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SBS Australia
7 days ago
- Entertainment
- SBS Australia
Speaking for Two: How Kids Navigate Heritage Language, Culture and Identity
LISTEN TO SBS Audio 26/06/2025 31:58 English Credits: Host: Rune Pedersen joined by Stefan Delatovic Producers: Rune Pedersen at Onomato People, Stefan Delatovic Writers: Rune Pedersen and Stefan Delatovic Artwork: Wendy Tang Post production and sound design: Dom Evans and James Coster at EARSAY SBS Audio team: Joel Supple, Max Gosford, Bernadette Phương Nam Nguyễn Guests: Pey Chi, Artist and Restaurateur. Jim Hlavac, Translator and Interpreter and adjunct senior research fellow at Monash University. Danny Tran, Journalist and Investigative reporter at the ABC. Stefan How humans talk is an SBS podcast recorded on Wurundjeri, country. We pay our respects to the custodians of this land, which has been shaped by stories and language and love for generations. Rune So the problem with doing this podcast is that I now see language phenomena everywhere and a thing I've been thinking a lot about lately is people navigating family, heritage, culture and languages, their first language being English, here in Australia, and their parents having another one. And it's not my experience, but it will be my son's experience. Stefan Well, it's funny, you bring this up. I have this friend, Paige chi, who's this wonderful artist, and recently she stepped away from her arts practice to go and work with her family, running their family restaurant. And I just, I don't know, I always felt like there's a story there that speaks to this phenomenon you're talking about. Rune P Stefan Rune Chapter One, the artist and the restaurant. Pey Chi I am Pey Chi, also known as Peggy. I've sort of got two two names, two lives, so mum's Hopkin and dad's haka. They're sort of like dialect slash people from China. So they both speak those languages, but they didn't speak that at home. They spoke Mandarin and they also spoke English. I think Mum spoke a lot of English to us, and then dad would speak Mandarin, but mostly I would say it's like an English speaking household when we Stefan were growing up, did you learn Mandarin and other Pey Chi We went to me and my sister and my brother would go to Chinese school every Saturday in Box Hill. It was awful. Why was it awful? Why would you want to be Chinese in White Australia? I just wanted to watch home. In a way. I wanted to be a white girl with blonde hair. I did not want to be at Chinese school writing like one word like 100 times. Stefan Is it the kind of experience where you look back on it now and you're glad you went through that? Or do you still like, oh man, Chinese school? Pey Chi No, I well, wish that. I actually. I feel like if I grew up in an environment, Pey Chi I was taught to love my heritage, then maybe I would have appreciated at the time, but at the time, I just didn't want to be there. Stefan How did you feel about the restaurant when you were a kid? Pey Chi It was just there. It wasn't like, I didn't think about it because I, I tried working here when I was in, like, primary school, yeah, but I mean, I would always get takeaway, yep. So I always call up, can I have honey chicken? That's my order. Yeah, honey chicken, Stefan Did your art practice engage with your heritage at all? Pey Chi I think I started off just looking at cute stuff. I think I was really cautious of Orientalizing myself, because I felt like I only enjoyed being Asian later in life. I would say, like, when I like, five years ago, yeah. So really quite fresh. Stefan Does you the artist, communicate differently than you the restaurant tour? Pey Chi Yes, I'm more conservative. Yeah, I feel it was. It's funny going into both spaces now. I don't sometimes I don't feel as politically engaged, because after a shift, I'm just tired, yep, I just want to look at stupid shit or watch like stuff on Netflix. I don't necessarily want to be politically engaged, which I had never thought that was a thing. Like I thought that people who didn't want to be politically engaged were just lazy or just didn't care about the world, but because now I like, understand that, like, Stefan It's hard when you step back into the art world. Like, do you notice that you're are you thinking? Talking differently, and I feel like I have to catch up. Pey Chi Yeah, yeah. I feel like I have to go into more of a politically engaged because my friends in the art world are like, super on top of things. They're doing great work, and I'm not engaged in that on day to day. So yeah, when I, like, when I hung out with them, I'm like, Oh, I just have to switch on a different part of the brain. Whereas here it's, it's not, I don't switch it on at all. It's just about meeting people where they're at, no matter what party, whoever they want to vote for conservative, whether they're white, old, Asian, young, disabled, whatever like. It's just meeting people where they're at, giving them, trying to be friendly, giving them, hopefully, really good service. That's my goal, making people feel comfortable so it's different. Stefan Do you feel more connected to your heritage? 100,000% Pey Chi I think like I only really started expressing my Asian culture when I started working here, I feel like I had to what's the phrase, like, own my chops or something, phrase that's like a biking phrase. That's definitely a thing people say, Okay, I don't know where it comes from. I feel like I have ownership over my heritage more so now I feel like I understand the bigger picture in terms of, like, the Malaysian Chinese diaspora, because my language gets tested all the time here, it also gets questioned a lot. Like aunties and uncles will be like, Why don't you know Hakka? Why don't you know Hopkin? Why don't you know Cantonese? I'm like, mate, I was born here. Like, they don't understand the struggle, right? Of like not wanting to be Asian, so I feel like I sort of have had to prove myself and learn language to understand everything better. Stefan It sounds like you're describing an experience where more regularly speaking that language and understanding the words that people are using connects you more deeply to that heritage. Pey Chi Yeah, yes. It's like, really empowering to like, like, I have this, I've got regulars, and it's really empowering to be like, to code switch and to be like, I don't think I can do it. I can't. It doesn't feel natural to fake it, but obviously it happens, right? We all code switch. My dad code switches. If he came out right now to say hello to you guys, he would be like, Hey mate. How do you know? But he does not talk like that. Yeah, I feel like I just, can you connect better? Because then, like, they see you, like, Code switching is like, sort of a means of, like, okay, like, you're a safe person. For me, I think that's how I perceive it when I use it, when I do code switch, when I do put on my Malaysian Chinese accent, it's saying, like, Oh, I see you. We're both from the same place. I think that's really special, that I get to, like, be in the same place with aunties and uncles and, like, young Asian people who also have Malaysian accents and that like, we get to, like, I get to meet them here and give them food and, like, see them every week or every two weeks. Rune As I was sitting there and eating my delicious food, listening to Stefan and Pei chi having a conversation, it was very clear to me that there is a lot of stuff happening for people navigating different languages and cultures at home andor at work. And when we dive into the language bits of that, it can get a little bit confusing. So before we go on, here is Stefan de ladovic in a bubble bath to explain, Stefan Basically translation, interpretation and language brokering are not the same thing, but most people lump them together like leftover dip at a party. So translation is written. You see it on websites, in contracts, manuals, when you see words jumping from one language to another on paper or screen. That's translation, interpretation, that's spoken, conferences, courtrooms, emergency rooms, it's live. It's real time, and if you mess up, someone might end up in the wrong jail cell or with the wrong medication. Both require accuracy and a code of ethics. It requires the person doing it to be impartial. And neutral. Less formally, we have code switching, like when you drop into a different tone of voice when your boss enters the room, and language brokering, Oh, baby, that's when maybe a kid translates for their parents at the bank, the doctor's office, or in the middle of a tense parent teacher meeting. It's messy, it's beautiful. It's not trained or certified, but it happens every single day. So whenever you hear translation, think text interpretation, think speech code switching. Think Superman changing in the phone booth and language brokering. Think life raw, unfiltered, unpaid and often underappreciated. Got it good. Now get out Rune Chapter two, the language expert train. Translating and Interpreting are obviously difficult and demanding jobs that you study for years to be able to do. I wonder what it's like for a kid to be doing that. I wanted to talk to an interpreter or translator to find out more. Jim I'm Jim Hlavac and I'm an interpreter and translator. Oh, convenient. What skills are children using to be good language brokers, Jim Mediation skills, how to interact, how to be the intermediary between people. That's what mediators do in in court, for example, in tribunal, hearings, etc, per hearing, they're working between two parties. The the interests that they're protecting are their parents, typically, and their own children have a sense of what they're doing, how they're doing it and and that what they do does not endanger or jeopardize their relationship with others. So they're developing really high level soft skills to interact with people. Yes, they're also developing their linguistic skills, because just because you're bilingual does not make you an automatic interpreter and translator. You actually have to practice and learn and perfect the skill of moving seamlessly from language, from one language into another without any thinking time. Virtually, they're also acquiring world knowledge, so they're actually exposed to interactions in scenarios which are typically only reserved for adults, and this can include, let's say, medical results. This can include discussions with a lawyer about if there's been a car accident or there's an insurance claim, etc. So you know, children, before their time, become exposed and have to be protagonists. They're speaking. They're interacting in these interactions in a way which lot of other children are spared. So it doesn't happen to other children who grow up, perhaps monolingually, that they're that they find themselves in these situations which are otherwise reserved for adults. Rune What kind of psychological or emotional effect can that have on on a child that younger or adult being the voice of their parents, Jim it varies on the child. There are lots of children who who do this easily. They don't think anything about it. They don't for them. It's no big deal if I have to do it, okay, whatever, and we'll get it over and done with. This is all part of me, being a member of the family. And so there are children who talk about they're actually feeling empowered. And they are empowered in that they occupy a role that children in monolingual families typically don't occupy. They become the go to person in the family for so many things. On the other hand, there are some children who don't like it, who feel uncomfortable, who don't like the emotional stress, who feel overwhelmed and like they don't know they honestly, they often don't know what to do. In some situations, when it's a jam, let's say there's a criminal charge against the father and there's a summons which arrives in the mail. They have to read it. They find out something which they probably didn't want to find out. They then have to side translate this to the parents or to whoever, and then they they might that might precipitate conversations between them and the parent about what happened, what's what's going to happen when if they approach a lawyer, what have you? So does put children in a situation where sometimes they don't feel so comfortable, and some people, some children also talk about, I simply don't have the linguistic skills to fully render this this complex, let's say insurance jargon. I'm. I just can't do this, so I'll just pick and choose certain certain points that I can convey, and that's all that I pass on, but that can have obviously dangerous consequences for for the parents, so it's a risky business as well. Rune Are there any sort of advice or guidelines for parents that who rely on children to do this, this interpretation to help keep the relationship and arrangement healthy Jim in the first place, they should be told that there are for lots of interactions. There are professional interpreters available, and they should be using those services if they go to hospital. Now it's hospital policy to not allow family members to broker, and instead, a professional interpreter is needed for many reasons, firstly, to make sure that there's accuracy. Brokers are not obliged to be accurate. As I said, they often don't. They don't do it. It's not that they intentionally want to be inaccurate, but they simply can't, or don't feel that they should convey what is being said by one person entirely to the other. They change things, they leave things out, what have you. Secondly, they can be in situations, particularly medical ones, when they're exposed to things that they should