Past Programs
Media, Information and Communication - 2008
In defence of platitudes
15/11/2008
'Like linguistic wallpaper', is how Sian Prior once thought of the category of expressions called platitudes; until she found good reason to use those trite, but true, terms herself.
Speech pathology
11/10/2008
The International Guide to Speech Acquisition provides an overview of how children learn to speak a range of dialects of English, as well as 24 languages other than English. It has been published as a guide for speech pathologists to assist those children with communication disabilities, estimated as 12% of all children in Australia.
On the power of language
26/04/2008
John Hughes reads his essay on the power of all that accretes in language.
Unified English Braille
19/04/2008
The fourth general assembly of the International Council on English Braille has just been held in Melbourne, to discuss the ongoing significance of braille for blind, and other visually-impaired people, in the ever-changing media-rich and increasingly digitally-based environment of our world today.
William Jolley, who attended, tells about how braille is his literacy bedrock, as well as why the relatively new code of Unified English Braille can improve braille communication in so many ways.
Chinglish
01/03/2008
The German Sinologist Oliver Lutz Radtke has a made a study of Chinglish, the name given to the expression of English words in a peculiarly Chinese way that many assume is just 'wrong' English.
Frisson of the new
02/02/2008
The new year is when the words of the year for last year are announced. As a phenomenon they even have their own new word, the acronym WOTY.
While the Americans as well as the Dutch announced their best and favourite WOTYs for 2007 weeks ago, the Macquarie Dictionary Word of the Year Committee announced its winning new word of the year this week and it is 'pod-slurping'.
The People's Choice goes to 'password fatique', a term that also gets a mention in the linguist Ruth Wajnryb's ruminations on neologisms.
Review of new Collins Australian Dictionary
12/01/2008
With a new, the 9th, edition of the Collins Australian Dictionary published last August, how does it compare with others in the market and what more does it offer than previous versions?
This program was first broadcast on 11/8/2007.
