Are you working hard or hardly working? | Adverbs and data visualization

In this adverbially adventurous episode of Linguistics Behind the Scenes, Christina and Dominic dig deep into one of grammar’s dustiest drawers: the adverb category, which combines such different words as "here", "happily", "very", and around.

- What’s the difference between “working hard” and “hardly working”?
- Why do linguists call adverbs a “dustbin” category?
- What are the three main types of adverb (plus one small miscellaneous pile)?
- How can data visualization with the software R help us sort the chaos?

Along the way, the hosts call attention to the dangers of misleading graphs and reveal how visualization can help with data analysis and the communication of research results.

Full episode transcript available here:

https://www.tu-chemnitz.de/phil/english/sections/edling/sciencecommunication/podcast-transcripts.php#Episode18

Full article available to read for free here:

The subcategorization of English adverbs: A feature-based clustering approach. By Christina Sanchez-Stockhammer and Antony Unwin. https://doi.org/10.60687/2025-0169 .

Mentioned in this episode:

- the software “R”: https://www.r-project.org/

- Antony Unwin: Graphical Data Analysis with R: http://www.gradaanwr.ne