not be. If it's an intimate medical issue that one of their parents has. Then, is it their place to be there? That's the one piece of advice. The other thing is, though, these these linguistic skills, which brokers do display, qualify them well to well, we should encourage them to continue their acquisition of the what we call here in Australia, their heritage language fairly soon after starting school, English becomes their dominant language, and the other language doesn't develop at the same level, compared to, let's say, homeland speakers. So they need to be provided with encouragement, resources and to attend formal instruction in the language where that is possible because they have they're already developing a great set of linguistic skills. These need to be cultivated because they can actually have a profession that they could walk into later on after engaging in training and and so forth. So we squander our linguistic resources in this country by not enabling young children to take the acquisition and learning of their parents heritage language further, and not enabling them to become language teachers, translators, interpreters, and we perform so badly. Rune in this respect, internationally, Australian businesses, companies go overseas and don't even think of taking interpreters, translators with them. They don't even think of translating the taxation laws, the company licensing laws, etc. Rune Why do you think that is why do we squander those skills in Australia? Is it an attitude thing? Is it a funding thing? Jim English is the unquestioned number one language in the world. There are a lot of people in this country who think people should just speak English and everything will be easier. Look, all migrants to Australia know that they it's in their advantage, to their advantage, to acquire English, but speaking another language is an asset in many ways, cognitively, in terms of career options, where the proficiency in another language is an asset, which can be the difference between you getting a job mobility and also having points of reference to compare, let's say, English speaking Australian culture, with something else. If you have a point of reference, you're actually richer and more insightful human, human being, typically, because you've grown up with these, these two different ways of looking at things, of expressing things. Rune I'm already sensing now that my my Danish, is getting old. Oh, it's it's stuck in time in a weird way. And I haven't been out for that long. Could you speak to that topic? Because I know it's also a thing in Australia that you have people coming from one country, and then they carry over a language, and then you have new migrants arriving, and the languages are different, Jim that's right. So to give a case which has been well studied, there are lots of migrants from Italy who left in the 1950s and they might have only spoke spoken a dialect, or spoken a regional variety of Italian, and they've been here for 60 years, and there might be newcomers from that area, from Italy, who speak quite differently. They're more likely to speak a more standard variety of Italian. The dialect might. Dialects also change as well. They're not just fossilized, things that stay in the same way forever. They're also dynamic. There are lots of manners as. Lots of metaphors, lots of references to popular culture, TV shows, stars, music, etc, which you index, which you talk about all the time, because it's, it's, it's what your recollections from from that period were, and they're totally different from these more recent groups, as opposed to the the older ones. So that's it will get if you like rusty. But what that means, and I'm encouraging you to consider passing Danish onto your son, is the challenge is, is to keep up with media, with language resources for kids in Danish, or whichever language it is that the parents wish to, wish to, to pass on to their children, because it's important that the children receive a model of the language, which is not just an immigrant who departed 2030, years ago, but the language that they speak has a whole society where people speak it and what they're doing, and there's other people out there who speak this language, other than my parents, so that the parent the child can see that this has broader horizons than my my child parent relationship. So that's that's a challenge, though. It's not easy, particularly because Australia is geographically so far away from other places, it's not that easy to travel. But media has done, you know, electronic media has enabled us to to access television and videos and lots of all sorts of things, you know, kind of from overseas. So there are fewer obstacles now for you to keep up contemporary Danish. Rune Yeah. I Okay, yeah. Point taken. Chapter Three, the communicator. After talking to Jim about how language can get stuck in time, I wanted to hear from someone who's lived the experience. So I met up with Danny Tran an ABC investigative reporter who communicates for a living, but also grew up in Australia, navigating two worlds and two languages. Danny I, you know, as an adult, I've shown a little bit more interest in learning about Vietnamese. So it was at my, my wife's suggestion, that we get a tutor from Vietnam. She started at first her Vietnamese has become quite good, and mine is, mine isn't still not fantastic. But we got a tutor from Hanoi, and just having a chat to her, you realize how much language has developed over time. Because when the Vietnamese refugees came to Australia, their language stopped developing. So as a result, if you listen to, you know, for example, me Speak in Vietnamese. It sounds like, Hey, comrade, groovy. It's the language has stopped developing in the same way that the French in Canada, the COVID Choir is extremely old, because you're not really getting new media in that language, at least not for quite some time before the internet became a thing, right? So the materials that you have from quite some time ago, the speakers that you have learned Vietnamese or any other language at a certain point in time, and then they stopped speaking to new people and being involved in a society where the language was actively developing because the word that I called my father in Vietnamese Gul it's like, an extremely old fashioned word. It's sort of like, not really, dad. It's like, kind of like Uncle. And the difference, you know, normal young Vietnamese people in Vietnam would not call their parents this. And when my wife mentioned it to this tutor in Hanoi. She was just like, what word she use? She said it again. She was like, that word has was used by extremely wealthy families in literally, the 40s and the 50s. Like that word is not used even the word for like Asia, right? So the word for Asia that we've always used growing up here was agile, and it turns out that in the time since my parents got to Australia, decades ago, the word has been flipped around Vietnam. It's now Jo a I wouldn't have had any clue at all when you know the last time I visited Vietnam, I would have sounded insane, like an old timey monopoly man trying to get by the city being like, Excuse me, sir. Rune Yeah, I was thinking that before. When you said it like, paternalistic father. Danny I literally think it's kind of like, Papa, hello, Papa. That's fun. See, I mostly speak to people here, and I don't often. Can speak to someone with modern day Vietnamese other than this teacher. And she's very, she's very kind of, very gentle that I think she knows that the people who are seeking her out are speaking time capsule Vietnamese. So she's like, Oh, the word we actually use is this, or this is the modern word. And it's always so enlightening, because I'm like, Oh, so you flip these words around, or that this word doesn't exist anymore, or this word is now a slur. Rune Danny Yeah, you do. You do want to know that, and you don't realise also. The other thing is that when language is stuck, the ideas from that time are dragged forward, right? You 50s, when it was happening, it was completely fine to refer to that, and that's why you gotta really be careful, because there are all these political sensitivities the language has developed. So is the political situation, and so is the definitions of what's appropriate and what isn't appropriate, and when you're stuck unknowingly, and you go to another country and you try to use that language, that becomes really complex. Thankfully, I did not find to set myself in a position, and I try not to use slurs, but wow, okay, I wish I knew, and it's hard, because in when you're speaking your first language and you're fluent, there's really no excuse for that, right? Because culturally, you should understand the problems or the issues or the situation, and you're also fluent in that language, and there's nothing stopping you from researching library cards free, right? The internet is right. There you can go and work out exactly what you're saying, the means are which and the implications that you're making, but in when it's a second language, and you may not be attuned to that, you might be learning by yourself, or you might be relying on somebody else's interpretation, and culturally, you're not 100% there, but you're trying your best. That is a little bit more complex. I'm not saying it's an excuse, but it's certainly something that you should be aware of, what the words you're saying are actually meaning, because you are a language learner at the end of the day. Rune So growing up in Melbourne and being a child of immigrant parents, did you ever have to help your parents navigate the English speaking system? Danny My parents were both professionals, so less so, but my grandparents, yes, yeah. So my grandmother didn't speak English, but my grandfather did English lessons. When he came to Australia, he actually learned English by watching the ABC, and I still remember watching some of these shows with him, where he practiced. And I'm pretty sure that I also learned by watching the ABC as well. So it's a very nice full circle moment. But you know, sometimes it'd be difficult, because you'd be at school and he'd pick you up and they'd want to say something, you'd have to act as the go between. It was a lot of pressure for a kid, especially now in hindsight, when I realized my Vietnamese wasn't that good, and I can't really express what a translator would express, right? Because when it comes to translation, you have to be on the ball, right. You have to be really careful about how you convey meaning. And I suspect that I was my Vietnamese, and what the meanings that I were conveying were probably like 80 to 90% correct, but not fully. I suspect that I did because I wanted the interaction to be over, because I was embarrassed about being Vietnamese and being different. You want to speed it up, you want to get it over with? Rune Yeah, okay, because, okay, let's, let's not, let's not be different. Danny Yeah, let's not be different. Whereas I feel like these days it's less so, you know, they it's just the fact of the matter that you know a lot of people you know didn't grow up speaking English, and it's not that big of a deal. Whereas back then it was like, do I have to do this again? It didn't happen too often, but the times that it had happened, I can't remember the instances, but I remember the feeling that rose up with me, which was, Rune okay, yeah, could you expand on that? Like, what were you? Were you thinking and what we would you feel? Danny I think going back, do you sort of feel? You just feel incredibly self conscious about having to act as a go between having to act as a broker. Now, in hindsight, I realised that part of what I was feeling was also trepidation and not having the level correct level of Vietnamese. My English was fine at that point in time, but my Vietnamese had already started deteriorating, and not having the right thing, right level of Vietnamese being able to express that probably caused me, you know, a frustration that I couldn't articulate at the time, and also you were just conscious of being looked at. You know, this is, this is around the time that you know the phrase stop the Asian invasion was happening, and you know, you're a child, but you become conscious of that, Rune of course, so you're standing out on the street, right? Danny Like it would often be in some kind of semi public situations where you would have to to do this kind of other school on the street, or something like that. Or if it happened, if people count the door and it was just, it was just too much for a kid to handle, Rune What would you what would you say to someone, someone like yourself that's in a similar situation now that has to do this kind of brokering. Danny Everyone's trying their best, and so are you, and that's the most important thing here. You may not have the perfect level of language. You may not be able to say exactly what you want to say, but what you're doing is probably acting out of love, acting out of kindness, and just try your best. There's nothing to be embarrassed about that's just that. That's something don't let, don't let what happen. To me, be dragged into where you are at the moment. I know it feels that way, but you shouldn't be embarrassed about who you are. Your culture that does horrible damage to you. Rune How humans talk is produced and written by Rune Pedersen from Onomato People, and Stefan Delatovic. Post Production and Sound Design was done by Dom Evans and James Custer at Earsay. The SBS team is Joel supple, Max Gosford and Bernadette Phương Nam Nguyễn, and our artwork is by Wendy Tang. Follow and review us wherever you find your podcasts.
