The LSA is proud to serve as the lead sponsor of the Subtitle podcast.  This ongoing venture is made possible, in part, by the receipt of two grants totaling more than $400,000 from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH).  The podcast, called Subtitle, is produced by Patrick Cox, winner of the LSA's Linguistics Journalism Award in 2019, and by documentary film and radio producer Kavita Pillay. Cox previously served as the producer of the World in Words podcast that was also supported by the NEH.  The LSA is excited to assume sponsorship of this outstanding forum for informing the public about language and linguistics research.

The NEH grants only cover about 80 percent of the total project expenses, with the remainder to be raised through individual donations, corporate sponsorships, private foundation grants, and paid advertising. As a charitable, tax-exempt non-profit organization, the LSA welcomes financial contributions to support its mission, including production costs associated with the Subtitle podcast. Donations for this purpose may be made by visiting our secure online donation facility.

Subtitle will be back with a new season starting December 15, 2021. Look out for episodes on the language of self-help, French in Louisiana after Hurricane Ida, losing your mother tongue, learning Finnish as an adult, and the roots of African American English.  



About Subtitle

Subtitle tells stories about languages and the people who speak them. Why is linguistic discrimination so prevalent?  How can we help keep endangered languages alive? How does language make us laugh? And cry? (Sometimes at the same time!) Subtitle seeks answers to these and many other questions. 

Subscribe to Subtitle on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, RadioPublic or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Transcripts of each episode can be found on the individual episode pages, below.

About Patrick Cox 

Patrick Cox worked as a theater sound designer in Copenhagen and London before graduating from the University of California, Berkeley with a Masters in Journalism. He then worked in radio journalism, mainly for The World public radio show where he reported from dozens of countries. The stories he brought home that most intrigued him were about language: the street slang of Singapore, the linguistic spats of post-apartheid South Africa, the lost words of the lost nation of Yugoslavia. In 2008, he founded The World in Words podcast. In 2018, the Linguistic Society of America gave him its Linguistics Journalism Award. A year later, Subtitle was born. 

About Kavita Pillay

Kavita Pillay was born and raised in northeastern Ohio, where the myth of the “General American” accent runs deep. She came to audio by way of documentary film. She has reported for The World and the BBC on comedians in Singapore, Catholicism in Poland, and Finland’s insecurity complex. Her feature-length documentary on Indian men named Stalin and Lenin is in post-production. Her work has received the support of many organizations, including the LEF Foundation, the Sundance Institute, the Massachusetts Cultural Council, and the Fulbright Scholar Program.