Belong

Interview with Daniel Midgley, Because Language
===

Kevin Micalizzi: Welcome to Belong. Today's guest is Daniel Midgley from the Because Language podcast, a podcast about linguistics. I'm a huge fan of Because Language and I've been a Patreon subscriber for a few years now. Daniel does an incredible job fostering belonging in the Because Language community. He also shares some great advice in our conversation on how to make people feel more included. I hope you enjoy our chat as much as I do.

Make it Interactive
---

Kevin Micalizzi: I have wanted to chat with you about this for a while. I know, you know, you run because language and the community around it and, everything, I know you do a lot around the community aspect and the promotional aspects of the podcast, as well as, you know, I, I see you in the discord community all the time.

And I think where I want to start is, When you start a podcast, it's, it's, it's a media, medium others are going to consume. And so it's not really interactive. At what point did you start adding in interactive components to it?

Daniel Midgley: We were pretty lucky on Because Language because in our earlier incarnation, it was a show called Talk the Talk and it was on a community radio station. It was always just intended to be a radio show. So it had listeners who were listening in the moment. You had kind of a built in community and we kind of played on that.

We invited listeners to, you know, suggest themes or to send me an email about what you're hearing and we'll read those comments at the end. And so it was really quite natural for us to be doing that. Radio is an amazing medium. The immediacy of radio really comes with its own built in community. And then when we left the radio station, RTRFM, in Perth, And we took our podcast Indie, we were able to retain a lot of those features.

We weren't able to sort of trade on the community ethic or sort of borrow that contribution things. We had to kind of make it ourselves. We had a community. We had a tradition of, giving people a chance to contribute and interact with us in the usual ways. And so we just sort of, carried that along.

And having that radio show really did teach us how to do it. Not everyone can have a radio show. A lot of people have to start with a podcast. And so you could, those techniques that we've used are still available to you.

And I guess we'll talk about those as we go.

Build and Engage the Community
---

Kevin Micalizzi: Yeah, but you're switching from synchronous to asynchronous, right? If it's a radio show, they call in, you know, yes, they could leave a message if, if you can't take them on the air, but you could take them on the air. Whereas a podcast could be consumed at any time, anywhere.

Daniel Midgley: It's true.

There's a work around and that is doing live shows.

Kevin Micalizzi: Which which I love, which I love that you guys do that.

Daniel Midgley: It is. It's fun just piling everybody into a Zoom room, having a couple of posts big and exciting. And, I remember the first few times we did it, people were like, Oh, wow. Daniel is standing there and he's saying the things, it sounds like a real show. I can't believe I'm here. So that was, That was really fun to have it.

And yeah, the live shows are a way that we sort of bring back some of that real time feel. And we like doing them and we're going to be doing more of those.

Kevin Micalizzi: Right, right. But even when you left the radio station, I'm assuming you had to find ways to recreate that same feel you had, in doing a live show.

Daniel Midgley: It's true. there are a couple of things that we've done.

Kevin Micalizzi: Maybe I'm asking the question the wrong way.

Using Social Media and Discord
---

Kevin Micalizzi: You have, like, the Discord community now, you know, the folks, supporting you through Patreon, they're there, they're engaging. before that built up, was it just people emailed you, sent you messages on the social channels? Is, is that how you started getting people connected?

Daniel Midgley: It was, we made sure that our email was available. We were also very active on social media. We took out the accounts for every new thing that popped up, and a lot of new things have been popping up. We were very active on TwitX. We were, we were very active on Facebook. Some of those have dwindled a bit as I feel like a lot of people are, are leaving social media or aging out of social media.

I, we also found a way to make it work on Discord. Discord is your old school forum sort of website.

Kevin Micalizzi: Right.

Daniel Midgley: And we've just found that that works really well to bring a whole bunch of people together. The Facebook communities, the Twitter, TwitX communities, they're, they're, very good. Blue Sky is now becoming, I think bigger in terms of linguistics. There's a lot of linguists hanging out there, although I don't know if everyone else is. But Discord has been amazing. Being able to find that has really taken over a lot of the, the work of, of the former social media sites. And it's become a real, a really strong way that people have been able to contribute and suggest stories and ideas for the show and also just hang out and have a good time.

Kevin Micalizzi: Right.

