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We know communication technology is changing how we talk to each other. Currently 340 million people worldwide have instant messaging accounts, 24 million are on Facebook, and more than 1 trillion text messages were sent globally in 2005. Wth those numbers come changes in the way we write, read, and even listen to language.

Teachers from grammar school on up are wondering how tech-savvy kids who communicate with smily and winky faces will learn to write. High school teachers complain that kids can’t compose essays anymore. And college professors worry about a sea of distracted faces hiding behind laptop computers.

Naomi S. Baron, professor of linguistics at American University, has spent a decade researching how technology has influenced our reading, speaking, writing and listening behaviors. She joins Word of Mouth to dicuss her new book, "Always On: Language In An Online and Mobile World," and what will become of written culture.

Also, we hear about a machine to teach toddlers foreign languages, invented by a group of researchers at the University of California-San Diego. Reporter Molly Bently visited Ruby the Robot and her students for the BBC program Science in Action.

(Photo by QwirkSilver/Kristine)

There was a time when NASCAR officials thought New Hampshire was about five miles from the North Pole.

That was before the Southern sport - along with the culture, dollars, and perhaps even the so-called "NASCAR dads" voting block - revved across the United States to stop off right here in Loudon, home of the New Hampshire Motor Speedway, a track that can seat 105,000-plus people.

As local racing fans gear up for the Lenox Industrial Tools 301 this coming Sunday, industry insiders are thinking about the future of NASCAR. Track attendance is down, corporate sponsors may be pulling out, and gas prices are at an all-time high, affecting the race teams as well as fans who trek in from across the country to hear the engines roar.

Charlie Pierce wrote about the foothold NASCAR now has in New England for The Boston Globe Magazine, and he joins Word of Mouth to talk about NASCAR's financial crunch - and its identity crisis.

(Photo by pocketwiley)

The Nashville band Silver Jews released their sixth album last week, Lookout Mountain, Lookout Sea, on Drag City Records. Since the band's 1994 debut record Starlite Walker, years of drug use and a suicide attempt, songwriter David Berman rediscovered his Jewish roots.

To find out how that may have affected his music, and the country ballads that inspired his writing, we called up our reviewer Justin Gage. He runs the music blog Aquarium Drunkard and hosts a two-hour show every Friday on Sirius Satellite radio’s Left of Center channel.

You can read Justin's two-part interview with David Berman by clicking here. A documentary film to be released in September, "Silver Jew," follows David Berman's weeklong tour of Israel in the midst of their first-ever world tour. You can watch the trailer by clicking here.