On this episode of Spark: Dialects, Devices, and Distraction. Click below to listen to the whole show, or download the MP3 (runs 54:00).
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 53:15 — 24.5MB)
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Listening, Biking, Distractions, Safety
It’s the first show of the Spring, and Nora’s excited to start cycling to work again. But…it means she can’t listen to podcasts on her walk to work. Enter: the Tunebug Shake. A tiny gadget you strap to your bicycle helmet, turning it into a speaker. Constable Hugh Smith is a Toronto police officer and a national examiner for the CAN-BIKE program. Nora goes for a demo ride and then speaks with Constable Smith about the distraction factor in biking with headphones on. (Runs 5:34)
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Multitasking to Distraction
Since we’re on the topic of distraction, if there’s any one person who has studied all aspects of it, that’s Clifford Nass. He’s a professor at Standford University and an expert on how multitasking effects our brain. Although being a multitasker is seen as an asset, Nass talks to Nora about our tendency to multitask to distraction, as more and more products are coming out to distract us further and make us think we need to use them. (Runs 8:46)
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- Clifford Nass
- Cognitive control in media multitaskers (Eyal Ophira, Clifford Nass, and Anthony D. Wagner)
Blogger Portraits
Ever notice how seeing someone sitting in the blue glow of their computer screen can seem sorta beautiful? Well, Gabriela Herman thought this enough times that she’s gone ahead and done something about it. Gabriela is a photographer in New York City who has us fascinated with her portrait series called Bloggers. It’s just like it sounds, a series of portraits of bloggers in the glow of their computer screens while they write. Nora speaks with Gabriela about her work. (Runs 8:20)
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- Gabriela Herman
- Gabriela’s blogger series
- Gabriela’s blog (there is full frontal nudity)
- Full uncut version of interview with Gabriela Herman
Arctic Translator
Machine translation have been around for a long time and are continually improving. Which is great if you need something translated quickly from Italian or Hindi. But what about those languages that are less common? In Canada’s Arctic, there are several Aboriginal languages that are at risk of dying out this generation. Well, right now in the North West Territories, a device called the Phraselator is helping to change all that. Spark contributor Philippe Morin lives and works in Inuvik, and recently he got to see the impact of the Phraselator first hand. (Runs 5:43)
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Twitter Dialects
Around Spark lately we’ve been interested in how dialects appear in the online world. We recently came across Noah Smith, an assistant professor at the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Melon University. Noah has done some interesting research into how and where regional slang shows up on Twitter, and how that slang can be used to accurately predict where someone lives. (Runs 8:25)
Play audio:
- Noah Smith
- CMU Research Finds Regional Dialects Are Alive and Well on Twitter
- A Latent Variable Model for Geographic Lexical Variation (Jacob Eisenstein, Brendan O’Connor, Noah A. Smith, Eric P. Xing)
- NPR interview with one of Noah’s students about the research
- Full uncut version of interview with Noah Smith
Youtube Dialects Map
So we can use slang in tweets as a kind of geo-locator, but what if we went beyond slang? One day, linguist Rick Aschmann had an idea for a hobby – it was to plot a map of all the English dialects in North America by using Youtube clips and Wikipedia. His dense, massive, fascinating, and a little bit confounding online Map of English Dialects in North America has caught the attention of a lot of people across the continent who want to help him. (Runs 10:06)
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Demonstrate Your Dialect!
Let’s help Rick populate his map! Click on the the video above and then make a short video of yourself. Remember Rick’s criteria: It’s best if you were born and raised in one place, or lived in one place at least between the ages of 5 – 15 years old. Nora made her own video (above), and it’s up on Youtube right now. We’d love it if you watched it, then posted your own video in response. Together we can help Rick create a better map of Canadian dialects!
Episode Details
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I'm interested to know Nora's calculus in the choice between biking or listening to podcasts. I enjoy bicycling, but I'd choose the latter in a heartbeat.
Also, except in the case of music podcasts, couldn't you listen to the 'casts on a single earphone? Spoken word ones don't depend on the stereo effect (and in fact, if the podcast publishers are considerate to people with low bandwidth, they hopefully publish them in mono rather than stereo). That would allow you to hear your podcast and necessary traffic noises.
further to bloggers in front of their monitors, here's some lovely photographs of CTV monitors being turned off:
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/201…
Spark makes my week.
