Group items tagged

Playing a series of sounds to infants can speed up the way they process language and can also predict which infants will have trouble with language as they develop. Researchers concluded that processing language sounds sets up the neural foundation in babies.

The way that babies react to certain sounds can indicate their learning patterns and language capabilities later in life.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - A tone-deaf inquiry into an Asian-American's ethnic origin. Cringe-inducing praise for how articulate a black student is. An unwanted conversation about a Latino's ability to speak English without an accent.This is not exactly the language of traditional racism, but in an avalanche of blogs, student discourse, campus theater and academic papers, they all reflect the murky terrain of the social justice word du jour - microaggressions - used to describe the subtle ways that racial, ethnic, gender and other stereotypes can play out painfully in an increasingly diverse culture.

This article states that humans judge people by their voices. It is something that we all do because we cannot help it. The author touches upon Shakespearean plays to elaborate his argument for why tone of voice does in fact matter.

Great find, Kai!

There are many ways that what you do with your body can translate into a language to show what you are feeling. Words are not neccesary for others to know the type of person you are. By reading actions, people can know if you are fit for a job or your characteristics.

Body language is extremely important when in a leadership position. You may not think what you're doing with your head or hands is important, but studies show that everything from a head tilt, to walking on stage gives people a certain impression. For people to see you as a good leader, you need to be confident and aware of your actions. If you are on stage talking to a bunch of people, and you are playing with your hair or touching your neck, people pick up on this and make the assumption that you are nervous. It may not be intentional but subconsciously they think you are intimated even though a leader should be calm and controlled. This article explores other ways leaders and speakers can use body language to more powerfully convey their point.

In this article, Peterson talked about how he got inspired to create the dothraki language. He said he took a course at UC Berkeley because he took a course in morphology which is the study of forms of things in particular. So he researched the words he wanted to use in the show and found their origin and started playing with sounds, phrasing, sentence structure, and ordering. But, he did pull language tools from J.J. R Tolkein and it seems like he had help from other outside sources. Although his made up language became famous in the world of Game of Thrones, he did not entirely create it himself. This article was interesting and all, but I still didn't find what I was looking for in how people create their own languages. Maybe ill try looking into J.J.R Tolkein's work.

In many languages, such as Mandarin Chinese, pitch is as important as consonants and vowels for distinguishing one word from another. Tone languages are spoken all over the world, but they tend to cluster in three places: East and Southeast Asia; sub-Saharan Africa; and among the indigenous communities of Mexico. There are certain advantages to speaking tone languages. Speakers of some African languages can communicate across long distances playing the tones on drums, and Mazatec-speakers in Mexico use whistling for the same purpose. Also, speakers of tonal languages are better at identifying musical pitches than speakers of non-tonal languges.

"Whether it is by random chance or selection, one of the things that is true about English - and indeed other languages - is that the language changes," said Joshua Plotkin, co-author of the research from the University of Pennsylvania. "The grammarians might [win the battle] for a decade, but certainly over a century they are going to be on the losing side." Writing in the journal Nature, Plotkin and colleagues describe how they tracked different types of grammatical changes across the ages. Among them, the team looked at changes in American English across more than one hundred thousand texts from 1810 onwards, focusing on the use of "ed" in the past tense of verbs compared with irregular forms - for example, "spilled" versus "spilt". The hunt threw up 36 verbs which had at least two different forms of past tense, including quit/quitted and leaped/leapt. However for the majority, including spilled v spilt, the team said that which form was waxing or waning was not clearly down to selection - meaning it is probably down to chance over which word individuals heard and copied. "Chance can play an important role even in language evolution - as we know it does in biological evolution," said Plotkin, adding that the impact of random chance on language had not been fully appreciated before.

Priming is a linguistic and psychological concept where a "prime" idea (word, image, etc.) is presented before a "target". The prime might influence what a viewer thinks of the target. Psychological studies use priming in tests such as a completion or lexical decision task in order to test other phenomenon. Priming is also a strategy used in marketing. Advertisers use priming to get you see appeal in their product. Perhaps this is in the form of a commercial where statistics of the product vs other companies' products is shown to enhance their own product. This can also be as simple as playing moody music in a restaurant before you sit down!