Daniel Midgley: So I guess

Kevin Micalizzi: you even have craft channels and, I saw a recipe this morning.

Daniel Midgley: photos of pets.

Kevin Micalizzi: Folks are, a hundred percent in there.

Daniel Midgley: Yeah, maybe that's a tip. Give people a chance to talk about things outside the area and show off a bit of themselves. Because when they show off a bit of themselves then people, people like to do that and it's something that they're an expert at. And then it's not just about linguistics.

It's about all of life, which is really, what we need to to bring in, you know, we sometimes in the linguistics community, in the LingCom space, we sometimes remind each other, we're not each other's competition. Like the other podcasts, like the Vocal Fries and Lingthusiasm and Bunny Trails. We're, we're not each other's, competition. The real competition is non linguistic interests. It's the other podcasts. It's, it's human relationships. It's other hobbies. These are the things we must defeat.

Kevin Micalizzi: Right.

Daniel Midgley: Sorry. we must, we must co opt them. We must bring them into our site. And then, then it becomes not, you're not just talking linguistics, you're hanging out and chatting with friends about stuff that matters to you, whether that's language or not.

Kevin Micalizzi: Yeah.

Collaborations and Inclusivity
---

Kevin Micalizzi: Well, I've noticed you guys are really good at bringing in a lot of those other, linguistics podcasters. you know, many, many people are, you know, guest hosts multiple times. is, is that, is that just kind of the nature of that space?

Daniel Midgley: Well, we kind of just liked those people.. and also we made a conscious decision a long time ago. So, okay. Story time. and I've told Lauren and Gretchen this, Lauren Gawne and Gretchen McCulloch of Lingthusiasm. They didn't have a podcast, but they were going to start one. And I got wind of it. And I thought, Oh man, these people are so amazing.

This is going to be such a good podcast. Oh no, no one's ever going to listen to us again. We're no where, nowhere near as good as that. And, but, but I thought, no, no, this is good because a rising tide lifts all boats. So we went out of our way to, promote them to tell people about them. And whenever there's a new one, I'm like, ah, this is like, this is a good one.

I just found out about these people and you should check them out too. And that way it's not just us. It's a whole, it's a whole...it's Coke and Pepsi, right? It's like, you've got, what is it? Pepsi doesn't just have Pepsi. They've got Mountain Dew. They've got. What else do they have? I don't even know,

Kevin Micalizzi: Other brands.

Daniel Midgley: You go to the shops, then you're, and you don't feel like a Pepsi, you might choose something else that's in the Pepsi space and therefore you're contributing to Pepsi.

Well, you know, you've got so many good linguistics podcasts now. And so maybe if you don't want to listen to Because Language, you'll listen to one of them. They'll be more your taste, but you're still connecting into this network. And then if you do listen to Because Language, you'll be listening to one of their hosts on our show, or a linguist that we like, or just somebody, because that's, that's the way that you bring in popular, actually popular linguists, into your community so that you're promoting them and they're promoting you and everybody's, it just goes higher and higher.

So we, we love having lots of hosts on, lots of guests, hosts. it's interesting, it works. They have expertise that we don't and people like to listen to them, so it makes for a more enjoyable show.

Kevin Micalizzi: Definitely. I mean, I've enjoyed all the ones I've listened to. when you're talking about the show, when you're promoting it or, you know, you're, you're putting messages out there as. As a linguist, are you giving thought to the language you're using, like in terms of, I'm always afraid to say making it inclusive because that has such loaded meaning nowadays.

Are you conscious of how you're approaching things to make it appeal to the broader audience and make people feel more connected to it?

Daniel Midgley: Hm, I can't say I'm really over thinking the language that I use, which sounds kind of unusual for a linguist to say, because overthinking language is kind of my job. But are we thinking about the terminology that we use or...

One thing that I do is I. I,I try to bring down, the jargon, I try to bring down the terminology.

Some linguists have a policy that they just don't do jargon, or they'll allow themselves one element of jargon. I think that people can handle a lot more jargon than we give them credit for. And so, if I drop in a term like morphology.

Now, in linguistics this is a fancy way of saying the parts of words that have meaning and I, I got a lot of experience by, I was a linguistics professor for 18 years and I got good at explaining stuff to students.

