Laura Spinney- Why modern communication still relies on ancient words and narratives
“Language is incredibly powerful”
Medium: Podcast
How strongly I recommend it: 8/10
10 Take Aways
To improve communication, first grab attention by making messages relevant and entertaining to the audience, then lift them to the bigger why and resolve the question or explain why it matters.
Language families form when a parent language diversifies into dialects that become distinct languages over time.
Languages act as self-archiving tools that lock historical and cultural data into their changing forms.
Great stories revive eyewitness experience and place listeners in the action to synchronise attention and emotion.
Stable story elements help explain shared human concerns like sea-level change or migration.
Use devil’s advocate prompts or reference a possible witness to expose inconsistencies.
Language can change others’ behaviour almost telepathically by implanting ideas without physical action.
To spot lies increase the speaker congitive load by asking them to tell a story backwards or draw the scene.
Pack your message into an entertaining vehicle so people will listen and remember the content.
Tracing linguistic ancestry reveals human movements and cultural links predating written records.