Group items tagged

About the Author Dr. Reena Gupta is the Director of the Voice and Swallowing Center at OHNI. Dr. Gupta has devoted her practice to the care of patients with voice and swallowing problems. She is board certified in otolaryngology and laryngology and fellowship trained in laryngology, specializing in the care of the professional voice.

In various languages there are different ways to express the love for another. However, the article presented goes into the emotional weight that different languages carry. For example, in the Japanese culture, "I love you" is not often said, rather it is implied through actions. Where as in the Western culture, "I love you" is often said and may not necessarily carry as much emotional weight since it is something that is said often.

Study finds that positive self talk phrases improve performance, while positive self talk sentences and negative forms of self talk do not improve performance

By Jeannie Deva "Jeannie, I have been wondering for a long time how age (and other factors like weight), affect vocal range, tone, etc. I have been reading your email tips for a few months and have held off exploring my voice with professional instruction because I am already in my early 40s.

In a 2011 survey, Renee Engeln, Professor of Psychology at Northwestern University and a colleague found that more than 90 percent of college women reported engaging in fat talk - despite the fact that only 9 percent were actually overweight. In another, 2014 survey, she canvassed thousands of women ranging in age from 16 to 70. Contrary to the stereotype of fat talk as a young woman's practice, she found that fat talk was common across all ages and all body sizes of women. Engeln notes that fat talk is not a harmless social-bonding ritual. According to an analysis of several studies published in 2012 in the Psychology of Women Quarterly, fat talk was linked with body shame, body dissatisfaction and eating-disordered behavior. Engeln also found that fat talk was contagious. She ran an 2012 experiment where young women, "confederates" secretly working for the researchers, joined two other young women seated at a table to discuss magazine advertisements. The ads started out innocently enough. One was for an electronics store. Another was for a water purifier. But the third was a typical fashion ad showing a model in a bikini. In the control condition, confederates commented on the visuals in the background of the fashion ad, but avoided any mention of the model or her appearance. In the "fat talk" condition, the two confederates (neither of whom was overweight) commented on the model. One said: "Look at her thighs. Makes me feel so fat." The other responded: "Me, too. Makes me wish my stomach was anywhere near flat like that." Then it was our subjects' turn. In the control condition, when neither of our confederates engaged in fat talk, none of our subjects fat talked. But when our confederates engaged in fat talk, almost a third of the subjects joined in. These subjects also reported higher levels of body dissatisfaction and shame at the end of the study than did their counterparts in the control condition.

I would be lying if I told you that this was a really good article. This is actually a badass article about how we use swear words and strong language to emphasize a point in daily conversation. If I were to say, "Wow! That is a really big car!" it does not carry much weight as if I were to say, "Damn! That's a big-ass car!" This article explains how using this kind of language adds a pop of color and richness to our day to day conversations.

This article discusses the use and comparison of the two words "women" and "female." It takes a political, social, and economical aspect to show very interesting examples of how the two words differ. "Both words can function as nouns, but female, unlike woman, can also be an adjective. In an Oscar Hammerstein II lyric from "Flower Drum Song," written 50 years ago, a young woman glad to be a girl sings, "I'm strictly a female female" - the first use an adjective; the second, a noun. Adjectives are by their nature stretchable, happily taking "more" or "less": you can say "more female," but you cannot say "more woman"; you would have to say "more womanly." In modifying another noun, woman is what the O.E.D. labels an apposite noun - explaining, even identifying, the noun it "stands next to" - but syntactically stronger than an adjective. Both words can be used as modifiers of nouns, but the noun woman has more weight."

Northwestern University researchers, led by Dr Nina Kraus, found that poor readers had reduced neural response (auditory brainstem activity) to rhythmic rather than random sounds compared to good readers. In fact the level of neural enhancement to acoustic regularities correlated with reading ability as well as musical aptitude. The musical ability test, specifically the rhythm aspect, was also related to reading ability. Similarly a good score on the auditory working memory related to better reading and to the rhythm aspect of musical ability. Dr Kraus explained, "Both musical ability and literacy correlated with enhanced electrical signals within the auditory brainstem. Structural equation modeling of the data revealed that music skill, together with how the nervous system responds to regularities in auditory input and auditory memory/attention accounts for about 40% of the difference in reading ability between children. These results add weight to the argument that music and reading are related via common neural and cognitive mechanisms and suggests a mechanism for the improvements in literacy seen with musical training."

This NYT article talks about how language use is actively being shaped by the COVID-19 (or coronavirus) pandemic. With some words carry new weight and meaning, and entering more mainstream usage. In other areas, some words also rise to prominence over others. The author likens the spread of new words to a kind of linguistic 'contagion' where the most apt/popular words and their meanings are rapidly adopted and spread becoming ingrained in everyday usage. It also talks about how the most vivid uses of language, rather than more dull, though still objectively correct uses, has spread more.

"Turn your face toward the sun, and the shadows will fall behind you." "Every day may not be good, but there is something good in every day." "See the glass as half-full, not half-empty." Researchers are finding that thoughts like these, the hallmarks of people sometimes called "cockeyed optimists," can do far more than raise one's spirits. They may actually improve health and extend life. There is no longer any doubt that what happens in the brain influences what happens in the body. When facing a health crisis, actively cultivating positive emotions can boost the immune system and counter depression. Studies have shown an indisputable link between having a positive outlook and health benefits like lower blood pressure, less heart disease, better weight control and healthier blood sugar levels. There are also eight skills researchers identified that can help develop a more positive attitude: ■ Recognize a positive event each day. ■ Savor that event and log it in a journal or tell someone about it. ■ Start a daily gratitude journal. ■ List a personal strength and note how you used it. ■ Set an attainable goal and note your progress. ■ Report a relatively minor stress and list ways to reappraise the event positively. ■ Recognize and practice small acts of kindness daily. ■ Practice mindfulness, focusing on the here and now rather than the past or future.

This article examines different ways that casual racism is seen in our daily lives. Due to certain stereotypes engrained in our society, racism is often unintentional, and people don't understand the weight of their words.

This article focused on the impacts that technology has had on the writing for younger generations. The style of writing that is used for social media has become known as "Netspeak" and typically consists of shorter sentences and phrases, as well as shortening of words through abbreviations or substitutions. ie. lol for laughing out loud, or w8 for weight. These came about as ways to fit the short character limits set by many sites, however this style of writing has been observed to start affecting other more formal forms of writing. Although this is something that some people have become aware of, there are still many people who do this without thinking, and don't realize that they have started to use netspeak in writing for papers

While we may be punctuating less as a whole (a recent study found that only 39 percent of college students punctuate the end of texts and 45 percent the end of instant messages), the punctuation we do use is more likely to be scrutinized. "Digital punctuation can carry more weight than traditional writing because it ends up conveying tone, rhythm and attitude rather than grammatical structure," said Ben Zimmer, a linguist and the executive editor of Vocabulary.com. "It can make even a lowly period become freighted with special significance."

The correct use of punctuation can really improve someone's opinion of you. The author of this piece decided to go out with someone based on their use of punctuation in a text message. The author also discusses how we have been conditioned to read certain punctuation marks and how they correlate to tone of voice in the text message. Punctuation marks are an important aspect of language that can help convey a meaning in a text.