Daniel Midgley: So that became part of my craft. So that's, that's one way that I handle the language that I use. But are you thinking of something different?

Kevin Micalizzi: No, I mean, I think making, making what you're saying more accessible to everyone, in, in terms of clarity makes total sense. I mean, there, there's research out there on like the language of belonging and it's usually in more cultural context versus, you know, you as a linguist trying to reach non linguists who would still find the show fascinating, and, and kind of getting to them.

Yeah, I wasn't, I wasn't sure, like, if that was going to be something that you give conscious thought to, but it makes sense, in terms of bringing down the jargon or at least clarifying it, does make it more accessible to folks.

Language Sensitivity and Respect
---

Daniel Midgley: There is another thing that we really do think about a lot and stress over and that's, looking out for, discriminatory language, ableist language, So, for example, we, we talk about pronouns a lot on the show, and how, and how they have a long history. We, we talk about how they, for one person, is, something that has a long, long track record in English.

It's been around for, over a thousand years. We've been using singular they for longer than we've been using singular you. which is fun. And then we, we try to call each other out when we use language in discriminatory ways. Like we had a period where we were using crazy and insane to say that something was weird or wild or something.

And so we've talked about alternatives to that. Why do we do that? Well, because if you say that something is lame. Oh, that's lame. And we would think nothing of it. But what if somebody doesn't have such an easy time walking? What if somebody has a history of mental illness and that puts them offside or makes them feel bad about getting help, which is what people in that space say is happening.

If you use language in a discriminatory way, well, It can have discriminatory effects. And so sometimes if one of us uses the word crazy. Oh, that's, that's crazy. Another one of us will say, Hey, when you said, that's crazy. What, what did you mean? Really? Yep. Okay. what I meant was that it was unexpected or, very strange.

Oh, right. Okay.

And, It's just a way of showing respect, using someone's correct pronouns, or avoiding using discriminatory language, especially around mental illness or autism or things like that. Just means that people who, whose lives involve those conditions, they know that we're thinking about them.

They know that we're trying to do better at approaching these things in a good way. So that also can increase the sense of belonging.

Daniel Midgley: And make sure, it makes sure that what we say is clear, it makes sure that, it makes sure that what we say isn't an impediment to understanding, that we're not throwing something unexpected or, or something that's going to make somebody misunderstand our intention.

It's just part of being clear.

Creating a Conversational Atmosphere
---

Kevin Micalizzi: I think the three of you, you, Hedwig, and Ben, I, I feel like I am sitting, listening to a kitchen table conversation. You know, I mean, you, you all have such great rapport. I feel drawn into it versus like, you know, "wow, they've got something there and I'm on the outside," you know, I feel like I'm pulling up a chair and just, you know, joining you guys.

Daniel Midgley: Good. I'm glad that comes through. I think that the rapport between us helps. I've been working with Ben for, you know, a long time. When were our first shows? About 13 years ago. So Ben and I have been doing shows and we must enjoy it because we keep on doing it and we know how to read each other really well.

It's fun to, interact with Ben in an actual space where we're, where we're reading each other and we know how to play off of each other. And then Hedvig is of course, fantastic. She brings a lot of fun too, but we're all, we're each kind of different and we're each kind of a little spiky and we're each sort of trying to be funny and trying to share some knowledge. So I think the fun really comes through. So if you're a podcaster and you're trying to make sure you have that kitchen table sense, maybe just pick good people. be curious. Talk to each other and don't, don't overthink it.

Flexibility and Spontaneity
---

Kevin Micalizzi: Right now I've noticed for every episode you, you are coming in with your list of items you want to cover, but it, it always seems like there's room for flexibility based on what everyone else is bringing up. And I don't know, for me, I like that because I feel the spontaneity when things like that happen.

And personally, it just makes me feel more invested in what's going on is, was that originally just something you planned in the model? You know, did it come from the fact that you were doing radio and they were live and you really never knew what kind of a call was going to come in?

Daniel Midgley: It's true. You never really knew. you might be referring to the way that before we have a live show, we put out a run sheet to everybody. A run sheet contains all the things that we're thinking of talking about with links so that everybody can see it. And then we get into a live show and oh no, things just start dropping out.

Or I'll say, does anybody have a new thing? And so somebody will come in and say, this was a thing and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.

