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I wanted to do my research on why English is so hard to learn and why it is beneficial to learn a second language as a child, however, these are two completely different research questions. This website combined the two and has allowed me to research why children should learn English when they are young as opposed to a different language. It goes in depth as to why English is so challenging as well as how children who learn a second language will be better suited for the world.

This article explains the reason why we call our parents mom and dad. The article gives examples of different ways to say mom and dad in different languages in a table, to show how similar the sounds of mom and dad are across those languages. The article then explained how social constructs and culture keeps us from calling our mom or dad their legal name.

This article discusses why children call their parents 'Mom' and 'Dad', and why not other names. It talks about how the role sounds play, and the role that cultural rules play in why most people refer their parents in this way.

Swearing expresses many different types of emotions. Kinda like when people use their car horns.

This article explores into depth the reason why and when we swear. One reason we swear is to insert a direct emotional component into the discussion to express frustration, anger or surprise. Swearing frees us of the feelings of anger or frustration we hold inside of us and provides an alternative from physical violence. The second use of swearing is in the form of jokes and humor, sex talk, story telling and social commentary. Our word choice is dependent on the people we are surrounded by, the relationship we have with that group of people and the setting of the situation. For example, people are less likely to use swear words in mixed company or in the work place. We are more likely to swear with people of the same gender or with our sexual partners. This article also describes the amount of swearing in our lives.

Why do people swear? Why does using a swear word make us feel better? How do we choose which word we use? Luckily for you, the Association of Psychological Science's Perspectives on Psychological Science just published an article that answers these important scientific questions in an article by Timothy Jay (2009).

This article talked about how adults talk to babies and why we do it. When we talk to babies, we tend to raise our pitch a little and supposedly, it calms the baby down. They also talked about a research project where they recorded adults from different parts of the world, and noticed that those who come from western places raised their pitch the most, and in remote places didn't raise their pitch that much but everyone raised their pitch at least a little. The way we talk to babies is universal and we've evolved as humans to be able to communicate with infants.

The features of baby talk - softer tone, higher pitch, almost unintelligible vocabulary - are global. Researchers at Harvard's Music Lab documented over 1,500 recordings in 21 urban, rural and Indigenous communities - making their work possibly a first of its kind experiment. The article includes samples from different languages around the world. There are many reasons why baby talk might have evolved in humans and why it might serve beneficial purposes. Some theories suggest that the way we speak accentuates the vowels of the speech and helps babies learn speech. Other theories suggest that this kind of baby talk helps regulate the baby's emotions and helps structure the social interactions we have with babies, so it helps socialize them and control their behavior and mood. In prehistoric times, having ways to interact with babies and to care for them while still being able to keep your eyes up to look out for predators and use your voice to interact with babies, might have been an important reason why we may have evolved these kinds of behaviors.

Interesting NPR story on the use of "ax"--apparently not simply the oft-maligned African-American Vernacular English version of "ask". That particular pronunciation of the word has a more distinguished pedigree, dating back to Chaucer.

Essay/study by Deborah Tannen: "So the key to why having sisters makes people happier - men as well as women - may lie not in the kind of talk they exchange but in the fact of talk. If men, like women, talk more often to their sisters than to their brothers, that could explain why sisters make them happier." See also discussion on Language Log: http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=2739 (they advise us to be wary of overstating the significance of the results)

This article explains why filler words, such as "like," "um," "uh," "you know" and "yeah", are used so extensively when we speak in conversation. What studies have own through this article is that the use of filler words has increased over the past 30 years. There are many factors that contribute to the utilization of filler words. As we know, there is no actual need for filler words, but nervousness and lack of confidence does play a factor in why filler words are used so much . Another reason we use filler words is because we are unsure about the topic of a specific conversation. Studies showed that when talking about a topic that is complex or that the subject is unfamiliar with, they tend to use more filler words as opposed to when a subject is talking about themselves or a simple topic.

As you can tell from the title, this article looks into why English people say sorry so often. Harvard researchers have found that perhaps the reason why English people say sorry so much is because by saying "sorry" to someone, it is the best way to get them onto your side and persuade them to do what you want. The article mentioned a study where they had an actor ask to borrow someones phone on a rainy day. When he asked the favor directly, he was only successful 9% of the time. However, when he said "Sorry about the rain" before asking the favor, he was successful 47% of the time.

