The Importance of Interjections in Language

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As someone who talks for a living I actually happen to use a lot of interjections. It's so much a feature of my speech that I don't know if I'll ever be able to completely eradicate it. When we're in conversation our job is not only the strict literal semantic information that I'm trying to transmit but also the relationship we have with what I'm saying and how I came to that knowledge. We find that when we remove those discourse markers people hear that speech as less friendly and more robotic so we want them in there so you're just friendlier and not a robot.

Language changes, and that's not a bad thing! This week, Adam is joined by sociolinguist Valerie Fridland to uncover how language is much more malleable than we're led to believe, and how the resistance against new slang often disguises an attempt to limit the influence of marginalized communities. Pick up Valerie's book at factuallypod.com/books

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