Daniel Midgley: But, that's probably because I've learned to read the room.

Reading the room is really big. So, the way I learned to read the room was by giving hundreds and hundreds of lectures to live audiences of students, just being a first year linguist teaching at a university, and I would teach a big lecture, and you could feel when students are losing the plot, and you could tell when you've got them. So you can hone that. Then you teach four tutorials that day, and you read the room there, you can tell when it's late in the semester and everyone's exhausted. You need to have a contingency plan.

That's why I put too much in the run sheet. You got a contingency plan so you can, you can add more things.

Reading the Room: Knowing When to Change Up
---

Daniel Midgley: You can drop out things, but often on a live show, I will be feeling it and reading the room and saying, okay, we're, we're done. I think we're done with this area. It's time for a change up. And I don't know how I got that sense just by doing it over and over again.

So you can develop that sense. Do you feel like this part has run too long? Do you feel like you're going to be losing them? I can feel it even when it's not a live show. It's like, okay, you know what? We're going to skip that story and we're going to go on to the next bit.

Kevin Micalizzi: And I'm assuming that's come from so much practice doing this.

Daniel Midgley: Exactly, it's got, it's got, this is part of your craft. This is part of your craft. Are you losing the audience? Are you getting there? Do you feel like you've explained things appropriately? Is there more to say? When do you cut off, even though there's more to say, and when do you keep going? You can always edit later, but sometimes the flow, just the flow matters.

You can pay attention to the flow.

Kevin Micalizzi: Yeah, I definitely see it.

The Power of Storytelling in Linguistics
---

Kevin Micalizzi: One area I wanted to talk about is, is the use of storytelling. And, you know, especially when you're talking linguistics, in almost every case, you're bringing it up in a certain context. So you, you have a way to frame it, as you're talking about it.

Is that, again, something that you planned to do? Or is that just, kind of, how it's naturally evolved?

Daniel Midgley: I definitely plan to do that. Storytelling is what we do as humans. Things don't really land unless they're relevant to a listener. We always stress about the so what. We talk about the who, what, where, when, why, but we also want to talk about the so what. Why is this relevant?

Because if it's not relevant, then it's not going to matter. So we do that in a couple of ways. Whenever there's a research story, because we cover linguistic research, I try to find out what did they do? Was there anything interesting about the way that they did the experiment? And sometimes we'll have the experimenters themselves on and they can tell the story, but often you've got to find out, okay, what did they do?

And how can I tell this story in a way that will make it stick for people? Otherwise it's kind of just boring results.

The other thing is making sure that you focus on people's stories. So we had, we sometimes we'll have a researcher come on and tell us about their work. But then I'll ask, what got you into this?

How, how did you do this? And then they start telling their story and why it's relevant to them. Sometimes it'll be because a linguist is trans and that affected their work in a certain way. And so, getting them on to tell their story.

You know, one of the questions that we address is how language started in the first place. And it's a really complicated story that goes back millions of years, but imagine humans, who live together: Whathat kind of things are they doing?

Well, they're communicating with each other to figure out where the food is or to help each other do things that one of them couldn't do alone. Then someone figures out fire. Now they've got control of fire. Now they're sitting around at night around a fire, which is good, because the fire is warm and everyone's together and it keeps the bad animals away and also it artificially prolongs the daylight so that they have a bit more light. They don't have to go to bed right away. So they're all just sort of sitting around this warm fire together. What are they doing? They're inventing language. They're inventing culture. They're telling stories.

They're creating, a mythos that will bind them together and make them feel like a community. I think that fire was one of the most important inventions to the creation of language and the creation of community and the creation of culture because now we're telling stories to each other. We're making it happen.

So it's natural to have that sense of community on a language podcast because building community is one thing that language not only is very good at doing, it's probably one of the reasons why we have language at all. Because we had a community that could sustain language and then language sustained the community.

So yeah, I just told a story there that may, and you could, you could kind of smell the fire. You know, you kind of imagine the people make it, make it vivid. Storytelling is so important to make things stick.

The Evolution of Live Shows
---

Kevin Micalizzi: I'm going to jump around a little bit here. How early, after the radio show, how early did you start doing the live episodes?

