The Exuberance of Language

3min Snip

00:00

Play full episode

Summary

Transcript

Episode notes

Young people are actually the heart of language evolution more generally. What they're doing with language at a much more subtle structural level is going to be the future of our language in bigger ways. They can pick up vocabulary words which are ephemeral in language so they can use them and then when they're not cool anymore or too many people do it then it's bye bye right I'm not interested but what we don't understand is that young people are making very small tweaks and refinements on their languages.

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

Like the show? Rate Factually! 5-Stars on Apple Podcasts and let Adam know what conversation you'd like to hear next.

Advertise on Factually! via Gumball.fm

SUPPORT THE SHOW ON PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/adamconover

SEE ADAM ON TOUR: https://www.adamconover.net/tourdates/

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.