SBS Australia
19-06-2025
- Entertainment
- SBS Australia
How Doctors Talk
SBS Audio 19/06/2025 35:41 Credits: Host: Rune Pedersen joined by Stefan Delatovic Producers: Rune Pedersen at Onomato People, Stefan Delatovic Writers: Rune Pedersen and Stefan Delatovic Artwork: Wendy Tang Post production and sound design: Dom Evans and James Coster at EARSAY SBS Audio team: Joel Supple, Max Gosford, Bernadette Phương Nam Nguyễn Guests: J. White, Director of Bedside Manners Pty Ltd. + Maria Dahm, Senior Lecturer at Deakin University.
SBS Australia
12-06-2025
- Entertainment
- SBS Australia
How Voice Actors Talk
SBS Audio 12/06/2025 37:44 Host: Rune Pedersen joined by Stefan Delatovic Producers: Rune Pedersen at Onomato People, Stefan Delatovic Writers: Rune Pedersen and Stefan Delatovic Artwork: Wendy Tang Post production and sound design: Dom Evans and James Coster at EARSAY SBS Audio team: Joel Supple, Max Gosford, Bernadette Phương Nam Nguyễn Stefan: How humans talk is an SBS podcast recorded on Wurundjeri Country. We pay our respects to the custodians of this land, which has been shaped by stories and language and love for generations. Stefan: All right, we're almost halfway through the season of this podcast, and I think it's time that we really ramp up promotion. Rune: Yeah, let's get some listeners. Stefan: Okay, so how do we do this? I think we should focus on the benefits of listening and all the things that people can be learning Rune : Or hear me out. We could bring some drama. Rune: In a world where you're always listening and never sure why you bought that blender. This week on How humans Talk. I The Master Crafter, Rune Pedersen, dives deep into the shimmering, slippery world of voices on air. So what do you think? Well, I think we need to hear from a professional With radio Renegades Stefan Delatovic and the queen of vocal seduction herself, Abbe Holmes, we'll teach you how voice actors sell the things you don't need, with voices you wish you had. Rune Pedersen: [Laughter] Why do people, why do commercial radio sound kind of like this. I don't know how I did. Abbe: Yeah, that's right. That's right. In a world now, that's the guy. His name was, I can't remember, is an American guy. He died probably a decade ago. He was really, he was the big voice guy in America. He wouldn't he made a school in dollars. He was driven to the studios in a Rolls Royce, you know, had his own driver and everything. He was quite extraordinary. And many people have tried to emulate him. In fact, there is still that he's that big sort of, you know, movie voice, right, Rune Pedersen: 80s, 90s, movie voice, action hero voice, really, Abbe: that is the very first kind of voiceover used when radio first began. So in America and Europe, right when it began, it was the announcer voice. That was what it was termed, and that's because what the voiceover artist was actually doing was making an announcement, and they were mostly shows that were sponsored. So it was like, 'welcome to the velvet show. Get someone your body today', and then they would go to the show, right? So we still do that. We still have the announcer voice. So it's a very stylized way of writing, because you wouldn't say that in conversation. Welcome to, Oh, welcome to the Body show. Get someone your body tonight. It's not the way humans speak, if you know what I mean? Rune Pedersen: Yeah, no, I know because I look at the or I listen to Australian radio all the time when I drive the car, and then some once in a while when there's, like an announcement of a new show, a game show, or something like that, it can even slip into sort of more commercial stuff, where they're just trying to make it really exciting. Obviously, you don't see that exaggerated, but you do still see it. You still do still hear it. And I'm like, wow, it's like, so post-apocalyptic. Abbe: Absolutely! And they call that style promo style. And you hear it with all of the television stations, all of the network stations that do their own branding tonight, on seven you know, it's whatever they're saying. It's not the way we speak. It's designed to be to somehow pull us into whatever that program is going to be for them. And as you said, you know, it's something exciting, something great. It's going to be the best. Rune Pedersen: Hi, Abbe, could you tell the audience and myself who you are and what it is you do? Abbe: Well, I'm Abby Holmes, and I've been a voice over artist for over 50 years, and I know that's a lot of time, but I was kind of lucky back there in the 70s, before voice over and the landscape that it is now became that way. It was very small, mostly populated by very produced Male Announcer voices or rocky jockeys that worked on a radio station, and very few females. And if there were females, they would usually be speaking in what's called, and still called Australian theatrical standard where they had. A kind of a fey, slightly English style voice. If you were trained as an actor in those days, that's how you spoke. Everybody spoke like that on the stage, and that's what you heard. And so I hit a job in admin at a sound recording studio in Melbourne when I was 18, and I was in the right place at the right time for the new sweep of advertising that was beginning, which was, let's get real sounding people to do these jobs. We don't want announcers or, you know, we don't want, we want real people. And so I was just there with a very strange little voice that sounded a bit like this. So it was a high pitched voice. I still got work that I did back in those days, and I listened to and I think, Wow, isn't that amazing how the voice changes? But of course, that's what it had to do. It had to change. So I started out in commercial advertising, so I got a great deal of that work. So I learned how to behave in the studio. I learned microphone technique, and I started to understand, of course, I was working in a sound recording studio where a lot of the work was jingles for commercials. So back in the 70s and 80s, jingles were we'd have half and I worked in the music studio, we'd have half the MSO there. We'd have Billy hard drum clinic come up with a van full of percussion instruments. We'd have an eight piece vocal backing group and a lead singer, we'd have a horn player, we'd have a vibes player, we'd have violins. It was an incredible expense. That's where I got my experience. And when I left seven years after I'd started that job to become a voice over artist, I just thought, hmm, advertising is really changing, and that's growing as we became different kind of consumers. So I did things for Maya Miss shop and Big M, which was a milk and a Sports Girl and things like that. And then it grew and grew and grew and grew. So then I worked in animation in the 80s, and I also started to do what's now called non commercial work. Then it was called Corporate. So you would voice a video or a training film or a how to then I did some audio books. And really it's only been in the last half a dozen years that I've moved into adult titles for audio books now that we record them in Australia, because before that, audible didn't record Australian titles with Australian people. If they were in the UK or the states, they would record them there, but they had to be living there. So you get a lot of early titles that are done by New Zealanders or English people, or, for goodness sake, Americans, doing Australian accents. It just never works. It never works those Americans. So that's me. That's what I've been doing. And I coach too. Rune Pedersen: I mean, that's prompt several questions for me. In the last 50 years doing this work, you mentioned the different things you worked into. But how has the voice changed from you, like the commercial voice or the voice acting? What's your experience there? Abbe: Well, my really, I had that little voice, which was very popular. This little voice, I mean, very popular in voice over for the young things, right? Then I started to train as an actor in my 20s, and I would get work in my 20s, still looking fairly young, and I would get some work. And then in my 30s, I would still get auditions. And thankfully, one director gave me some feedback via my agent and said, We love Abby coming to audition for us, but she needs to know that the voice is not matching the body anymore. So I was rolling up auditioning for the role of a mum with a couple of little kids, but I sounded like a kid sister who was 16, and all of a sudden I went, Oh yes, it was like that real gotcha moments like, wow, I need to do something about that. So I was also working in theater, and I'd had young roles, but then I thought, well, this is my this is another place for me to start training my voice. How do I speak to an audience in a theater room that's very different from the work that I do as a voiceover artist, which is actually very intimate. The recording that you do as a voiceover artist is a bit like you're sitting next to a friend just having a chat one on one. And when I started to work in theater, that really changed it. And of course, I worked with voice coaches who it was all about the breath and about understanding how to carry, how the voice carries, although apparently I do have one of those voices that carries very well. It's like, you know, the kind of advertising that I do now, the voice jumps out of the television so much I do. Spotlight is one of my big regular clients. Now, people listening might go spotlight, but there's that really young girl, and it is really quite a young voice, one that I created 30 years ago when spotlight were looking for a brand voice, and so the reason I got it was that my voice, somebody's on television. In and the commercials come on and think, Oh, bloody commercials. I'm going to put the kettle on, but I'll follow them out of the room all the way to the kitchen, and they can still hear that bloody spotlight out, you know? And that's just, who knows? It's not something I'm doing, it's only something that is about the tone of my voice, or something about the way my voice resonates on that electronic, recorded medium, okay, okay, that makes sense. In my 30s, when I started to do more theater, my voice started to change. But there was something else that I'd been doing for a long time, too. I had been listening and capturing for my memories, my memory bag of voices, how people speak. You know, one of the first voices that I thought going on a tram from the city back to South Melbourne, there was a woman on the tram, and she was, you know, not much older woman, and I couldn't see her, but I could hear her, and she was down the back of the tram, you see, and she's chatting to a friend like this, and then, and she's talking about her little puppy dog and how it wasn't well, and all that sort of thing. And I'm thinking about this woman. I'm thinking, I thinking, She's the most fabulous voice I can see. That woman, I'm not looking at her, and I thought, well, that's how you create characters for animation. You have to it has to be a believable thing. Because it can't be just the words. It has to be the character, you know, and that's the same thing with any kind of voice over I do. I mean, I've got my Abbe Holmes way I speak, so I'm speaking like Abbe Holmes now. But if you listen to my work, you probably wouldn't hear this voice at all, because every script requires a different way of speaking, depending on who I'm talking to and what I'm trying to sell on behalf of the clients, not me selling it. I'm just the messenger. And, you know, what? What do they want? What, what, and what am I trying to convince them of? So, you know, that's how it really grew and changed. And all of a sudden I thought, oh, gosh, I've, I've got a bit of a career here doing this, and I love it. It's amazing. Rune Pedersen: It's definitely super interesting. It is, how do you create a character? Because I'm saying that because I've so I've done some theater and improv theater