Daniel Midgley: Let's see, we were doing live shows, even when we were a radio program, because the radio station, RTR FM was centered around Perth, Perth, Australia. And so we would sometimes do live shows when we could, we would get invited to festivals and do a live episode there. And that was really fun. We got used to how to do that.

Getting, getting good at that was kind of tricky, but I guess lots of people are good at it now so. Then, we switched to indie and we, Hmm, how long? How long did it take for us to start doing live shows? I don't think we started on it right away.

Let's see...

Our list of episodes.

And we're going back to the beginning.

It took a while.

Kevin Micalizzi: That's not surprising. I mean, when you set out as an indie podcast, you don't have that infrastructure behind you anymore.

Daniel Midgley: That's true. It took us about a year to be able to sort of get our feet and do our first live episode. It was for LingFest 21. So that would have been about a year and a half after we went, went indie and it was a good experience. So we realized, okay, this is a perk that we can offer to people who like our show that they can come to.

And it's, it's turned out really well. we've enjoyed our, the shows where people can vote. So we use the, we use the features of zoom. People can vote on whether they think two words are related or not, or whether they say that bi weekly is once every two weeks or twice a week, And so it, and then the chat, oh my gosh.

So you've got two channels going on. If you watch one of our live videos, you'll hear people talking and people jumping in and contributing, but then you'll also see spilling down the screen, the chat messages, which people are sending to each other as kind of a second. Subtext running underneath the main text people will comment on what's going on or they'll comment to each other's messages So yeah, chat is a really good feature.

A lot of podcasts do it It's fun to whenever I see somebody else doing it. I look for ideas on how to make it work better but sometimes it'll just spill up the screen and you can...it's another way for your attention to be captivated

Kevin Micalizzi: Yeah. Oh, definitely. Definitely. And it tends to get very fast moving as people get going.

Daniel Midgley: Can be difficult to keep up with sometimes,

Daniel Midgley: especially the reactions as people sort of fire off reactions to each other's messages

Kevin Micalizzi: Totally.

Building a Community Through Patreon
---

Kevin Micalizzi: So if, if it took about a year to get to back to the live events, how early did you start like, building out Patreon and, and just, you know. In interest of disclosure, I am a Patreon subscriber of Because Language.

Daniel Midgley: And thank you for that.

Kevin Micalizzi: How early in the process did you start?

Daniel Midgley: We had Patreon, we had a Patreon account before we went indie. So for the last couple of years of the Talk the Talk podcast, we had a Patreon account, but we weren't very aggressive about promoting it. People liked contributing. So we let them, but we also encouraged them to contribute to the station.

There was a, cause this, the, the community radio station relies on, donations as well for their support. So there was kind of a tension there and we contributed a lot to the station and people contributed to us. But, eventually we decided that it would be a lot less conflicting if we could just be ourselves and, and have our own patrons.

So that was how that was that. And that was really beneficial because then it gives people a way to contribute. You know, community involves a couple of things. It involves a way to contribute and also a way to interact. And those two things are very evident in the show. Like we, we started doing a segment called related or not, where you have to guess if two words are related or not like flour, the wheat stuff and flower, the pretty things.

And we invited people to make a, a theme song, a jingle for us.

And people have. Someone generated a bunch via ai. Some we've got people who, you know, give us a, a little bit of a song that they sing or someone gives us a piano bit. Someone has just given us a, a bit on guitar, so. It's so interesting to see how when you are creative, see if you can find a way for others to be creative too, because creativity, creativity breeds creativity, and that has been really, really nice to see.

Not in the way of expecting free labor, because you are kind of inviting people to do work. for free, but just be, just be clear about that and try to recompense people in appropriate ways. Give them props, share the spotlight for them as well. But so that's, that's one is, you know, invite creativity, invent contributions.

One of the really important things on the Discord website is that people can give show ideas and story ideas related or not ideas. So that's super good. But then the other way is just, if you aren't feeling very creative, if you're not contributing, so much, you can still come and hang out and meet up with the people.

So that's, that's been an incredible part of our discord community. The Because Language experience is just coming, sharing your Wordle scores. Nothing else, you know, or anything else. Or just, you know, pop a reaction onto somebody's message that you liked. People are really able to engage deeply or just in ways that they like, people can choose their level of involvement.

So yeah, I'm a really big fan of having some sort of forum that people can come to that way, that way they, they contribute or they just hang out.