Across the workld, girls routinely outstrip boys at reading. In two of the largest studies ever conducted into the reading habits of children in the United Kingdom, Keith Topping-a professor of educational and social research at Scotland's University of Dundee-found that boys dedicate less time than girls to processing words, that they're more prone to skipping passages or entire sections, and that they frequently choose books that are beneath their reading levels. "Girls tend to do almost everything more thoroughly than boys," Topping told me over email, while conversely boys are "more careless about some, if not most, school subjects." And notably, as countless studies have shown, girls are also more likely to read for pleasure. The literacy gap also produces disparities in educational achievement overall. The disparity, researchers believe, is not rooted in biology, as the brain is a unisex organ; most gender differences are mostly a result of socialization. Boys tend to be more vulnerable than girls to peer pressure, and that could discourage them from activities like reading that are perceived to be "uncool." David Reilly, a psychologist, points to the stereotype that liking and excelling at reading is a feminine trait. He suggested that psychological factors-like girls' tendency to develop self-awareness and relationship skills earlier in life than boys-could play a role in the disparity, too, while also explaining why boys often struggle to cultivate a love of reading. "Give boys the right literature, that appeals to their tastes and interests, and you can quickly see changes in reading attitudes," he says, citing comic books as an example.

This New York Times interactive chatbox simulates a text conversation that you might have with a friend that's skeptical about getting COVID-vaccinated. One of the authors, Dr. Gagneur is a neonatologist and a professor of pediatrics at the University of Sherbrooke. His research has led to programs that increase childhood vaccinations through motivational interviewing. The second author, Dr. Tamerius is a former psychiatrist and the founder of Smart Politics, an organization that teaches people to communicate more persuasively. Dr. Gagneur highlights 4 principles that lead to more effective conversation: The skills introduced here are the same ones needed in any conversation in which you want to encourage behavior change, whether it's with your recalcitrant teenager, a frustrated co-worker or a vaccine-hesitant loved one. When you talk with people about getting vaccinated, there are four basic principles to keep in mind: ● Safety and rapport: It's very difficult for people to consider new ways of thinking or behaving when they feel they are in danger. Vaccine conversations must make others feel comfortable by withholding judgment and validating their concerns. Rather than directly contradict misinformation, highlight what they get right. Correct misinformation only late in the conversation, after they have fully expressed their concerns and have given you permission to share what you know. ● Respect for autonomy: The choice of whether to get vaccinated is others' to make, not yours. You can help guide their decision-making process, but any attempt to dictate the outcome - whether by commanding, advising, lecturing or shaming - will be met with resistance. ● Understanding and compassion: Before people will listen to what you have to say, they need to know you respect and appreciate their perspective. That means eliciting their concerns with curious, open-ended questions, showing you understand by verbally summarizing what you've heard and empat

This article discusses a study that explored the average rate that people read in their native languages. Through this study, it is evident that the various aspects that make up a language play a large role when it comes to the speed that a person reads at. Spanish speakers read the fastest syllables at 526 syllables per minute.

This article shows new evidence which suggests that language is learned in circuits that are used for many other purposes, instead of the common claim that language acquisition occurs in a specific part of the brain dedicated to the purpose. How good we are at remembering vocabulary relates to how good we are at declarative memory, which is used to remember shopping lists or people's faces. Grammar in children, on the other hand, correlates most strongly to procedural memory which is used for driving or playing an instrument.

This website highlights a 5-part documentary series which explores the most controversial and misunderstood language variety in the United States: African American Language (AAL). With the perspectives of everyday people and the guidance of historians, linguists, and educators, the series showcases the history of the language, the symbolic role it plays in the lives of African Americans, and the tremendous impact on the language and culture of the United States. Contains video clips, educational resources.

Studies show that people with musical training have an easier time finding minor differences in syllables. They can also pick up the difference between rapidly changing sounds which play a distinct role in processing language.

This journal examines the role that emotions have played in past court cases, and how they might've influenced the decisions of the court. I personally believe that section 3.2 in which the author discusses how pain can be a motivator to put the jury into an agitated state might tip the scales of the court in favor of one argument.

This article talked about the benefits of playing video games for language development since players are immersed in an environment where there is repetition of language through characters, environments, etc. They also learn grammar from dialogue within the game