in my past, right? And I sort of, I'm not saying I'm great at it. I'm just saying I learned that. You know, to create characters on stage, there's a trick you could do, and that was to lead with a body part. So for example, now I can lead with my teeth here. And I don't know what's gonna come out, but I can. I'm leaning, leaning my head forward, my neck forward, and then suddenly my teeth are sitting here, now and now. Now, I'm talking a little bit like this, yes. So now I'm a character named I bend over forward, and suddenly I'm, I don't know now, I'm age, yeah, I'm different age now, right? And I'm this person, and my whole sort of body is changed. And, yeah, how do you go about? It's very Abbe: similar. Because, of course, it's different, if it's theater and it's the 100% you so it really is lead from the lead from the head, lead from the nose, lead from the chest. You know, it's all of those kinds of things are useful for creating a character. But when you get into into voice over, or animation, or anything like that, first of all, you know, in animation, you begin with a graphic of the character you're voicing. So a lot of the clues will come from the body or the face, especially the mouth, you know, like if you've got a little little, okay, so we've got a little old man, and he's just got a little, tiny, windy mouth, and he's just not very expressive, if you know what I mean. So that's the character. Then you capture the character the same with a girl who's got a big lips, big red cheeks, great big eyes. She's so bright. You know, you just can't, you just can't knock it. Really, she's so amazing. I see the character. So I look at the picture and I see the character, I think, well, what kind of voice am I going to create that is believably coming out of that mouth. But when you're doing a voiceover, where you're just the disembodied voice, you actually in the commercial world. I was slipped from animation to commercials. In the commercial world, it's your job to actually do all of the stuff that an a visual would do. You have to actually voice a visual, you know, and that's called voice that is voice acting. Voice over is just a voice over a commercial. Voice acting is done on probably only the key words and key phrases in that commercial. I'll give you an instance, right? I think of a line from a commercial. It's for a bank. I remember it because it's an existing commercial. First of all, read the line just as a voiceover. If you're feeling anxious about getting a home loan, that's just a part of it, right? That was me just just reading it. But there's a word in that line, anxious, and that's the emotional word, and so you feel it. So if you're being anxious about getting a home loan, then that's like the person out there listening on the other so the radio, yeah, that's me. I'm anxious about getting the right home loan, whereas before, if you're feeling anxious about getting the right home loan, there's not enough weight on the really important word that's going to engage the listener. So you know that's really what what we're doing in voiceover, because, of course, we're talking to in the commercial world, a half listening audience. Nobody wants to hear the commercials boring. They just tune out unless the voiceover artist can use the language, in a sense, a facsimile of the way they speak or the way they hear things, and capture their attention, because the advertiser is only interested in the people who are the commercial is for, you know. So we have to use that technique, and most scripts are written to capture us in the very first line. I call it the bait phrase, right? The very first line of a script where what you will hear is often who we are, who you're speaking from or behalf of, or this is in a kind of announcer style script. And then what the problem is, because there's a thing in advertising, there's a wonderful strategy. It's called the problem solution technique, right? And is, first of all, they present the problem, and then they they tell you the solution, and that's how they capture you. In 15 seconds. You want me to do you a version. I'll do an ad that I made up years ago. Yeah. Rune Pedersen: Oh, this is a made up one. Abbe: This is a made up it's not a real ad, but just just to show you, and this will be very recognisable to people. So this is, this is actually capturing the facsimiles of the way that we use language when we're feeling a certain way. And so commercials are written around that a lot. So the thing about the the way we we are in life is if we're feeling unhappy, we use a lot of downward inflections, like in an instant psycho Oh, hi. How are you? Oh, not too good. I actually slipped off the curb and I've broken my ankle. Downward inflection two weeks later. Oh, hi. How are you? Oh, yeah, great, great. I got the plaster off my ankle the other day. Upward inflection. So it's totally different thing. So problem, solution, that structure follows those same things. So here's a little pretending ad with a product. Do you suffer from dry, flaky skin, downward inflection? I do, and I have done for years, and I couldn't find anything to get rid of it all problem. Can you hear all those downward inflections? Yeah. Now if you suffer from dry, flaky skin, you will be listening now, yeah, that's Rune Pedersen: kind of neutral, almost right now, like now the announcer is almost neutral. Yeah, that's Abbe: right, exactly. Well, supposed to be natural. This is supposed to be conversational, rather than announcer. It's like a real person. Do you suffer from dry flaky skin? I do, and I have done for years, and I couldn't find anything to get rid of it. Solution. Then I discovered dry flaky skin off. I've been using it for two weeks, and my dry flaky skin is all gone. See how it goes from not only problem sad, I can hear and in and in advertising, it's like problem really, really sad and solution really, really happy. And so because you've got that half listening audience, you have to find a way to just go, yeah. And so they'll go, oh, dry, flaky, skin off. Must get some sold it. Yeah, so understanding that as a voice over artist is really important, because we are mimicking the way people actually behave in life. I think what voice Good, good voice over artists understand is that this is not about reading words. That's not the way we speak. So we have to find ways to get through the language and sort out which parts of that sentence are the most important parts, and we run things together. I mean, you could say things like, I'm going to the city today. Okay, I am going to the city today. That doesn't sound like a real person speaking. We don't speak like that. No, I am needs a contraction. That means it can become I'm that's natural. That's why we sit. We don't say I am going. We say I'm going, or I'm gone. I am going to the city today, to we don't say to in natural speak, I'm going to the city, to I'm going to the city, so it's very light. I'm going to the city just sounds like I'm speaking, and it sounds like everybody else speaking. So unless you can understand that, then you are not that is not how people speak. It's not how humans speak. Rune Pedersen: So what do you do then, as a voiceover artist, and a script lands on your desk, because I would imagine that you would have some poorly written scripts, yeah, what do you do? Abbe: Getting a bad script is difficult. It still happens to me. It doesn't. Come from commercial area. It comes from the non commercial area. So it will come from a small company doesn't have a budget very don't want to use a studio. Want to get a voice artist who can do it from their home studio, and just send it to them. And you will get the script you're saying, oh my goodness, it's full of work. It'll say, and whilst you are looking at our store, you will discover, you know, it's like, who says whilst anymore? So you'll get that kind of writing. You'll get ambiguity. It's like, well, what does that actually mean? It could mean two things. So also very long, and it's the words that you don't need. And as a writer, of course, that's one of my bents, going back to edit my writing and getting rid of all the words you don't need, and they'll look at a sentence and I'll take out six words that just superfluous. We don't just don't need them there for the message. And so that can be one of the really big problems with the script. And often you will get a client who says, no, no, just read it as it is. Boy, that's a hard one, because now I must make clunky language sound like that's absolutely natural to me, and this is actually the way I speak. Boring, yeah, so, and that can be really challenging. So those scripts can be very challenging for the the uninitiated of I guess I'll say that. I mean, I know how to look at a script, or also know how to say to that client, I do it. When I speak this line, I say, does that sound a bit clunky to you? There may be something to do with grammar. Now, grammar is a funny thing in voiceover, because there are grammar rules. Yeah, that's all fine, but sometimes the wrong piece of grammar will sound right. So sometimes you have to question, you know, I know this grammar is correct, but it's sounding wrong, or I know the grammar is wrong but it's sounding sounding Correct. You know, so little things like that. So you really have to work with somebody, because often they will have written the script and never heard it off the page. So now we'll talk about the conversion of written word into spoken word. So that's a very different thing. There's a huge gap between written word and spoken word. For one thing, written word is written with punctuation. You know, there are commas and full stops and all kinds of little things in there that you know, we have to have as all we use as a convention in written word, but when you're converting it to spoken word, we do not speak in punctuation. I mean, I just ignored a full stop. Can stop in the sentence whenever I want to. You know what? I mean, it's that kind of thing. Yeah. So that's hard to to follow. You never, ever follow punctuation or use punctuation to guide you. As a voiceover artist, you always question it. Oh, should that comma be there? Oh, no, I think it should be actually there. That makes more sense to pause it, or I need to add a pause there. So I'll put a comma there. You know, where you wouldn't have written it that way, but you need to perform it that way. As a voice artist, so Rune Pedersen: when you're done sitting with this commercial task and there, there might not be a character, right? Like, as in, when you're doing a voiceover for an animation that's already character, do you then create a character for the brand? Like, in, in your head, in a way, like, these are the values. This is how they look. This is the feel. Yeah, Abbe: That still occurs to me, but I've always done it any script. No, there are probably some scripts I don't which are much more announcer style, much more stylized writing, but if it is something very naturalistic and it's more like a conversation, then I will sometimes feel that I am. I'm actually looking at the script, and I'm reading through the words. I know the words, I'm familiar with them, but I'm looking at the words you never learn the lines and say them. You're always staying with the words. That's where your focus has to be. And in my head, I'm imagining the character who does not look like me. It's almost like I'm working a marionette or a puppet, right? So that is the character. And of course, the characters don't have to look anyway. Specifically, they just have to be not me. Rune Pedersen: And now a quick trip to the production booth where recordings, translations, deadlines and delusion often collide. Stefan: Here's your script. It's exactly 15 seconds. We don't have a budget to go over. Nothing complicated. Just translate it literally into Danish. Add Local charm, double the jokes, halve the words, and make it