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LangTime Chat, Episode 52: The Conlang Guide


I submitted the manuscript of the textbook I’ve been writing for four years now, so David chose the book as the topic for this podcast. We talk about the overall structure of the book, my goals in writing it, and some features in its current state.

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LangTime Chat, Episode 50: Delicious Ambiguity


This is a special episode of LangTime Chat based on a career-focused presentation I gave at Georgetown University in September 2023 (right before Kopikon). David has been encouraging me ever since to record it as a podcast episode, and I’ve finally listened and done it. It’s a bit shorter than a typical episode, but I hope you enjoy it, nonetheless.

I’ve attached the PDF of the presentation slides I use throughout–there are quite a few images to go along with the journey!

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LangTime Chat, Episode 47: A Place for Theory


In this episode, we talk about linguistic theory and its place in conlanging. As a spoiler alert, we specifically talk about how theoretical approaches are not so helpful to the art of language invention.

I’ve attached the PDF of slides we use throughout the episode, some of which have visual examples of theoretical approaches to show how language is analyzed in that particular approach.

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LangTime Chat, Episode 46: How to Read Like a Linguistics Professor


In this episode, we chat about tackling academic linguistics articles, providing strategies for approaching articles and figuring out if they will be helpful to you or not. This episode is especially dedicated to anyone who has tried picking up linguistics articles but then feels overwhelmed because, well, academic articles are generally kind of notoriously cumbersome to get through. Our goal moving forward is to have episodes dedicated to specific articles that maybe you want to have read but don’t want to read–we will read them for you and tell you what they’re about!

I have attached the PDF of the slides we used (complete with all the original typos…), and I have attached the Haspelmath article we used for a focused discussion on reading strategies.

Happy reading (and happy sending us your reading wish lists)!

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LangTime Chat, Episode 38: Borrowing and English, Part II


We wrap up our discussion of types of borrowings in the history of the English language and end with some book recommendations for anyone interested in learning more!

At one point, we discuss the ampersand, so I’ve attached a fun poster here to show what we mean.

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Podcast

LangTime Chat, Episode 37: Borrowing and English, Part I


This episode is (quite accidentally) the first of a two-part discussion on borrowing and the history of the English language. We talk about different types of borrowing into English in the hopes that it might inspire you as you think about ways your conlang may borrow from another language.

The PDF of the slides used for this presentation are attached to this post!

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LangTime Chat, Episode 23: Areas of Specialization in Grad. School


After getting a question from a Patron about how to select an area of specialization in graduate school, we decided to devote this month’s podcast to that topic. We hope you enjoy!

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LangTime Chat, Episode 19: Graduate School Experiences


In this episode, Jessie totally says the wrong episode number at the beginning… sigh. Eighteen is such a good number, she wanted to use it twice! In terms of content, we talk about our experiences with graduate school and linguistics programs.

Also, if you’re ever in Boulder, CO, you should try out Half Fast Subs!

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LangTime Chat, Episode 11: Conlang Pedagogy


In this episode, we talk about teaching and conlanging (otherwise known as conlang pedagogy)!

After recording this episode, David let me know that my terminology may not be universally known, specifically my use of “made” in a sentence like “The course made.” For me, that means the minimum number of students enrolled in the course to allow it to run—every university has a minimum standard for enrollment that will allow a course to run, and for Stephen F. Austin State University (where I teach), the minimum is 10 students. So when I say the courses made, it means I have at least 10 students in the course. And that’s exciting! 🙂

We hope you enjoy this episode!