The Importance of Community in Linguistics
---

Daniel Midgley: Let me just talk for a second about why community is so important in the linguistic space. We've mentioned that, you know, community is part of language and language is part of community. But also it has to do with beliefs. There are some beliefs in language that are actually quite damaging and some seem not very damaging, but maybe kind of are.

For example, my mom really, really dislikes the word irregardless. I think a lot of people do. Okay. And when I am on my ABC gig, I have a gig on the ABC, the Australian Broadcasting Company. That's what it is. I think it's a company or is it a corporation? Not even sure. It's one of the two. But I do a weekly gig on the ABC, in the morning. It's on a real radio station where it goes out to a hundred thousand listeners.

And a lot of people have ideas about language that are, well, I would like to change those attitudes. Like if you talk a certain way, then you're an idiot or, kids these days are ruining language. You know, the, the kind of ideas that we, we hit sometimes.

And sometimes the people do the content, have wanted to do shows like what's the ugliest accent or what's the worst word in English, what word should be banned permanently or whatever.

And those seem fun. They seem lighthearted, they generate a lot of content, like people come in and say, Oh, I hate this word. Oh, me too. But I also really hate that word. For some reason, anger drives engagement. It's angertainment. Well, yeah, it is unfortunate because when you're talking about language, that's real people who have that accent or it's real people who are being shamed for saying this or that word or using this or that language feature.

And so I try to be gentle and say, "hey, that's a language belief and it might be a little bit harmful." Beliefs are really hard to change, Even, even when they're bad ideas. Because if we think of an idea as a part of us, and with language ideas we really do think of those as part of us, because language is a proxy for a lot of things that we are. Our, our race, our background, our social class, our origin.

So, getting rid of a bad language idea is difficult, especially when it ties you in to a community. Being able to change an idea when there's a community behind it is really, really hard. So the answer is have a community yourself, have a better community, tell better stories.

And, if you would like to hear more about this, you can check out, I did a TEDxPerth talk a few years ago where I mentioned these things, but how do you change minds? And the answer is you tell a better story and you provide a better community and we have, we can build communities. And so I, I've really taken the idea of community building very seriously because we don't want to belong to communities of unreason where.

Belief in a bad idea gives you a special place, makes you feel special. Let's try to counter that by having good communities, being welcoming, and listening to each other.

Kevin Micalizzi: I like that. Very nice wrap up there.

Final Thoughts
---

Kevin Micalizzi: I, I wanted to, to just go back down the list because you brought up some really good tips here. You know, bringing down the, jargon in what you said, or at least making it understandable and accessible. In terms of understanding how to read the room, I really took away "practice."

It is something you just have to cultivate, to really get better at. Having a contingency plan. Love that one. focusing on people's stories and making it vivid, and providing a way to contribute and interact. and also, sorry, encourage others, to be creative. And then you said, to have a better story.

Anything I'm missing that comes to mind for you when you're thinking about how you make this podcast and the community around it. Like, how do you make people feel like they belong? Or, or, you know, how are you setting it up so that more people do feel like they belong?

Daniel Midgley: I think you hit a lot of the main points. The main idea that I would give is it's supposed to be fun. It's supposed to be fun. If there's something that people enjoy doing, then they'll keep doing it. What's the best way of exercising? Well, the best way of exercising is the one that you enjoy. Because if you don't enjoy it, then you will stop doing it.

Even if it's not like optimal for your body type or whatever, it's probably going to be the exercise that you enjoy. So make sure that you're paying attention to the fun aspect. Is it working? Do you feel like there's something that needs to change? Keep monitoring as you go. If your organization or your podcast or whatever it is, feels bad or feels kind of ouchy in certain ways, then see what you can do to fix that.

See what you can do to change that. Make sure that you, bring the fun, bring the joy, bring the love, and bring the respect. You know, I'm not religious anymore, but I keep thinking of the words of the apostle Paul: "If you have science, if you have have facts, but you do not have charity, then it availeth you nothing."

You've got to bring the love. You've got to make sure that people feel the respect and you've got to bring the joy.

Daniel Midgley: Those are an important part of your community building.

Kevin Micalizzi: This has been fantastic,

Daniel Midgley: It's a pleasure. And thank you for, thank you for listening. It's a, it's an honor to be asked.