In this episode, we continue our deep dive into language science. We are joined by a fantastic panel of linguists to unpack the foundational debates shaping modern linguistics and cognitive science.


We explore how studying human and animal communication helps define the boundaries of Language, why the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis continues to spark debates over language as a universal human trait versus a product of culture, and how phenomena like the Bouba/Kiki effect fuel the controversy over whether language is innate or acquired. The conversation also tackles the socio-political aspects of defining of languages and dialects, the field's complex ties to colonialism, nationalism, and racism, and the founder effect on linguistics by controversial figures like Noam Chomsky and Steven Pinker.


Professor Indranil Dutta serves as the Dean of the School of Languages and Linguistics, Jadavpur University. He is a computational linguist by training with interests in speech acoustics, motor control, and automatic methods of grammar induction. His research spans areas within acoustic phonetics, computational phonology, and natural language processing.


Dr Remo Nitschke is A postdoctoral researcher in the Distributional Linguistics Lab at the Institute for the Interdisciplinary Study of Language Evolution (ISLE), University of Zurich. His research interests include the intersection of machine learning and linguistic theory, animal communication, and emergent sign languages.


Dr. Charles Redmon is a Lecturer at the School of Language, Literature, and Media (SLLaM), University of Essex. He is a phonologist by training and his research aims to understand the structure and evolution of speech systems, linking the low-level articulatory, acoustic and auditory structures in speech with the higher-level word structures the system must encode.


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