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There is no such thing as "just language." Anne Curzan, associate dean of humanities and Arthur F. Thurnau professor of English at the University of Michigan, uses her knowledge of linguistics to discuss the social power language holds. Curzan is the author of "Gender Shifts in the History of English" and is the subject of a 36-lecture series titled "The Secret Life of Words." In Curzan's lecture, "Politically Correct: Do Our Language Choices Matter?," she discusses everything from sexist language to preferred pronouns in order to dispel the stigma against politically correct speaking. She spoke to students in the Memorial Union Thursday evening. "It is never just language," Curzan said. "As soon as anyone says it's just language, it's because they don't want to deal with the real issue."

Copied from Youtube description: "How did humans acquire language? In this lecture, best-selling author Steven Pinker introduces you to linguistics, the evolution of spoken language, and the debate over the existence of an innate universal grammar. He also explores why language is such a fundamental part of social relationships, human biology, and human evolution. Finally, Pinker touches on the wide variety of applications for linguistics, from improving how we teach reading and writing to how we interpret law, politics, and literature."

narrated lecture by a teacher

powerpoint "blind" starts on slide 16

Theoretical physicist and cosmologist Stephen Hawking, ALS patient, uses an Intel microprocessor which enables him to speak. Hawking irreversibly lost speech function in 1985 as a result of a tracheotomy. Since his hands are too weak to type, Hawking uses a single cheek muscle to control the device. The device uses an adaptive word predictor from London startup SwiftKey which allows Hawking to select a word after typing a letter. Intel worked with SwiftKey, incorporating many of Hawking's documents into the system, so that, in some cases, he no longer needs to type a character before the predictor guesses the word based on context. The new version of Hawking's user interface (now called ACAT, after Assistive Contextually Aware Toolkit) includes contextual menus that provide Hawking with various shortcuts to speak, search or email; and a new lecture manager, which gives him control over the timing of his delivery during talks. It also has a mute button, a curious feature that allows Hawking to turn off his speech synthesizer.

Could understanding other cultures' concepts of joy and well-being help us reshape our own? The Positive Lexicography Project aims to catalogue foreign terms for happiness that have no direct English translation. The brainchild of Tim Lomas, a lecturer in applied positive psychology at the University of East London, the first edition included two hundred and sixteen expressions from forty-nine languages, published in January. Lomas used online dictionaries and academic papers to define each word and place it into one of three overarching categories, doing his best to capture its cultural nuances. The glossary can be found here: http://www.drtimlomas.com/#!alphabetical-lexicography/b5ojm

What can you recite by heart? Your times tables? German verb formations? The Lord's Prayer? Novelist Salman Rushdie thinks it should be poetry. Speaking at the Hay Festival, the writer described memorising poems as a "lost art" that "enriches your relationship with language". David Whitley, a lecturer at Cambridge University, Whitely, whose Poetry and Memory project surveyed almost 500 people, says: "Those who memorised poems had a more personal relationship [with the poem] - they loved it for the sound and meaning, but it also connected with their life currents - people they loved, or a time that was important to them. "For people who memorise a poem, it becomes a living thing that they connect with - more so than when it is on a page. Learning by heart is often positioned as the opposite of analysis. But for many people who know a number of poems, their understanding grows over time and changes." Psychotherapist Philippa Perry agrees. She points out that memorising anything, from poems to music, means you always have it with you. She thinks that memorising poems can also be good for the health of our brains. "The way we 'grow' our brains is that we make connections between our brain cells - neural pathways. The more you exercise that network, the more you strengthen it. If you learn things by heart, you get better at it."

Dr Tim Lomas, lecturer and author in positive psychology, has collected words expressing positive states from around the world. You can explore by theme or language.

