Recorded June 17th, 2025, 9pm.

Welcome to episode five of the Apprentice Dialogues! In this episode, Ariel & Michelle take a crack (or a kick, or a hit, or a punch, or a stab…) at describing what linguistics is. Using their backgrounds in applied linguistics, as well as the examples of others who might have been linguists - such as Ariel’s very prescriptive mother - they get into the misconception between being multilingual and being a linguist, issues around second-language learning, and the very broad yet niche experience that is operating within applied linguistics. They also provide real-life examples of linguistics, talk about generational differences in language use, and have a few cat fights about what certain phrases mean.

See the shownotes for our dialogue about the episode.

Recorded April 4, 2025, 9pm.

Welcome to episode four of the Apprentice Dialogues! In this episode, Ariel & Michelle turn the focus onto Ariel’s research and the world of ethnography, memoir, and the personal lived experience. Ariel explains the process around how her own thesis unfolded and how it ties into public scholarship and the importance of sharing people’s stories. They also touch on the Platonic Dialogues, ‘research sleepovers’ (aka linguistics conferences), and Ariel’s deep hatred of CATS the musical.

See the shownotes for our dialogue about the episode.

Recorded March 18, 2025, 9pm.

Welcome to episode three of the Apprentice Dialogues! In this episode, Ariel & Michelle take an in-depth look at Michelle’s independent research, which focuses on some of the overlooked pros of internet culture, the challenges researchers face translating academic knowledge to social media, why academic language can be so difficult to understand, and why people raised on the internet sometimes do a better job at public scholarship than professional researchers! 

On the way, they chat about learning a language on the internet, YouTube video essays, and the mystical (?) encounter that pushed Michelle to study linguistics.

See the shownotes for our dialogue about the episode.

Recorded March 4th, 2025, 9pm.

Welcome to episode two of the Apprentice Dialogues! In this episode, Ariel & Michelle begin to explore creativity and the creative process via their experiences writing master’s theses in Applied Linguistics. An isolating choice in their program, Ariel & Michelle found a way to turn this solitary element of academic culture into a shared experience – which ultimately resulted in this podcast project. 

How did undertaking ambitious research projects influence and transform their everyday habits? Side tangents involve being accountable to their childhood dreams, Ariel’s childhood Star Trek fanfiction, learning multiple Latin languages, and resistance bands / Michelle’s quest to get buff.

See the shownotes for our dialogue about the episode.

Recorded February 11th, 2025, 9pm.

Welcome to the first episode of the Apprentice Dialogues! In this episode, Ariel & Michelle – two newlygrads in Applied Linguistics – introduce their shared interest in public scholarship, their complicated relationships with both academia and social media, the circumstances that brought them to begin this podcast project…and martial arts!

See the shownotes for our dialogue about the episode.