Accentricity

There’s something about hearing your own accent does wrong that sets your teeth on edge. But why does it bother us? Why are some accents so often done badly? And what is Tom Cruise even doing in Far and Away?

It’s been about a year since I released episode 4, Learning To Talk, where I met seven kids at different stages of their linguistic development, from newborn Harris to four-year-old Ronan. I enjoyed making that episode so much that I decided to go back and revisit the kids one year later, to see how they were getting on.

This is a bonus episode featuring some of the amazing people I’ve taught this year. It's the second of two parts.

This is a bonus episode featuring some of the amazing people I’ve taught this year. It's the first of two parts.

Why is it that despite all of the evidence that using multiple languages is good for you, multilingualism is still sometimes treated with suspicion? In this episode, I examine the concept of verbal hygiene, and how the policing of linguistic borders affects our lives.

Having more than one language is good for lots of obvious reasons, but also some which are not so obvious. This is an episode about multilingualism: why it’s a blessing and not a curse.

How do babies learn how to talk? In this episode I explore how they go from little howling machines to little sentence builders in the space of a couple of years. 

‘And finally there’s just this sort of awakening moment where you realise there’s no way I can tell these stories - wee Central Scotland stories - and have a false accent.’ – Dave Hook

We all have more than one voice. For some of us that means using multiple languages, for some it means making tiny adjustments to the way we speak – often so tiny that we don’t notice them ourselves. What do you do?

All ways of speaking are linguistically equal, and none is better than any other. But the way people talk about language, you’d never guess that was the case. This is an episode about linguistic prejudice, and why it’s stupid.