faster, but importantly, slower. Rune Pedersen: So, so you want me to you want me to translate this now that's going to be twice as long. Are you even paying me for this? Stefan: Mate, that's above my pay grade? Just make sure that Dutch will find it delicious. I need a mix and a master by the end of the day. Stefan: We're re recording sound sultry. Go. You. Abbe: It's a translation that runs over then because it because you are actually translating purely the language into the other language, and it runs too long. That is really about rewrite the script or or look at now what the script says in translated language and shrink that, you know? I mean, that's what has to happen. I would imagine I've done a lot of dubbing as a voiceover artist, done a lot of dubbing off foreign films where you're actually working in the studio and you can see the character, and it may be, a lot of Asian films get voiced in Australia for the American market. So we're often doing American accents, but what they do is, we use a tool, and as soon as the person starts speaking, you see the little little like a little red thing on the on the screen, because you're watching the person, and you've got your lines underneath it on on the screen, so you see them, so you're watching the person and how their mouth moves. I mean, I've seen some shows that have been dubbed into English, and it's amazing how succinct it all is, but if you listen to it without the translation, you'll get a very different reading and different language being used. Do you try Rune Pedersen: to emulate the mouth movements, well, as much Abbe: as you can. And that's what the translator has done. Has said, Well, I have to say, you know, I'm not going to get there. That's what the person is saying. I'm not going to get there. But she takes a long time to say I'm not going to get there in Korean. And what we have to say is I don't think I'm going to get there. You know what? I mean? There will have to be some other and you will look at the mouth, you will look at what works with it, and there's a lot of beats and pauses and breaths, so you have to kind of something will be sped up, and something will go a little slower. So there's that kind of work. So it's really finessing that Rune Pedersen: that speech, because it all has to fit into the character as well. Abbe: And of course, you have to be in character, yeah? So if it's a young girl, or it's a child, or it's a you know, I mean, you get that kind of work if you're versatile and you can handle multiple characters. And it's great. Works, really interesting. I like it because it's such a big challenge. It's a very challenging kind of work. Rune Pedersen: So when we when we talk about the power of ads, right, there's this seductive element to ads and the way you're talking, you could even call it manipulation, like, are you trying to make us want something, or what do you see a role? Abbe: Well, it's true, seduction and manipulation. I use that term a lot because that is actually what's happening with advertising. It is seduction and manipulation. I mean, the seduction is really in often, the choice of the voice. It is seductive for young girls to listen to a voice that sounds just like them. That's a seduction, okay, the manipulation is the purely the language that's used that actually will make you want something, because it says kind of like, if you get this, this will happen. It's that sort of, it's the language of manipulation, you know, wow. Okay, okay, so there's two separate things. So there is seduction and manipulation. They're both working in tandem, but they're sort of coming from different places. It's quite Rune Pedersen: interesting that the seduction is in the in the recognition of oneself. Abbe: We're thinking about it more of I'm I'm like, you way, so I'm pulling you into my gang. You are part of something that that you want to be or have or do, and that's really the way advertising works in that seductive way. Yeah. Rune Pedersen: Okay, okay, so when I hear you talk and you change over to these voices like you're sounding like very authentic. How do you do that as a voice actor when it's like, the 12th time you're doing it? Because I would imagine, like, you have to redo it again and again sometimes. Yeah, Abbe: so the idea is that the first time you do it, you get it off the page and you hear it, you start to it's really important that you develop an ear for what the sound of this language is, and always, always put another person in the room with you. So you're always talking to somebody. It's not about you. It's not about you know, you're delivering the message to an audience. The whole thing, the whole process, is a building thing. You build on, and you build it and you build it, and it's like, it's like every thing is almost like a rehearsal. Now you want to start just subtly bending parts of words, parts of the language, a line a little faster, an upward inflection, instead of a neutral inflection at the end of a line. I mean, in voiceover, there are three inflections, the upward inflection, the neutral inflection. And and the downward inflection, you see how different they are, and we use those in life all the time. They're the sort of but if, if it doesn't match in voiceover, it will sound wrong. We just won't, won't Rune Pedersen: to the ear. How can you carry those elements as a, as a, as a voice actor, into your natural speech in in in sort of spontaneous moment. I Abbe: think it really just does. It takes focus that that's what you want to do. You say, I recognize that this is kind of not working and sounding a little bit blah or a bit samey. You know, it's, it's about understanding that when you're 100% rune, when you're just 100% you, yeah, it's charming, charismatic, all that sort of stuff. No, it's not a problem, because I'm looking right at you, right? But when it is just your voice, you need to apply that. So in a sense, you have to put a performance cloak on. You know you are being a performer. So you have to find a way to perform more. You Rune Pedersen: Abby, when you're when you're handed a script for an ad, what's the first thing you look for? Abbe: So it's always about looking for what's important in this message. The message is full of a whole lot of words, so 15 seconds worth of words, not all of them are important. You know, the key words and key phrases is what you have to look for. So looking for those and working out how you're going to play them and what you're going to put under them, whether there's an attitude, you know, it's like that, that bank thing you're feeling anxious about getting the right home loan. It's that same thing. It's that same attention to just some words, you know, I mean, some scripts say it's seductive, or you wouldn't do the whole script in a seductive way, because that would sound like an 80s commercial, and we just don't do it like that anymore. But it might be that something in the commercial is going to feel seductive, and then you get on with the rest of the words, you know what? I mean, it's not, Rune Pedersen: yeah, that prompts me to say, like, perfume advertising, perfume, it's like, always so far out. They just, like, say random, disjointed words, yeah, yeah. And then just like, it's all like, select, like, sort of, kind of sexual. Abbe: that's right, yeah, very sexual, isn't it? And of course, car ads especially, do very random, especially television, or only on television, very random phrasing, you know, drive to delight. Drive to delight takes corners with a precision, unmeasured, you know, just weird, weird words, you know, and you see, because you it's a television commercial. So basically, it's the marriage of the visuals, the soundtrack and the voiceover on it, the voiceover which goes on last, always last. Yeah, it's sort of the ice, the icing on the cake. And so the voice artist doesn't have to do a lot of work. They just have to find a way to make it fit. And of course, when you get the television commercial, you get it all finished, so you hear the music bit. So you have to adjust your voice to work with the music, work with the tone of the music, work with sometimes flourishes in the music. I love doing that because it's like, Oh, if I'm just a little bit faster, I can get in just before that little hear that little zing flourish. I'm just going to go a little faster there. So get a fit. Oh, that's good. And then I pick it up again and go somewhere else. And then, amazing, yeah, it's all fun. Rune Pedersen: What would you hire me for with the way I speak, like, what's, what's, what kind of voice? Or is there no hope for me? Abbe: No, I give you a Volvo car ad, Rune Pedersen: oh, I always dreamed of a Volvo. Yeah, I got a Abbe: Volvo actually. Yeah, they're good cars, sexiest wagon on the road. But you know, you it's like you can't do Australian Boy Next Door, because that's not what your voice is, yeah? And for voiceover, it's what your your natural voice sounds like, is what they're buying, you know? I mean, it is we're trying to sound like who we're talking Rune Pedersen: to, yeah, and that's, and that's really interesting in the Australian context, right? Because obviously, like, we're super diverse, like, culture, right? Full of cultures within Yeah, and the way we speak is static, but has also changed, but it's this is such an interesting space, right? Because, like voice, voices are of representation, but voices are also, voices are also ideology, or voices are also fairy tale, they're all of the things, right? So I'm not sure where I'm going with this. Yeah, it's an interesting Abbe: question, because people you know who come to Australia, I mean, I most of the people I know who are not born here still carry the accent of their their ethnicity. Hmm. But when they go back to their ethnicity, to their home, people say, you sound like an Aussie, you know? And it's, it's that happens all the time. So there is that thing about wherever you, wherever you're living, you're taking on, you know, the way people speak from that place. And it will be small things that get in. It's just small, little nuance of phrasing, or a way that you introduce a word that you don't speak in your normal language. And it's very interesting, musicality, especially in different languages, is is different from different languages. I mean, Australians are kind of flat vow you know, it's all in the bottom of our mouth. And if you're in Queensland, it's nine and five and family and stuff like that. There's then there's a middle Australian, you know, which I have sort of, which is more, it's a rounder in the in the mouth. Phonetically, it's actually a bigger, round voice. And there's very, very few people who speak in that very intellectual way. Very few people left in Australia who speak like that, I'd say you couldn't even calculate it so small. Yeah, wow, but that's that they're the they are basically the three Australian accents. I Stefan: Okay, and we're back in the studio with your man. Rune. Rune, tell the audience what we've learned this week. Rune Pedersen: Thanks, Stefan, well, I learned that seduction means a lot more than I thought. But seriously, it turns out that the way we speak can be tuned to sell people on products and ideas, another Stefan: example of just how powerful our words can be. Rune Pedersen: Stefan, yep, I don't, I don't think this radio announcer thing is working out for us. Stefan: Oh, thank God. I thought my head was going to explode. Yeah, Rune Pedersen: I think we should just talk like our normal selves. Yep, strong agree. Let's just talk how we talk. Rune Pedersen: How Humans Talk, is produced and written by Stefan Delatovic and by me Rune Pedersen from Onomato People. Production and Sound Design for this series was done by Dom Evans and James Custer at Earsay. The SBS team is Joel supple and Max Gosford, and our artwork is by Wendy Tang. Follow and review us wherever you found this podcast.
