Rune Pedersen unpacks How Humans Talk in new SBS Audio podcast
22 May, 2025
Media releases
Ever caught yourself using baby talk with your pet and wondered why? Or curious about why babies babble, or the science and psychology behind swearing?
Host Rune Pedersen, of the award-winning podcast The Idiom, returns with another linguistic series diving headfirst into the intricacies of human communication. How Humans Talk explores how the way we speak shapes our place in the world and why becoming a better communicator starts with becoming a better listener.
It's been over a year since I last jumped behind the mic to talk all things linguistics. Fatherhood has shrunk my vocabulary to a handful of daycare-proof words, says host Rune Pedersen with a wink, but it's also inspired me to dive deeper into human communication. As AI begins to automate language itself, it feels more important than ever to explore what makes our conversations unmistakably human. This is my answer to this development.
In How Humans Talk we're joined by communication specialists, cultural commentators, and other experts to learn and share how to be a better communicator, whether it's to your doctor, parents, neighbour or even your furry friends. Together we uncover the subtle ways our words shape identities, relationships, and the world around us.
Guided by speech pathologist and voice expert Dr Sarah Lobegeiger de Rodriguez, Rune rings in the first episode by exploring the untapped power of the human voice and why it's often overlooked as a core part of our identity and relationships. Then, Rune chats with Dory Wang who, after being a TV presenter in China, had to start from scratch in Australia, armed with just a handful of vegetable names and some pleasantries. Together, they discuss the emotional and social complexities faced by multilingual speakers from battling accent biases to rethinking what belonging truly means.
Rune is also on a mission to understand the power and pleasure of profanity* with an explosive episode that reveals swearing is much more than just colourful language. With insight from renowned linguist Professor Kate Burridge from Monash University, the episode examines the psychology and sociology of swearing - breaking down the bad words, from Aussie larrikin slang to ancient blasphemies, and exploring the science behind profanity as pain relief.
How Humans Talk launches today with weekly episodes.
How Humans Talk is a new eight-part podcast series hosted by Rune Pedersen and developed in collaboration with Stefan Delatovic-both part of the team behind the award-winning series The Idiom, which secured Gold in Limited Series & Specials - Diversity, Equity & Inclusion at the 2023 Signal Awards.SBS is celebrating 50 years of storytelling and delivers podcasts in over 60 languages. Discover more at sbs.com.au/audio
*Warning: episode 2 of How Humans Talk contains profanity.
For a pdf copy of this release, click here.
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Rune Pedersen unpacks How Humans Talk in new SBS Audio podcast 
