Bonus 53: Language under the influence (Patreon)

In fiction, we can often tell when a character is drunk or high by their way of speaking: when someone's slurring sounds together or jumping erratically from topic to topic, the audience is meant to assume that they're under the influence. But how accurate are these fictional portrayals? 

In this episode, Lauren and Gretchen get enthusiastic about two fun studies of how people talk differently when under the influence of alcohol or cannabis: the German Alcohol Language Corpus and the delightfully named "Dude, What Was I Talking About? A New Sociolinguistic Framework for Marijuana-Intoxicated Speech".  We also talk about the logistical complications of setting out to study intoxicated speech, from setting up fake pubs and recording in a "vehicular environment" to the ethical issues around how to make sure that impaired people are giving informed consent to participate (tip: ask them when they're still sober). 

Announcements: 

Have a story or a study to share related to this episode? Join us on Discord! If you're seeing this, that means you have access to our Lingthusiasm Discord server, where you can chat with fellow language nerds about the  latest episodes, obscure linguistics facts, cute animal pictures, and or course, memes. We even have custom linguistics emoji! (If you think of any other linguistics-themed emoji we should add, we're happy to take requests!)

Here are the links mentioned in this episode:

• Alcohol language corpus: the first public corpus of alcoholized German speech
• Overview of "Alcohol language corpus: the first public corpus of alcoholized German speech" on Improbable Research
• Dude, What Was I Talking About? A New Sociolinguistic Framework for Marijuana-Intoxicated Speech
• Overview of "Dude, What Was I Talking About?" on All Things Linguistic
• Examining alcohol outcome expectancies in laboratory and naturalistic bar settings: A within-subject experimental analysis 
• Previous PG-rated bonus episodes: swearing and more swearing. 

You can listen to this episode on this page, via the Patreon RSS or download the mp3. A transcript of this episode is available as a Google Doc. Lingthusiasm is also on Facebook, Tumblr, and Twitter. Email us at contact [at] lingthusiasm [dot] com or chat to us on the Patreon page. Gretchen is on Twitter as @GretchenAMcC and blogs at All Things Linguistic. Lauren is on Twitter as @superlinguo and blogs at Superlinguo.

To chat about this episode and other lingthusiastic topics with your fellow linguistics fans, join us on the Lingthusiasm Discord server.

Lingthusiasm is created by Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne. Our senior producer is Claire Gawne, our editorial producer is Sarah Dopierala, and our music is ‘Ancient City’ by The Triangles