1. The podcast is a historical literacy genre because it incorporates history and real life examples in the concept of words and language.  Essentially, by taking an abstract concept of the role of words and decoding it through historical contexts including Nicaraguan deaf children, the deaf man, and the babies.  Research is crucial in this genre to provide factual support for their claims which is evident through their interviews of many scientists and scholars from the Harvard graduate to the Columbia Shakespeare professor.  It may also work as a science based podcast because it uses scientific examples and studies to clear points of language.
2. An advertisement tries to persuade people using certain fallacies such as appeal to authority or knowledge.  In the beginning of this podcast, I was confused as to how they were describing words as influencing actions and thoughts, however through their studies and proofs, they persuaded me to their notions.
3. Facts serve to provide real graspable knowledge that allows the listener to relate to.  This podcast incorporates a great degree of abstract thinking, and the facts help provide leaping points to string those ideas together.  Anecdotes are different than facts because there is a humanistic approach.  Those personal stories don’t provide the same amount of knowledge as facts do, but instead provide real world examples.  For me, the anecdotes were more persuasive, because it was much easier to relate to and understand.  I am a practical thinker and thus those anecdotes allowed me to see the physical effects of words on the deaf man for example.
4. I noticed when the interviewee would be asked a question that involved her retelling a memory, sound effects would be used.  For example, for the Harvard graduate, the sound of babies she would work with would be heard (ex: left of the blue wall, in a child’s voice).  Another example is the woman who worked with the deaf man, all the words he was learning were repeated as a sound effect.  They enhance the information presented because listeners can almost relive that memory by hearing the same sounds as perhaps that person did.  For me, however it detracted from the story telling because I was unable to imagine the memory myself with those spontaneous sound effects.  They also felt almost chaotic and repeating in a strange fashion.
5. Believe it or not, if my target audience for the advertisement was illiterate people themselves (it is not in my case), radio ads would work better because of the lack of visual words they have been introduced to.  I would probably try to use appeal to emotion by using various struggles that illiterate people often experience and thus would connect to.  For example, I would use different people explaining how they can’t get a job, or are taken advantage of, etc. to rouse their emotions.
6. I learned that only when babies are six years old, or are introduced to certain context languages, do they rise above rats in certain experiments.  I also learned that in the 70s, a group of 50 students were able to create a universal language for deaf people without even realizing it.  Finally, I learned that words have a much larger impact than I ever imagined.
7. I thought that the show was very interesting, the concepts they described were unique and truly influenced the way I thought about words.  I wish it was not so long because since it is so educational, it is tough to listen to the hour long podcast and process all the ideas as fully as I was able to do for the first half hour.  I enjoyed that there were two hosts so it felt like a conversation instead of a lecture, and the use of interviews provided needed variety.  Overall, I was impressed by Radiolab’s show!

Signing off,

Delectable Danielle