Associate Professor in Applied Linguistics in the Department of English and Director of the Bilingualism and English Language Learning Research Lab at Central Connecticut State University. Helen's research focuses on sign languages and how people acquire them, more specifically how thos…

In our first-ever episode, we interview Prof. Antonella Sorace. Antonella Sorace is Professor of Developmental Linguistics at the University of Edinburgh. She is a world-leading authority and has published widely in the field of bilingualism across the lifespan, where she brings together methods from linguistics, experimental psychology, and cognit…

Welcome to the Much Language Such Talk podcast! We love languages and know everyone has a connection to the language or languages(!) they speak. Here we're going to talk about the benefits of learning new languages and what it means for you, your brain, and the world! If you want to follow along with a transcription you can do so on our website! Mu…