RPW, Superior CO
It was great that you went to Vermont to identify a distinctive "Northwest New England" accent, but I must note that was a very mild version of it. When I moved here in 1980 I used to hear the accent from my new neighbors at every turn – around the wood stove at the general store, on town meeting day during public debate, at local dances and by the boiler in the sugar shack – and at times could not understand what was being said due to the thickness of it – unfortunately I think our native accent is dying out – certainly it's more dilute in newer generations of Vermonters, as exemplified in your audio clip. Maybe this evolution has something to do with the influx of "flatlanders" like myself moving in from out of state, or the dairy industry floundering and rural life being eroded by the rise of corporate agriculture .. whatever the reason, I miss hearing it. Thanks again for bringing those gritty local cadences and inflections to the discussion, even if your example did not fully capture it.
Thanks, Kristina. We pulled that example from the relatively small pool of Vermonter YouTube clips on Rick Aschmann's map. I am really curious to hear what a full-on Vermont accent sounds like now!
@WilsonSGF: The problem isn't not hearing the traffic noises. The problem is that listening to a podcast distracts you from seeing what's on the road. It's exactly like the dangers of using a cellphone while driving.
Read, for example, "Why we Make Mistakes" by Joseph T. Hallinan or "The Invisible Gorilla: And Other Ways Our Intuitions Deceive Us" by Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons.
I can walk and listen to a podcast, but (unfortunately) riding a bike requires more attention to the road to be safe.
I disagree, as I did with Constable Smith when he said the same thing.
Much of the problem with using a cellphone when driving (or cycling) is that you not only have to listen, you have to formulate and verbalize your responses. It takes much more attention to do that than simply to listen passively. Listening to podcasts is more akin to listening to the radio while driving.
I listen to podcasts and audiobooks on my commute every day, and have for 5 or 6 years now, without an accident. Thousands of people listen to the CBC, or sports or talk radio on their commutes, too. (The difference, for me, is that if something on the road does distract me and I miss something, I can rewind the podcast at the next safe opportunity.)
Actually, the section on this subject probably did cause a little more distraction than listening to a podcast normally does for me, because I got so irritated and annoyed with the Constable's false equivalence.
I got caught by your Pizza discussion – I thought why the controversy – it's obvious that all Pizza with everything is "all dressed". I was then both surprised and proud to learn that the expression is Montreal specific. Although born in Montreal and spending my first 18 years there, for the past 40 years I have lived in many places. The first 10 – the intensive pizza eating age of 18-28 in Toronto – then 6 in Calgary, 6 in Yellowknife and the past 18 in Israel where an all dressed pizza is not an option.
In any case I was fascinated that even after all these years and travels I still think of a Pizza with everything as "all dressed"! Am still proud to be a Montrealer!
PS Why do Montrealers (and New Yorkers) "open" or "close" the light – while the rest "turn on" or "turn of" the light???
I lived in Montreal from 1955 to 1980 and I never heard of opening or closing a light. I think it is a more recent phenomonen as a literal translation from French.
Why New Yorkers say it, I can't imagine.
I lived in Montreal at the very end of the 80s (yikes), and I remember the 'close the light' as well. I also remember my surprise at "all dressed", which I had never heard before.
On another note, as I learned when I lived there, Manitoba has lots of interesting regionalisms, such as "unthaw" (for thaw), and "Hallowe'en Apples" instead of "Trick or Treat"
I was shocked to discover when I moved to Toronto in 1980 that the local pizzarias didn't understand an order for pizza all dressed with anchovies. The Montreal pizzarias certainly knew the order.
Like most Canadians I believe I have no accent however, I probably have an eastern Canadian accent whatever that might be having grown up in Quebec, Nova Scotia, back in Quebec and for many years an Ontario resident.
I seem to have picked up a few western pronunciations as my mother was born and grew up in Regina, Saskatchewan and a few Maritime expressions as my father was born in Nova Scotia.
deluxe pizza? Seems pretty common….dialects–I have relatives from one part of NL that I cannot understand a word until I am around them for a few days and others from other parts that I have no problem–but other do–
Interesting dialects abound here but also in NS–southern shore people sound like they are from Maine, Cape Breton from NL, and all those Acadien areas..quite interesting…..
what about a show(I know may have already done this) about the redundancy now of social media….I mean I love my laptop but refrain from Twitter, facebook, new cell phone every month, etc…..we are being hit over the head with ways to communicate except actually sitting down face to face,,,,,
Nice Background for "Twitter Dialects"
Wordle?
Kevin Kelly* also has no problem listening to spoken audio while driving (reference near the end of the post):
http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/2011/03/mu…
*I usually take KK's writings with a grain or more of salt, so I'm taking his agreement with my position cautiously as well and just noting it for what it's worth.