Word of Mouth
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Word of Mouth
Series exploring the world of words and the ways in which we use them
Episodi recenti
202 episodi
Julia Donaldson: A life in language
Julia Donaldson, author of The Gruffalo and many other beloved children's books, tells Michael Rosen about her own writing, reading, speaking and list...
It's not what you say, it's how you say it
Michael Rosen on the linguistic comfort food of clichés, pragmatics and how we use language to connect us beyond the actual words used. Derek Bousfiel...
The Language of the Manosphere
The 'Manosphere' is a group of loosely affiliated mainly young males who have developed a specialised vocabulary to discuss women online in a negativ...
Crash Bang Wallop: The Sound of Words
Michael Rosen is joined by linguist Dr Catherine Laing to discuss onomatopoeia and other words that sound like their meanings. Not just words for soun...
How to Persuade a Courtroom
Michael Rosen talks to criminal defence barrister Joanna Hardy-Susskind about the legal language of Crown Court cases in England and Wales. From the g...
Keeping My Family's Language Alive
Michael Rosen talks to Samantha Ellis, author of Chopping Onions on My Heart, about her efforts to keep alive the language of her parents: Judeo-Iraqi...
Speech difficulties
Michael Rosen asks what happens to people's sense of identity and social being when speaking becomes hard. Jonathan Cole has interviewed people with c...
The Art of Listening
Michael Rosen talks to sociolinguist Dr Haru Yamada about how we listen in different ways across different cultures and social groups. It's the side o...
Lists
Most of us make lists in some form or other - from essential groceries to reasons to feel positive about life. In this programme Linguistics Research...
The Welsh Language with Huw Stephens at the Hay Festival
In a special recording at the Hay Festival, Michael Rosen talks to bilingual Welsh radio and television presenter Huw Stephens about the Welsh languag...
The language that changed the world
Michael Rosen hears the fascinating story of the origin of all Indo-European languages from Laura Spinney, the author of Proto: How One Ancient Langua...
The End of the Full Stop?
The use of punctuation is rapidly changing within the quickfire back-and-forth of instant messaging. Are these changes causing misunderstandings? Pres...
Street Names
Michael Rosen talks to sociolinguist Philip Seargeant from the Open University about where our street names come from, including Whip-Ma-Whop-Ma-Gate...
Old English, New English
Michael Rosen explores the evocative Old English words used in daily life a thousand years ago, many of which are still in use now. He's joined by the...
Talking Cockney
Michael Rosen's parents both grew up in the East End, and now he talks cockney with Andy Green and Saif Osmani from the Modern Cockney Festival. Inclu...
Creating Languages for Film and Television with Professor David Adger
David Adger is Professor of Linguistics at Queen Mary University of London. He's created new languages for TV series and films and he explains to Mic...
Politeness with Louise Mullany
Professor Louise Mullany talks to Michael Rosen about politeness, and how it governs our lives, from the behaviour of football managers to the differe...
Jackie Kay on the Scots language
Poet Jackie Kay has written a book in Scots: Coorie Doon: A Scottish Lullaby Story. She joins presenter Michael Rosen to talk about her love of the la...
The Language of Genetics
Adam Rutherford joins Michael Rosen to make sense of the heavily-loaded and often unscientific language that we use to talk about genetics, inheritanc...
Susie Dent's World of Words
Susie Dent joins Michael Rosen to talk about her lifelong fascination with words and their origins. It's a programme bringing some apricity, which is...
Social media language
Michael talks to linguist Dr Andreea Calude about her research into how language is used on Facebook, TikTok, YouTube, LinkedIn and Twitter/X. And he...
How Animals Talk
Michael hears from zoologist Arik Kershenbaum about the latest research on how and why different types of animals communicate, from wolves howling to...
A Poet Writing in Three Languages
How best to write about love and other things. Nabeela Ahmed talks about writing in a second language and how her early life in Kashmir shaped the lan...
Fine Distinctions
Eli Burnstein talks about fine distinctions between words, including Michael's personal bugbear of forewords, prefaces and introductions, some clarity...
Former astronaut Col. Chris Hadfield on the language of Space exploration
Colonel Chris Hadfield is a veteran of three spaceflights. He crewed the US space shuttle twice, piloted the Russian Soyuz, helped build space station...
The words we use about getting older and why they matter
How we talk about getting older can affect how we age, both mentally and physically. Michael asks Dr Lucy Pollock for her advice on ageing well and ha...
How babies learn language
Recently a video went viral of a baby talking - or babbling - with a Liverpool accent. Professor Julian Pine from Liverpool University explains how ba...
Little Green Men: the secret rules of word order
Michael explores the mysterious rules of word order with linguist Dr Laura Bailey. We all know them instinctively, without knowing that we know them....
Word of Mouth with Michael Morpurgo at the Hay Festival
Michael meets fellow children's author Michael Morpurgo - author of over 150 books - including Kensuke's Kingdom, Private Peaceful and Warhorse. They...
Language When There Are No Words
Joshua Reno talks about how Charlie, his non-verbal son who is on the autism spectrum, communicates with him very effectively using gestures known as...
The Irish Language
In conversation with Michael about his book "32 Words For Field" Manchán Magan reveals Ireland's deep connection with the landscape expressed through...
Disaster Dialogue
Professor Lucy Easthope explains why language is important in the aftermath of a disaster, why some words are useful and some can be damaging.
P...
Football Club Names
Dominic Fifield explains how football clubs got their names, uncovering a fascinating social history behind the Wanderers, Wednesdays and Villas.
How to Think Like an Anthropologist, with Gillian Tett
"If you want to hide something in the 21st century world, you don't need to create a James Bond style plot. Just cover it in acronyms".
Gillian...
Family Sayings
Michael shares listeners' stories about the words and phrases passed down in their families that they keep using, and what they mean to them. With Rob...
Are you different in another language?
Michael Rosen talks to neuroscientist Dr Julia Ravey about whether we think and act differently when speaking a non-native language.
More and mo...
Words for Sale!
Michael Rosen explores how language has become an online commodity, with Dr Pip Thornton, Chancellor's Fellow at the University of Edinburgh. Dr Thorn...
Unequal English
Michael Rosen is joined by language scholar Ruanni Tupas, to discuss Unequal English - how native English is perceived differently, depending on where...
A Life in Lexicography
Grant Barrett is a lexicographer, linguist, author, editor, founder of Wordnik and Head of Lexicography at Dictionary.com. He also co-hosts A Way With...
Writing Comedy with Isy Suttie
Isy Suttie is an actor and comedian best known for her role in Peepshow and her one woman show Love Letters on Radio 4 as well as many other shows and...