SBS Australia
29-05-2025
- General
- SBS Australia
Why do we curse and swear: #!@*&% ?
Listen to learn how swearing can bond people together, how it changes across cultures and languages, and why some words just hit harder than others, especially in your first language. Together, we'll explore how bad words might not be so bad after all. SBS Audio 29/05/2025 32:36 Host: Rune Pedersen joined by Stefan Delatovic Producers: Rune Pedersen, Stefan Delatovic Writers: Rune Pedersen and Stefan Delatovic Artwork: Wendy Tang Post production and sound design: Dom Evans and James Coster at EARSAY SBS Audio team: Joel Supple, Max Gosford, Bernadette Phương Nam Nguyễn Guests: Professor Kate Burridge Stefan: How Humans Talk is an SBS podcast recorded on Wurundjeri country. We pay our respects to the custodians of this land, which has been shaped by stories and language and love for generations. The following episode contains swearing and bad language. So if you're listening with children, family, or friends, make sure they listen closely because studies show swearing might be good for your health and optimise your performance. Rune: But if you rather skip any coarse language. This might be a good episode to miss. Although we think you might miss out. Stefan: That little Danish. That's fun. What does that mean? Rune: Ah, it's just, uh, some, some friendly banter, like Aussie style banter. Oh, cool. What does it translate into? I think it's something like, um, you disgusting dick face. Stefan: Oh my God. Why would you call me that? Rune: I don't know. It's just like the, just what we say here, right? Like just. You dick face. Stefan: Oh, you are thinking of dickhead. Rune: Isn't that the same? Stefan: It's uh, similar. I dunno, for some reason when you call me a disgusting dick face, it feels more offensive than dickhead. But maybe that's just because I, I say dickhead all the time. Rune: Well, the head and the face is kind of connected. I don't quite get Aussie swear words are really, really confusing. But I, I'm so like intrigued and I wanna, I wanna Stefan: just learn them. Yeah. Okay. I mean, there's probably some safer ones. If you want to just sprinkle them in to sort of Aussie chat, please. Uh, there's some classics like Struth or Crikey. Yeah, those are some of the all time classics. You've got my all time favorite Fuckwit. My mom used to love that one. And that leads to, we got a lot of sort of sex ones, like, uh oh, bugger me or get rooted, or, oh, you're soft cock. And then obviously there's the C word, but, um, you know, a handle with care. Like, like what do you mean? Like, crap? No, no, not that one. But you just said cock, was it, is it cock? No, no, it's not cock like creepy cock. No, no. Not creepy Cock. Uh, I, yeah, I wouldn't feel comfortable saying it. Well, Rune: well what, what is it? Stefan: It's, uh, look, I actually think I'm not qualified to be teaching you this stuff. I think we need to find someone else. Rune: You. Creepy cock. Creepy cock is so upsetting. So off I went. On my merry way to meet none other than Kate Burridge, distinguished linguist professor at Monash University and a professional swearer. For someone like yourself who deals with language every day, what's your take on using language as a means of cursing? Kate: Well, it's the fallout of taboo, really. It's all part and parcel of it. Yes. These things that go bump in the nighters as sometimes describe it for society, whatever they be, uh, we, you know, I'm incredibly powerful and uh, Kate: I think even today, words have this power. Rune: Why do you think that? Kate: Oh, that's a, that's a really good question. Why? Why? Why is it? I think in the case of taboo, taboo words, people really do behave as if there is a very real connection between what the word means and how it sounds, you know? Linguist, bang on about the arbitrary nature of language, the fact that there's no necessary or natural connection between, I don't know, table, um, you know, what I'm looking at now and the word table. But in the case of taboo words, it's very, very different. People talk about these as, you know, ugly sounding and. Dirty words and parents even wash kids' mouths out with soap, you know, when they utter one of these words. Uh, so they, I think that is where the power comes from. And this, you know, is also power that's attached to names. Look at, you know, Rumpelstiltskin , which I think has parallels in many different, uh, cultures where, you know, learning the, the name of the little villain, uh, stripped him of his power, you know, so there's all sorts of examples of that. Rune: So it's, it's what humans attach to it. Hmm. It's the energy we put into it. Kate: Yes. I mean, when you think about it, these words are just assemblages of vowels and consonants. Uh, and they can easily be stripped of their power, and they are often over time. But, uh, people just have this. Reaction, and people talk about them as sort of raising goose flesh. And, and then there are scientific experiments to show that they do, uh, bring on, you know, larger, stronger galvanic skin responses. Uh, they, there's evidence that they're, if they're not stored differently in their brain, they're at least access differently. Some people lose all ability to, you know, to use language, accept the ability to use dirty words or swear words. This is. Fascinating. Really? Mm. Rune: So that's a different part of the brain. Kate: And that would only be possible if these words were well, if not stored differently, then certainly accessed differently. And people often, you know, I've heard a number of people describe the very distressing situation where, you know, older relatives. Experience this, and they, they suddenly start to, you know, swear like a trooper and they've never sworn all their life. So there are, there's something very special about these words. Rune: Yeah. So have we been able to then figure out if it's the intent and meaning of the words or if it's the sounds of the words or if it's a combination of both? Kate: Combination of both. I think. Because I think they're tied closely together. Yes. Some last for centuries and retain their slangs or their power, uh, others, peter out. And so what is it that allows these words to survive so well? Uh, so, and, and the sound, the aesthetics of words. That's a big part of it. Rune: Yeah. They feel good in your mouth. Rune: And I think it's interesting also being a, a non-native English speaking person, um, I'm very fond of saying, uh, the F word. Mm-hmm. Um, and I don't attach a great big deal to it. Kate: No. And that's the interesting thing because there have been many studies done on. Bilingual multilingual speakers. Um, and yes, certainly swear words in, let's say both languages. If we think of bilingual speakers, will, um, raise goose flesh if I put it loosely like that. So they will have a greater emotional reaction to, you know, the swear words in, in, um, in both languages. But, um, you know, in the first language, it's always much stronger in fact. Bilinguals often report that, you know, say the F word as you've just said, does nothing. It'll depend on, you know, when the second language was acquired. But it has to do with the very early experience. It has to, uh, swear words. I mean, kids learn the power of these words really very early on. Uh, you know, I've spoken to many traumatized Australians who have had their mouths washed out by soap. Usually older Australians now. Really? Yeah. Very traumatic experience for them. So. These, these, um, words will, will kind of enter the brain with a kind of linguistic health warning as, uh, the psycho linguist Timothy J put it, you know, these words come with with rewards. You know, kid drops one of these words and they get, you know, all the attention in the world. I. Uh, they also come with penalties, washing your mouth out with soap, uh, sent off to your room, whatever. Uh, so, and if you learn it later in life, you know, a swear word, then it's not going to have the same kind of cultural imprint of the forbidden. So it's, it's just not gonna have that sort of power. Rune: A lot of us had to adopt English as a second language. Um, there is this sort of. For lack of a better way of defining it, and maybe you can help me out here, but there's this sort of blue collar, larrikin Australian identity in terms of how we talk. Is that the case? Kate: Most certainly. And I think it goes back to the very early appearance of English in this country. And when you think of the, what went into that linguistic melting pot, it was, you know, the slang and cant of sailors and whalers and gold diggers and convicts of course. So a lot of underworld slang at that time, uh, there was a lot of early commentary around the fact that Australian English speakers swore a lot. Interestingly, and this goes to what you were saying, uh, a number of people commented that, you know, and nothing was meant much by this. So it's this idea of kind of solidarity. So yes, I think, uh, and that is a marked difference, I believe with Australian. English swearing and swearing elsewhere. You know, and Australians might be disappointed to know that. Uh, we're not the top when it comes to vulgarity. Uh, we are third in fact, behind the US and behind the uk. But the big difference is that we wear these swear words. Uh. Along with the kind of nicknames and the shortenings and the insults, a bit like emblems on a t-shirt. You know, they define us, they're important part of our Australian ness, the kind of mythic friendliness and you know, that's how we like to imagine ourselves anyway, the larrikin. Rune: And so, so from someone who's coming to Australia and also want to, to fit in, like how can I navigate, how can I navigate swearing to a degree where I fit in? Um, but I also don't offend. Kate: Hmm. 'cause 'cause these words still can offend. Of course they can. Yeah. Rune: And I, I know it's context based of course. Right. But yes. Is that the, is that the answer to it? I think the, the Kate: only thing to do is to watch and learn, which is obviously what you've been doing. Uh, there are always, um. Camouflage words, remodelings, linguistic fig leaves to use. Uh, you know, society recognizes that you might have the inner urge to swear, but it may not be appropriate. So you've got this out in the way of these kind of remodeled swear words. And Australian English is full of those two, like crikey and cripes and all those, you Butte Aussie lingo words from way back, uh, they still trotted out. Uh, so yeah, there's, there's a way, but it is a very hard part to learn. I mean, it's a bit like the, those what are sometimes called discourse markers, the little words that we pop in our conversations like the, your nose and the likes. And I mean, and I think, and yeah, no, and. Uh, they're hard, but they take a long time. But they are important part of full competence of a language like the swearing. I mean, there are some key expressions and bloody would be one of them. You know, the so-called great Australian adjective. I mean, it isn't an adjective, as I'm sure you probably aware, adjectives will describe nouns. You know, the, the bloody door would be a door that has blood smeared all over it, but, you know, shut the bloody door. That bloody there just smears the sentiment all over the entire sentence. Mm. Uh but it's, um, that's an important part of Australian English, you know? 