Uploaded June 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
If you watch sports, whether the recent NBA finals or the ongoing World Cup matches, you may have noticed that the athletes aren’t the only ones putting on a show. The announcers seem to be playing a beautiful game of their own, capturing the excitement and play-by-play of the game in a unique blend of sentence structure, elocution, and pitch. Linguists have even given this speech pattern a name: sports announcer talk.
Sociolinguist and dialectologist Valerie Fridland joins Host Flora Lichtman to break down the patterns and rules of this register.
Guest:
Dr. Valerie Fridland is a professor of linguistics at the University of Nevada, Reno, and author of “Why We Talk Funny: The Real Story Behind Our Accents.”
Other episodes you may enjoy:
• The Art And Science Of Trash Talk (sciencefriday.com/segments/trash-talk/?utm_source=wnyc&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=scifri)
• What The Sigma Is Algospeak? (sciencefriday.com/segments/what-is-algospeak-gen-alpha/?utm_source=wnyc&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=scifri)
Transcripts for each episode are available within 1-3 days at sciencefriday.com. (sciencefriday.com/segments/sports-announcer-talk-linguistics/?utm_source=wnyc&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=scifri)
Subscribe to this podcast. (pod.link/73329284) Follow our show on Instagram (instagram.com/scifri/) , TikTok (tiktok.com/@scifri) , Facebook (facebook.com/scifri) , and Bluesky (https://bsky.app/profile/scifri.bsky.social) @scifri and sign up for our newsletters (sciencefriday.com/newsletters/?utm_source=wnyc&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=scifri) . Got a science question that’s keeping you up at night? Call us: 877-472-4374
If you watch sports, whether the recent NBA finals or the ongoing World Cup matches, you may have noticed that the athletes aren’t the only ones putting on a show. The announcers seem to be playing a beautiful game of their own, capturing the excitement and play-by-play of the game in a unique blend of sentence structure, elocution, and pitch. Linguists have even given this speech pattern a name: sports announcer talk.
Sociolinguist and dialectologist Valerie Fridland joins Host Flora Lichtman to break down the patterns and rules of this register.
Guest:
Dr. Valerie Fridland is a professor of linguistics at the University of Nevada, Reno, and author of “Why We Talk Funny: The Real Story Behind Our Accents.”
Other episodes you may enjoy:
• The Art And Science Of Trash Talk (sciencefriday.com/segments/trash-talk/?utm_source=wnyc&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=scifri)
• What The Sigma Is Algospeak? (sciencefriday.com/segments/what-is-algospeak-gen-alpha/?utm_source=wnyc&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=scifri)
Transcripts for each episode are available within 1-3 days at sciencefriday.com. (sciencefriday.com/segments/sports-announcer-talk-linguistics/?utm_source=wnyc&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=scifri)
Subscribe to this podcast. (pod.link/73329284) Follow our show on Instagram (instagram.com/scifri/) , TikTok (tiktok.com/@scifri) , Facebook (facebook.com/scifri) , and Bluesky (https://bsky.app/profile/scifri.bsky.social) @scifri and sign up for our newsletters (sciencefriday.com/newsletters/?utm_source=wnyc&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=scifri) . Got a science question that’s keeping you up at night? Call us: 877-472-4374