Dr. Geary explains how metaphors are used to veil the true meaning of what one is trying to say in hopes to either deceive a group or to promote good feelings among a population. Consider his examples of Bush's "Axis of Evil" and Obama's desire to extend a warm hand to countries across the globe. This book sounds much like Steven Pinker's lecture for the RSA Animate video, "Language as a Window into Human Nature", and both the video and book aren't too different; both simply look at the same topic in different ways (innuendo vs. metaphor - though these hardly seem different if one were to really think about it). Link to Pinker's RSA Animate: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-son3EJTrU

UCLA researchers Oppenheimer and Mueller wondered if there was something about paper and the act of writing that explained this phenomenon, so they conducted an experiment. They asked about 50 students to attend a lecture. Half took notes on laptops and half with pen and paper. Both groups were then given a comprehension test. It wasn't even close. The students who used paper scored significantly higher than those who used laptops. Mueller attributes this unexpected finding - published in the journal, Psychological Science - to the fact that the "analog" note takers were forced to synthesize rather than merely transcribe. It's a phenomenon known as "desirable difficulty." "Desirable difficulty is some small roadblock that is in your path that actually improves your understanding of a topic," she explains.

The brain cannot focus while listening to music. Music can help to spark ideas before writing, but it becomes a hindrance during writing

Dr. Nick Perham, a lecturer in the School of Health Sciences at the University of Wales Institute, Cardiff, conducted a 2010 study, "Can preference for background music mediate the irrelevant sound effect?", that shows how music can interfere with short-term memory performance. Perham had subjects conduct a certain task, in this case recalling a series of numbers, while listening to different kinds of background music. If sound exhibits acoustical variations, or what Perham calls an "acute changing-state," performance is impaired. Steady-state sounds with little acoustical variation don't impair performance nearly as much. Perham asked his subjects how they thought they performed when exposed to different tastes in music. Each reported performing much worse when listening to disliked music, although the study's results showed no difference. However, Perham found no distinction in performance, regardless of whether the music was liked or disliked: both were "worse than the quiet control condition. Both impaired performance on serial-recall tasks." The interviewer queried how curious how prevalent serial-recall is in everyday life, and if one could get by without developing this skill. Unlikely, Perham says, as one would have tremendous difficulty recalling phone numbers, doing mental arithmetic, and even learning languages. "Requiring the learning of ordered information has also been found to underpin language learning. If you consider language, learning syntax of language, learning the rules that govern how we put a sentence together, all of these require order information . . . " Perham says.

Chisato Danjo, Lecturer in Japanese and Linguistics at York St John University, reports on her ethnographic case study examining a mother and her two bilingual Japanese-English children. Danjo argues that instead of seeing bilingualism as "dual monolingualism," as reflected in the practice of "One Parent, One Language" (OPOL), we adopt a broader view of language learning: translanguaging, which conceptualises language as a bundle of socially constructed linguistic resources that individuals can deploy to make sense of their multilingual world. When we see a child actively using, adapting and negotiating their repertoire, it casts doubt on the belief that it's bad for children to mix languages. What it could actually be doing is demonstrating high-level flexibility and interpersonal skills.

Sarah Thomason, linguistics professor, estimates that by 2100, only 700 of the world's 7,000 languages will remain. Although this isn't a full article and mainly an advertisement for her lecture on this same subject, it will most likely be possible to find a full recording online after the event!

This article addresses the controversy behind swearing around kids. There was a linguist who used to be a massive swearer, but he noticed that his linguistic tendencies and language style changed once he had kids. He decided to do a study with college students regarding their responses to swearing in lectures (since swearing around kids would be considered unethical). He addressed two types of profanity in this study; swearing and slurs. He found that slurs generated a negative reaction to the people at whom the slurs were about (Black people, gay people, etc.), but cussing didn't have an impact.

This article explains the controversy behind swearing around kids. A professor from UC San Diego explored this topic due to his own self interest. As a lover of profanity, he seems to have seen himself change his language while being around his own kids. In a experiment conducted on college students, he came across profanity as slurs and cussing. Slurs created a negative reaction to those that the slurs were about that consisted of gender preferences and skin color, but swearing didn't seem to show.

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

Luke Center has archived the lectures of their speaker series addressing all 17 of the UN Sustainability and Development Goals. Might be worth a listen as you work on your Changemaker projects.