'cause we just love the vernacular language. Uh, so little words like that are important probably. Yeah. Two years Rune: I think. So. I think, uh, it's a. Because you stand out when you use them incorrectly. Mm-hmm. Um, Kate: and they are complex. I mean, you know, depending on the li the, the situation, depending on the linguistic context, what's the bloody, you know, nestled up against a whole lot of different meanings. Rune: Could you help us define what makes a swear word? Kate: I suppose we still have the earlier understanding of swearing, you know, um, where you make a solemn oath, I swear by almighty God to tell the truth, et cetera. That's the sort of early understanding of swearing. So profane, swearing in that early period would've been irreligious language. So language that's not respectful of the deity. And then I. From there, it just broadened to encompass whatever was taboo at the time. So these days you could think of swearing as being the emotional use of. Of a taboo word? Well, for a number of purposes, it could be to let off steam. It could be to insult somebody. It could be to show surprise or excitement. It could be as a bit of verbal cuddling, you know, to show your good mates, uh, whole lot of different functions for swearing. And it's, I think, important to think of those different functions. Rune: And how is wearing then different than saying other taboo words? Uh, taboo phenomenons like a euphemism. Kate: Uh, so yes. So it won't learn. I mean, if I, if I can use a swear word, shit, for example. Uh, it's not gonna cut it. If you say excrement, if you use a, uh, a Latin based. Euphemistic term. Um, of course, you know, Latin and French have been deodorizing English for a long time and we have a vast array. And what you will find with taboo is that you'll typically get a incredible richness of vocabulary. As of course, euphemisms wear out and become themselves taboo or just simply disappear and then have to be replaced. So they just don't cut it. They don't, 'cause what gives you that emotional release is the breaking of the taboo. So. You might think, well, there have been studies done, for example, to show how swearing will alleviate pain. Famous experiment by Professor Stevens. In England and uh, participants were had to plunge their arm into ice cold water and they were given a swear word of their choice and then they had to do it again. I'm not sure how we got ethics approval for this. It's not very nice. Plunging your arm into ice cold water. But anyway, then they were, had to repeat the experiment with, uh, just an ordinary word, like table or whatever. And of course they could keep their. In the water longer, um, with a swear word. Kate: Um, than without. So, you know, there's pretty robust evidence. There are plenty of other experimental, um, or other experimental evidence to show that swearing can alleviate pain. It has that power to do that. Only, you know, plenty of studies coming out of maternity wards to, to see, you know, the air blue with language and it does help to, so, you know, it shares that with other, I suppose. Mostly involuntary. Um. Noises that we make, like laughter, like screaming, like, um, those sorts of crying, you know, that, that it will help you cope with a stressful, painful situation. It will help you to focus, uh, it'll make you feel better. There's always something good about bad language, whatever that bad language is. And of course, you know, there's a whole lot of things that people will brand with the label. Bad language, you know? Yeah. Whether we're talking about pronunciation features or lousy grammar or whatever Rune: we often call swearing. Bad language. Bad, bad thing to do, but yeah. And you kind of answered it now, but can swearing be good? Kate: Yes. Absolutely. I shouldn't use the word. Absolutely. I'm sure many people would brand that, that emphatic use of absolutely as a swear word, as probably more so than bugger or shit. But anyway, I'll stop using. Absolutely. Most certainly indeed. Uh, it, uh, it has, uh, a lot of therapeutic benefits. So alleviating pain, Stevens went on to do another. Well, a number of experiments. In fact, one, to show that, uh, people who sort of curse their way through a half a minute bike exercise on a, on an exercise bike could, I think it was, raise their power. I think something like 24 watts or something like that. Mm-hmm. Uh, a hand grip, uh, exercise and gripping this, I quite can't, there is a term for it. I can't think of it now. Um, their strength was increased by over two kilos if they were allowed to swear. There have been studies where people have been put in stressful situations and been told they can't swear. I mean, I think there is good evidence that swearers will lead less stressful, you know, lives. Kate: But I should add to this, and this will again, interest you because of the power of words. Uh, the effects in all areas as far as I know, will diminish if you're an habitual swearer. Kate: of these words will diminish with use. Rune: Okay. That's good advice then. Yes. Kate: So if, yeah, so don't overdo it Rune: Now. Choose your swear words Kate: carefully. Mm-hmm. Gordon Ramsey would be well advised to. Uh, in fact, I often think that there's a lot in common between language and food. You know, that, uh, as my cookbook, I've got one cookbook that says, you know, a flavor repeated too often, it becomes tiresome. And what is interesting too is that many studies, and these are studies going back to the 1930s, show that when things get really, really stressful, the swearing cuts out. There was a study done by the, um, Australian lexicographer. Partridge, Eric Partridge of swearing amongst World War I soldiers. And again, when things got really stressful, the swearing diminished. Uh, it was a study, one of the very famous early studies done in 1960. A woman looked at, um, swearing amongst zoologists in the Norwegian arctic periods of, you know, total darkness. And again, when things got very stressful, swearing diminished. Psychiatric Ward sa, same study. I've looked at black boxes from, you know, when aircraft crashes. Awful stuff, swearing while it's, you know, dreadful things are happening. But as soon as it's clear that the plane is gonna crash, then the swear words cut out. Kate: I'm not sure to be honest why, why that is, why that would be why. You know, when things get really, really ful, well, there's often just silence. I think people are literally lost for words. Rune: You're getting closer to a a almost, if you're in that belief system. Mm-hmm. If you believe of something like that, then you're getting close to it. Then it's really quite interesting. Mm-hmm. That if we, if we say that swearing in its initial form was. Uh, cussing off, you know, the deity. Rune: Then when we are now getting really close to it in a serious situation, we actually stopped doing it. There's something there that's giving me actual goosebumps. Interesting. Yes, yes, Rune: And I know this is just me speculating, right. But of course, if you've been in a really tragic situation, you also just know you're lost for words. Kate: Yes, exactly. It could be as simple as that. So you kind of wonder whether, uh, one of these remodeled swear words would have the same effect as. Sort of like fiddle fat or that's a cute one, but you know, there are sugar, shoot, shucks, all these, there, there are hundreds of these remodel swear words. Would they have the same effect? I suspect not because the effects comes from that, you know, violating a taboo that's gives you the emotional release. Rune: Could you, yeah. Could you expand on that for me? What it means to, to violate the taboo or to break the taboo? I. Kate: By actually saying the taboo word. Kate: So if you use one of these linguistic fig leaves, you're not actually saying the word. And yes, it will give you. The same release. You know, let's say you hit your thumb with a hammer, uh, you can say ow or you can say a whole lot of much stronger words. Mm. I don't know yet of a study that's done comparing those. I think that would be very, very interesting. Rune: Can you, in a short amount of time, take a word and then make it into a swear word even without it being a taboo? Kate: Now it has to arise out of those things that are difficult for society, you know? So ma, in an early times it was, you know, God and supernatural and. Body parts, particularly the body, body parts, the, sometimes it was dangerous animals, sometimes, you know, uh, bodily functions. And these days, you know what really packs a punch, of course, is what my colleague Keith Allen describes is Easter language. So racist, sexist, ageist, religionist. Language, you know, language that's deemed discriminatory in some way. Mm. They, so these have legal restraints now, whereas, you know, the, the legal restraints around other types of swearing have been lifted. And what is also interesting is that whenever there have been, you know, periods of censorship or oppression, it doesn't matter whether it's just social niceties or whether it's been in a full-blown laws. I mean, the first laws in English were in the Renaissance period. It was laws against, um, blasphemous language on the stage. Did people stop using that language? Well, no. They just got really inventive, and that's where you got some of these curious remodelings, like Zunes or Zs as sometimes pronounced God's wounds, swot. Every part of God's anatomy was sworn upon, but always in heavy disguise. Mm-hmm. You know, and again, when you come to the Vic. Victorian era. There was all this squeamishness about sex and body parts and bodily flu and bodily functions. And anyway, did they, you know, periods of great social nicety swearing didn't stop. Of course it didn't. And it was a Victorian era that gave us these great dictionaries of vulgar language. They, they came outta that time. Um, Rune: yeah, it's funny. It's almost like it's, it's, it's almost a futile exercise. Kate: It is a futile, so it's, you know, it's, it's not like trying to get people to stop biting their nails or stop smoking, you know, there's something, and it. Goes to this idea that there is always something good about bad language. Our brain swear for, for very, very good reasons. I always love that image of, um, Shakespeare's, you know, the worm in the bud. It's as if you've got this kind of offensive little worm feeding on the sort of bud, the rose bud of social nicety. Kate: It's, it just seems to, any sort of periods of, of repression seem to bring about even greater creativity of swearing. Kate: I've greater flourishing of it anyway, so I've probably gone off on tangents. I feed that you Rune: can kind of, I'm feeding you. Yeah, Kate: you are feeding me, uh, you are leading me down the garden pathway, right? Yeah, exactly. Rune: Yeah. Um, imagine me being a little, little thick worm. Is there a, this is quite linguistic question, but is there like a consistent linguistic formula that makes a word a taboo? Or is it purely the sort of the cultural context? Kate: Um, I love the description once of a, a mother of a child who had Tourette syndrome and she said, as she put it, society shapes the noise that is made. So she made the point that if I think if wish whistling the national anthem was the greatest obscenity, her daughter would be doing it there as a tick. Is how she put it. So, and, but I thought her description of society shaping the noise that is made is, is perfect because it is exactly that, you know, so you will find that taboo is dynamic. Uh, it will change over time. It will change from place to place. Uh, it will change, you know, even within the different English speaking communities. If I give an example, like, screw you or fuck you, or something like that. These are probably the only structures that my students of English grammar will remember, because we looked at the interesting grammar around these. So you look at screw you, you