Michael Erard
I might have been an economic historian or a speech language pathologist. At one point, I aspired to be a child saint. But the ball sure bounces funny sometimes.
Here I am, writing in the first person. I am a writer, a linguist, a parent, and an immigrant. Most of my work has been about language and languages, and the people who use and study them. My new book, Bye Bye I Love You: The Story of Our First and Last Words, is about the first words of babies and the last words of the dying as linguistic phenomena, personal curios, and objects of cultural interest. The Economist called it "strangely comforting." The hosts of "A Way with Words," a radio show about language, said "it’s beautifully written, it’s wide-ranging, it’s deeply personal too, and moving, and and chock-full of information about language…Erard is a fantastic linguist and a great writer…"
You can read some precursors in a journalistic flavor here and here, and in an academic flavor here and here. This project was supported in part by the Max Planck Society, the Sloan Foundation, and the U.S. National Endowment for the Humanities, which gave me a Public Scholar Fellowship in 2022.
I have written about a range of topics, and at one point I wrote mainly short fiction. My language journalism and other cultural reporting has appeared in The Atlantic, Aeon, The New York Times, New Scientist, Science, Down East, the European Review of Books, the North American Review, Texas Observer (where I was once a contributing writer), and other magazines, some defunct. My two previous books were widely reviewed and garnered considerable media attention: Um…: Slips, Stumbles, and Verbal Blunders, and What They Mean (Pantheon; 2007), and Babel No More: The Search for the World’s Most Extraordinary Language Learners (Free Press; 2012). The latter has been translated into seven languages, helped launch the careers of a few polyglots, and had considerable impact on re-invigorating scientific interest in language aptitude, especially its genetic basis. I also got a pocket profile in the New Yorker in a longer piece about polyglots. "Pensive" and "youthful" I think the adjectives were.
I am regularly interviewed by international print and broadcast media. One thing they don't teach you in writer school is that you'll be talking about topics you wrote about a long time ago, but I enjoy it. It allows me to look back at the amazing work I did, and I appreciate any opportunity to bring a linguistic understanding to new audiences.
I have an MA in linguistics and a PhD in English (with portfolios in rhetoric and linguistics) from the University of Texas at Austin. I taught linguistics, literature, and writing at UT and Southwestern University. From 2008 to 2013, I was a senior researcher at the FrameWorks Institute, where I created a method for designing and testing metaphors for use in strategic communications. I described that work here. In 2014, the Institute received the MacArthur Foundation’s Award for Creative and Effective Institutions. After leaving FrameWorks, I designed metaphors for clients in the public and private sectors.
I have lived in Latin America, Asia, North America, and Europe. In 2016 I received the Language, Linguistics, and the Public Award from the Linguistics Society of America. In 2017, I was invited to be writer in residence at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in Nijmegen, Netherlands, the first ever at this institute. In 2019 I leveraged a background in grantwriting, writing consulting, and research development for a strategic job at the start-up Institute of Data Science at Maastricht University, then transitioned into a role as funding advisor at the Faculty of Law. I also a researcher affiliated with the Centre for Language Studies at Radboud University.
Despite the linearity and purpose implied by this bio, living this particularly life has been anything but. I am easily bored. I want to be surrounded by good ideas and fun, competent people. I'm committed to writers, writing, and building the capacity of the causes of good writing. I want to do things that will make me a better human, not merely age me. I seek, I make, I am a wind-up machine for turning overcoming into becoming.