New Books in Language and Translation

Latest Episodes:

Mary Norris, "Greek to Me: Adventures of the Comma Queen" (Norton, 2020) Feb 22, 2022

Show notes

Mary Norris, The New Yorker's Comma Queen and best-selling author of Between You & Me, has had a lifelong love affair with words. In Greek to Me: Adventures of the Comma Queen(Norton, 2020), she delivers a delightful paean to the art of self-expression through accounts of her solo adventures in the land of olive trees and ouzo. Along the way, Norris explains how the alphabet originated in Greece, makes the case for Athena as a feminist icon, and reveals the surprising ways in which Greek helped form English. Greek to Me is filled with Norris's memorable encounters with Greek words, Greek gods, Greek wine--and more than a few Greek men.

William Domnarski is a longtime lawyer who before and during has been a literary guy, with a Ph.D. in English. He's written five books on judges, lawyers, and courts, two with Oxford, one with Illinois, one with Michigan, and one with the American Bar Association.

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Tony Veale, "Your Wit Is My Command: Building AIs with a Sense of Humor" (MIT Press, 2021) Feb 16, 2022

Show notes

For fans of computers and comedy alike, an accessible and entertaining look into how we can use artificial intelligence to make smart machines funny.

Most robots and smart devices are not known for their joke-telling abilities. And yet, as computer scientist Tony Veale explains in Your Wit Is My Command(MIT Press, 2021), machines are not inherently unfunny; they are just programmed that way. By examining the mechanisms of humor and jokes—how jokes actually works—Veale shows that computers can be built with a sense of humor, capable not only of producing a joke but also of appreciating one. Along the way, he explores the humor-generating capacities of fictional robots ranging from B-9 in Lost in Space to TARS in Interstellar, maps out possible scenarios for developing witty robots, and investigates such aspects of humor as puns, sarcasm, and offensiveness.

In order for robots to be funny, Veale explains, we need to analyze humor computationally. Using artificial intelligence (AI), Veale shows that joke generation is a knowledge-based process—a sense of humor is blend of wit and wisdom. He notes that existing technologies can detect sarcasm in conversation, and explains how some jokes can be pre-scripted while others are generated algorithmically—all while making the technical aspects of AI accessible for the general reader. Of course, there's no single algorithm or technology that we can plug in to make our virtual assistants or GPS voice navigation funny, but Veale provides a computational roadmap for how we might get there.

Galina Limorenko is a doctoral candidate in Neuroscience with a focus on biochemistry and molecular biology of neurodegenerative diseases at EPFL in Switzerland.

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Language Bias: The Last Back Door of Discrimination in America? Jan 27, 2022

Show notes

Hear Dr. Rosina Lippi-Green talk about some of her shocking findings on language discrimination and bias on campus. Lippi-Green and Avi discuss her book English with an Accent: Language, Ideology and Discrimination in the US (Routledge, 2011) and what the academic community can do to be more inclusive of scholars with different levels of English. We also discuss Rosina's transition from researcher to popular novelist.

Avi Staiman is the founder and CEO of Academic Language Experts.

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Nigel A. Caplan, "Grammar Choices for Graduate and Professional Writers" (U Michigan Press, 2019) Jan 26, 2022

Show notes

Listen to this interview of Nigel Caplan, Associate Professor at the English Language Institute, University of Delaware. We talk generically.

Nigel Caplan : "And this sort of brings us to an important point about knowledge and expertise in a discipline. The great genre scholar Doreen Starke-Meyerring said that academic writing tends to be transparent to experts in the discipline, and they forget how opaque it is to novices. So, if you study engineering, biology, philosophy, whatever it is, and you're immersed in that world all the time, it's very easy to believe that that is the only way of writing, because that's the only type of writing you have done for decades. And it quickly becomes, 'Well, that's obviously good writing.' And the idea is, 'Anything else is bad writing.' But experts don't realize what we see as English teachers, especially as teachers in English for Academic Purposes, where we work with students across the disciplines — what we see is that each discipline does have its own way of creating knowledge and communicating that knowledge. But that can be very opaque to a novice. And I think what novices need are the tools to crack open that opacity, and what experts need is a little reminder now and then that good writing is actually not transparent. It is highly contextual, it is something that needs to be learned, it is not natural in any sense. It is not automatically good writing just because you like it and it works in your field."

Visit the Michigan Series in English for Academic and Professional Purposes here. Visit and join the Consortium on Graduate Communication here.

Watch Daniel edit your science here. Contact Daniel at writeyourresearch@gmail.com.

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Matthew C. Watson, "Afterlives of Affect: Science, Religion, and an Edgewalker’s Spirit" (Duke UP, 2020) Jan 21, 2022

Show notes

In Afterlives of Affect: Science, Religion, and an Edgewalker’s Spirit(Duke UP, 2020), Matthew C. Watson considers the life and work of artist and Mayanist scholar Linda Schele (1942-1998) as a point of departure for what he calls an excitable anthropology. As part of a small collective of scholars who devised the first compelling arguments that Maya hieroglyphs were a fully grammatical writing system, Schele popularized the decipherment of hieroglyphs by developing narratives of Maya politics and religion in popular books and public workshops. In this experimental, person-centered ethnography, Watson shows how Schele’s sense of joyous discovery and affective engagement with research led her to traverse and disrupt borders between religion, science, art, life, death, and history. While acknowledging critiques of Schele’s work and the idea of discovery more generally, Watson contends that affect and wonder should lie at the heart of any reflexive anthropology. With this singular examination of Schele and the community she built around herself and her work, Watson furthers debates on more-than-human worlds, spiritualism, modernity, science studies, affect theory, and the social conditions of knowledge production.

