Listening, Semiotics, and So Much More w/ Michael Berman

Listening, Semiotics, and So Much More w/ Michael Berman

From Tomayto Tomahto by Talia Sherman

November 30, 2025 · 1h 14m

About this episode

The episode explores the concept of listening in language-centric fields, discussing its implications and connections to various themes.

In language-centric fields we privilege the speaker. Linguistics looks at spoken or signed utterances; linguistic anthropology does as well. But Michael Berman looks at listening, which for him is a process wherein you limit or shift your language practices so as to avoid being generated as a certain type of person (often within a hierarchical relationship). That’s listening. It's about avoiding (or not) taxonomy, stereotypes, perception, and it necessitates an understanding of the power that our ears have. This episode cannot be reduced to a few thematic elements: Michael and I discuss listening, semiotics, C.S. Peirce, suffering and compassion, critiques of linguistics and other sciences, the implicit economic models undergirding scholarship, and his fieldwork in Japan—among other things. I’m struck by how much ground we cover, and yet we make a limited number of rhetorical and analytic moves. Whether we’re talking about what constitutes listening, language ideology, religion, etc.—we’re always taking the minuscule and making it representative (or symptomatic) of something bigger. Maybe that’s a paranoid reading, but I think it’s useful in the context of our conversation. What…

People in this episode

Host: Talia Sherman

Guest: Michael Berman

Topics covered

  • listening
  • semiotics
  • linguistics
  • language ideology
  • fieldwork
  • power dynamics

Keywords

  • listening
  • semiotics
  • linguistics
  • language practices
  • C.S. Peirce
  • fieldwork
  • Japan

Mentioned in this episode

Places: Japan

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