Main content

The Power of Language

Fi Glover presents three conversations about war in Ukraine, homophobia in football and one of the many ways The Listening Project archive at the British Library is being used.

Three conversations presented by Fi Glover.

Oksana, a newly arrived Ukrainian refugee, and her host Pippa reflect on the experience of coming together from both perspectives. Jahmal, a semi-professional footballer and football coach, and Sam, also a coach, share their own similar stories in the light of professional footballer Jake Daniel鈥檚 recent decision to come out as gay. And in our 10th year we are taking the opportunity to look at how The Listening Project archive at the British Library is being used. In this edition Dr Vaclav Brezina, Senior Lecturer in Corpus Linguistics, Department of Linguistics and English Language at Lancaster University, explains how he and his team have been using it to study how we speak.

The Listening Project is a Radio 4 initiative that offers a snapshot of contemporary Britain in which people across the UK volunteer to have a conversation. The conversations are being gathered across the UK by teams of producers from local and national radio stations who facilitate each encounter. Every conversation lasts up to an hour and is then edited to extract the key moments of connection between the participants. Most of the unedited conversations are being archived by the British Library and used to build up a collection of voices capturing a unique portrait of the UK in this decade of the millennium. You can learn more about The Listening Project by visiting bbc.co.uk/listeningproject

Producer: Mohini Patel

Available now

28 minutes

Last on

Sun 5 Jun 2022 13:30

Broadcast

  • Sun 5 Jun 2022 13:30

Animated conversations

Listening project conversations brought to life by talented young animators.

Fi Glover and Jane Garvey

Fi Glover and Jane Garvey roam the fields of broadcasting talking to interesting people.

Find a conversation

Broadcast across Radio 4 and on local radio stations across the UK and Northern Ireland.

Podcast