Adam Bobeck is a PhD candidate in Cultural Anthropology at the University of Leipzig. His PhD is entitled “Object-Oriented Azadari: Shi’i Muslim Rituals and Ontology”. For more about his work, see www.adambobeck.com.

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N. J. Enfield, "The Languages of Mainland Southeast Asia" (Cambridge UP, 2021) Jan 14, 2022

Show notes

Mainland Southeast Asia is one of the most fascinating and complex cultural and linguistic areas in the world. This book provides a rich and comprehensive survey of the history and core systems and subsystems of the languages of this fascinating region. Drawing on his depth of expertise in mainland Southeast Asia, Enfield includes more than a thousand data examples from over a hundred languages from Cambodia, China, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Thailand, and Vietnam, bringing together a wealth of data and analysis that has not previously been available in one place. Chapters cover the many ways in which these languages both resemble each other, and differ from each other, and the diversity of the area's languages is highlighted, with a special emphasis on minority languages, which outnumber the national languages by nearly a hundred to one. The result is an authoritative treatment of a fascinating and important linguistic area.

Like this interview? If so, you might also be interested in:

Anjalee Cohen, Youth Culture and Identity in Northern Thailand: Fitting in and Sticking Out
Tanya Jakimow, Susceptibility in Development: Micropolitics of Local Development in India and Indonesia
Nicole Curato, Democracy in a Time of Misery: From Spectacular Tragedies to Deliberative Action
Edward Aspinall and Ward Berenschot, Democracy for Sale: Elections, Clientelism, and the State in Indonesia

Professor Michele Ford is the Director of the Sydney Southeast Asia Centre, a university-wide multidisciplinary center at the University of Sydney, Australia.

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Keith Kahn-Harris, "The Babel Message: A Love Letter to Language" (Icon Books, 2021) Jan 07, 2022

Show notes

A thrilling journey deep into the heart of language, from a rather unexpected starting point. Keith Kahn-Harris is a man obsessed with something seemingly trivial – the warning message found inside Kinder Surprise eggs:

"WARNING, read and keep: Toy not suitable for children under 3 years. Small parts might be swallowed or inhaled."

On a tiny sheet of paper, this message is translated into dozens of languages – the world boiled down to a multilingual essence. Inspired by this, the author asks: what makes 'a language'? With the help of the international community of language geeks, he shows us what the message looks like in Ancient Sumerian, Zulu, Cornish, Klingon – and many more. Along the way he considers why Hungarian writing looks angry, how to make up your own language, and the meaning of the heavy metal umlaut.

Overturning the Babel myth, he argues that the messy diversity of language shouldn't be a source of conflict, but of collective wonder. The Babel Message: A Love Letter to Language (Icon Books, 2021) is a book about hope, a love letter to language.

Nathan Abrams is a professor of film at Bangor University in Wales. His most recent work is on film director Stanley Kubrick. To discuss and propose a book for interview you can reach him at n.abrams@bangor.ac.uk. Twitter: @ndabrams

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Exploring Science Literacy and Public Engagement with Science Dec 31, 2021

Show notes

Listen to this interview of Ayelet Baram-Tsabari. We talk about the accessibility of science using Google to scholars and students in languages beyond English and how scholars can de-jargonize their research to ensure increase their reach.

Avi Staiman is the founder and CEO of Academic Language Experts

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From Linear A to Linear B: Suggestive Continuity Dec 29, 2021

Show notes

In this episode, Howard Burton talks with Ester Salgarella, Junior Research Fellow at St John's College, University of Cambridge, about her groundbreaking work on the intriguing relationship between Linear A and Linear B and its consequent sociohistorical implications.

Howard Burton is the founder of Ideas Roadshow and host of the Ideas Roadshow Podcast. He can be reached at howard@ideasroadshow.com.

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Joyce W. Nutta, "English Learners at Home and at School: Stories and Strategies" (Harvard Education Press, 2021) Dec 28, 2021

Show notes

This episode of the New Books in Education features English Learners at Home and at School: Stories and Strategies(Harvard Education Press, 2021), by Joyce Nutta.

Published in 2021 by the Harvard Education Press, English Learners at Home and at School sheds light on the lived experience of English Learners and their families through presenting six research-based and carefully crafted non-fictional stories. Each of the stories centers on an English learner’s immigration and educational journey. Nutta’s inspiring writing offers rich and detailed portraits of these immigrant children and youths, who walked diverse life paths and strived to become proficient English speakers while adapting to their new life in the United States. The book highlights factors in families, schools and communities that contribute to the success of minoritized English Learner students. It also examines and suggests educational strategies that can scaffold English learners’ academic success, such as including establishing dual-language classrooms, adapting instruction, and inviting parent participation.

English Learners at Home and at School helps teachers and policy makers develop a more comprehensive understanding of their English Learner students. It is also a compelling and highly readable text for parents, families, and the general public who are interested in this topic.

Joyce W. Nutta is professor of World Languages Education and the ESOL Endorsement, Dual Language Education Graduate Certificate, and TESOL PhD Track Coordinator at the University of Central Florida. She is devoted to educating teachers of all subjects and grade levels about English learners and to equipping teachers with tools and techniques that support English learners’ academic achievement and language development.

Pengfei Zhao is a critical researcher and qualitative research methodologist based at the University of Florida. She is currently working on a book manuscript studying the coming of age experience of rural Chinese youth during and right after the Cultural Revolution.

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