think, okay, what is that verb? You know who, who, what's the subject of that verb? It doesn't make sense. It's not a command. It's who's, who's the subject. Then when you look at earlier expressions like, damn you, or Bless you, if it could be something positive, of course there's God, God damn, you. Um, and God gets deleted because of euphemistic reasons. So it's just damn you. And then you just put it with the modern idiom. Mm-hmm. Um, screw you the more sexually, physically based verb. So it's a bit like, you know, new wine in old bottles. So you've got the linguistic bottle and you, you just put the modern idiom. Into that bottle. Rune: Wow. So, so, so the, so the sort of, the, the, the blasphemy energy is retained in that structure? Rune: But we, we just use new words. Rune: That's fascinating. Kate: And presumably that will change again, and you see it also the way that. Taboos will change. Is that in that curious expression? Pot calling Kettle black in English. So you know where you um, say someone is guilty of doing whatever they're accusing. Someone else of doing pot calling Kettle Black. You know that used to be pot calling Kettle black ass. In the Victorian era. So you've gotta think of kettles and pots on a fire and they're black and bottoms from the fire. And the kettle is saying to the pot, you've got a black ass just like I have. Mm. You know? And then of course the Victorians got a bit queasy about ass. So Ass was dropped. Pot calling Kettle Black. These days there's a lot of discussion on the internet about the racist nature of that word. So what happens now is that black gets dropped and so it's pot calling Kettle. It's all about pots and kettles. I've heard someone say so that that model, that that expression just kind of adapts as it Yeah. Moves through time. Rune: Okay. Interesting. Yeah. 'cause I. Uh, we don't have the same expression in, in Danish, but I've, uh, I heard it in English and understand it, but I always just like imagine, oh, I guess, I guess all puddles and ke kettles were black, but I never thought it was the actual burnt bottom. Kate: Burnt bottom. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Rune: Okay. Because I'm just like, oh, it's cast iron because, so knowing that swearing can be actually good sometimes, can swearing also connect people? Kate: That's the most usual function for swearing in. All the studies will show that, that it's the social. Social side of swearing, the, the use of swearing for friendly banter or to show mateship or solidarity or, you know, particularly when directed against outsiders, you know, it's kind of defines the gang. Kate: So that's where you might use a, a swear word, but not with any hostility. And then, you know, it might be thrown back at you. I could, I could call you a silly bugger and you. Hurler, you know, an insult back at me. But it's, it's all meant, you know, it's all signaling great friendship. Uh, and, and this has been the case for a long, long time. In fact, if you go back early enough in English, and you certainly get this in the Scandinavian languages, there's something called flighting, which is what, what was it defined as? The fine art of the savage insult. This is basically where the players, and we are looking at, you know, we're thinking of old Norse literature here. So it's embedded in exquisite literature of the time where the players will hurl abuse terms at each other. You know, really offensive terms, and it comes as quite a shock when you encounter these, um, examples. But it's, it's, um, it's not meant to be negative. It can turn nasty, but, and it, it's some, you know, that I suppose you get echoes of flighting as it's called in, um, in the kind of modern rap battles where you exchange these insults with rap. So, you know, it does have its modern appearances as well. Rune: Yeah, yeah. But it is Kate: something called flighting, Rune: and this is a really sensitive topic. Then when we are navigating all, a lot of people living together with different beliefs as well because it's like, how do you navigate this Kate: language? It's like anything in life, you know, you wouldn't use a knife to eat peas, um, because it's not the right tool and it's the same with language. Kate: There's a time and a place, you know. There's no point in washing kids' mouths out with soap. You're just giving those words extra power and fascination for kids. But it's good to have a good discussion with kids about these words. Rune: Yeah. It's quite interesting that action in itself is empowering the word. Kate: Mm. I mean, it's a, it's a striking, a literal, you know, that dirt metaphor? Uh, we talk about them as dirty words. I mean, they're poor little things. They're just words. Rune: Is there a common myth about swearing you would like to debunk? Kate: I suppose the idea that you can stamp it out well, that I would like to get that message across for all bad language, really, uh, that it's not intrinsically bad, uh, and there are positive aspects to it, and that indeed, as I've mentioned earlier. History shows that periods of censorship and repression just simply coincide with a, a greater flourishing of swear words. Mm. It just seems to provide more fertile soil for the swear words to thrive. Uh, so that was, you know, I, I think that's right. Rune: Okay. So last question. What does swearing say about how humans communicate? Kate: What's wearing says for me, and I suppose it's vernacular language generally, or what it drives home to me, is just this extraordinary creativity of ordinary language users. You know, the sorts of poetic language metaphors that. That come up in this sort of language are, are, are amazing. And you see it also in the remodelings, we talked about the remodel swear words. So you know everything from sort of holy moly to drought, to suffering, sache to yes, just having fun really. Stefan: So swearing feels good because it let us play around with taboos. Yeah. And like everything we're looking at, it's got all this sort of unexamined importance baked into it. Like Kate, I thought. I had a really great point about how you can use swearing to find the sore points in a culture like. It used to be blasphemy and now it's the stuff that people say that's really cooked is all about prejudice and inequality and those current preoccupations and you know, still sex stuff. Rune: Still sex stuff. So when we try to hold this down, right, like we try stopping people from swearing, it just gets stronger and it just builds and we can't really stop it. And I thought that was such an important point. Swearing still feels like blasphemy, but I thought it was so interesting that when we are truly looking at guard and we are meeting a daily and we're in a desperate situation, humans just stop swearing and it's just funny how that all binds us together. Yeah. Wow. Kate was really smart. Very smart. We should find a way of recognizing her. Could we make a new swear word in her honor? Yeah. Like what? So what's the recipe then for creating a good swear word Kate: sound? I. Mm. And shortness if it's gonna be a good expletive. I think so. Thinking of the, oh, no second, where you, you know, where you think of pressing that key and dispatching the email to your work, the entire workplace instead of your mate, what word bubbles up then? It's usually a short, sharp, for English anyway. Word. And Rune: I guess that depends then on the phonetics of a particular link, which, what's Kate: yes. Yes. I think in the case of swear words, you've got, um, in English anyway, the sort of recipe would be single syllable, low vowel and stopped consonants. So like, shit, you know, ends in a, a strong stopped consonant. Fuck. Interestingly, they're the same characteristics of the quintessential male name in, in English like Jack, you know? Kate: But I mean, it doesn't go across the board, and that's always the way with sound symbolism. So my own name, Kate, ought to be a very good swear word, but Rune: maybe that will be the new swear word. Kate: that's right. That's Rune: right. Thank you very much, Kate. I really appreciate it. That's my pleasure. Rune: you. Ah, okay, so that's the recipe for, for a good swear word. What do we, what do, what should we do? I. I Stefan: dunno, what should we do? You're sick, Kate. Rune: How Humans Talk is produced and written by Stefan Delatovic and by me Rune Pedersen from Onomato People. Post-production and sound design for the series was done by Dom Evans and James Coster at EARSAY. The SBS team is Joel Supple and Max Gosford, and our artwork is by Wendy Tang. Rune: And just to be clear, any swearing in this episode was done with a lot of love. But if we raised your goose flesh, tell us off wherever you found this podcast.
SBS Australia
22-05-2025
- Entertainment
- SBS Australia
Rune Pedersen unpacks How Humans Talk in new SBS Audio podcast
Ever caught yourself using baby talk with your pet and wondered why? Or curious about why babies babble, or the science and psychology behind swearing? Host Rune Pedersen, of the award-winning podcast The Idiom, returns with another linguistic series diving headfirst into the intricacies of human communication. How Humans Talk explores how the way we speak shapes our place in the world and why becoming a better communicator starts with becoming a better listener. 'It's been over a year since I last jumped behind the mic to talk all things linguistics. Fatherhood has shrunk my vocabulary to a handful of daycare-proof words,' says host Rune Pedersen with a wink, 'but it's also inspired me to dive deeper into human communication. As AI begins to automate language itself, it feels more important than ever to explore what makes our conversations unmistakably human. This is my answer to this development. 'In How Humans Talk we're joined by communication specialists, cultural commentators, and other experts to learn and share how to be a better communicator, whether it's to your doctor, parents, neighbour or even your furry friends. Together we uncover the subtle ways our words shape identities, relationships, and the world around us.' Guided by speech pathologist and voice expert Dr Sarah Lobegeiger de Rodriguez, Rune rings in the first episode by exploring the untapped power of the human voice and why it's often overlooked as a core part of our identity and relationships. Then, Rune chats with Dory Wang who, after being a TV presenter in China, had to start from scratch in Australia, armed with just a handful of vegetable names and some pleasantries. Together, they discuss the emotional and social complexities faced by multilingual speakers – from battling accent biases to rethinking what belonging truly means. Rune is also on a mission to understand the power and pleasure of profanity* with an explosive episode that reveals swearing is much more than just colourful language. With insight from renowned linguist Professor Kate Burridge from Monash University, the episode examines the psychology and sociology of swearing – breaking down the bad words, from Aussie larrikin slang to ancient blasphemies, and exploring the science behind profanity as pain relief. How Humans Talk launches today with weekly episodes. How Humans Talk is a new eight-part podcast series hosted by Rune Pedersen and developed in collaboration with Stefan Delatovic—both part of the team behind the award-winning series The Idiom , which secured Gold in Limited Series & Specials – Diversity, Equity & Inclusion at the 2023 Signal is celebrating 50 years of storytelling and delivers podcasts in over 60 languages. Discover more at *Warning: episode 2 of How Humans Talk contains profanity. For a pdf copy of this release, click here.