Author Daniel Stillman offers up excellent pointers to create more productive conversations, especially when conversing with folx who hold diverse and maybe conflicting perspectives. The whole article's worth mining for details, but here are the key takeaways: 3 Ways to Deepen Conversations How do we go deeper into understanding other people's perspectives? Use these three levels of goals to peel back the layers in the conversation and understand why people want what they want, and find agreements that work for everyone involved. LEVEL 1: INTERESTS: Why does someone want what they want? Try saying, "That sounds important to you. Can you tell me why?" LEVEL 2: OPTIONS: "Hard" negotiators demand what they want. Reply: "That thing you're asking for is one option. Are there any other options or alternatives you can think of? Can we generate any others together?" Finding all the levers of value on both sides can help open up opportunities to create shared value. LEVEL 3: LEGITIMACY: When someone throws out a number or any firm position, it often feels like we need to counter. Instead, ask: "Where did you get that number? What can we base a fair number on?" Probing for ways to judge an outcome as objectively legitimate can lower the stakes.

Working on the metaphor poems lead me to wonder why metaphors are so important to communication and emotional connection. This article explains why metaphors have a different affect than other types of communication.

A short article raising questions about why people mirror their texts and language styles to others. It discusses why certain people adjust speech/texts and who is more likely to make those changes.

I think that many of us have heard that swearing can help to improve pain tolerance, but this study shows that only using "real" swear words help. This makes me wonder what makes swear words so bad, and why it is so taboo to say them. I don't think it has very much to do with how rude the meaning of the word is. For example, I can say something like "explosive diarrhea" in class, but I can't say "sh*t". Also, why does text censoring make it better? We all know what the word says.

Swearing is used in many parts of everyday speech, but still has some great mysteries. What are the grammatical categories of different swear words? Why do we swear? Why is society so affected by swear words? Why are swear words bleeped out on television?

Psycholinguist Steven Pinker examines the emotional impact of swearing and the evolution of words considered taboo, also reflects on several issues surrounding the issue of what language is offensive and about guidelines that might inform our personal and institutional judgments about when to discourage, tolerate, and even welcome profanity?

We all have to learn how to say "no" instead of using the word "yes" as a way to keep everything simple and easy. This article discusses why we say "yes" to everything, why it's hard to say "no," the importance of saying "no," and how to learn to say "no!"

Why do writers abandon their native language? IN 2012, Jhumpa Lahiri moved to Rome and began a period of self-imposed linguistic exile from English. She stopped speaking, reading, and writing the language entirely, the better to learn Italian. I just read this book, and it was extremely interesting since I read the book in conjunction with our discussions about bilingualism in class. I highly recommend this book called In Other Words.

Why do writers abandon their native language? IN 2012, Jhumpa Lahiri moved to Rome and began a period of self-imposed linguistic exile from English. She stopped speaking, reading, and writing the language entirely, the better to learn Italian.

It has become a tradition for writers to completely abandon their native language and continue their writings in a new language. In this article Jhumpa Lahiri goes over the improvements to her writing brought about by this transition.

This is a great site for getting an idea of what colleges are looking for in an essay. My idea of a good college essay changed after reading the top voted college essay.

The top essay was a very descriptive piece. It sounded like a short story, and I didn't know you could write about those kind of topics on a college essay. This site really helps me get a better idea of what an essay should look like when the time comes to submit one.

It really helps to be able to read examples of good college essays. It gives you an idea of not only what to write about but how to write it. I never would have guessed some of the top voted college essays would be written on such simple, everyday topics. I have a lot of work to do haha.

This is an interesting college essay about an actor. She introduces the idea that "actors aren't human," in the first few lines, which hooks our attention, but never clearly tells us why they aren't. Instead of revisiting this topic, she shares a personal narrative of her acting experiences which, in a way show us why "actors aren't humans." I still think she could made it a little more clear.

At first when I started reading this essay, it didn't seem much like an essay, which is why I kept reading. I thought it was interesting how the author decided to write about her acting experiences; she made it clear that acting was very important to her. She did a good job of capturing my attention as a reader.

I think this essay is interesting. The ending message of it is about how her director had such a big impact on her life but you would never have guessed it would end up being about the director because he is not brought up until the end. I think this essay shows a great way to talk about someone who had a great impact in your life while still sharing a ton of information about yourself because I know that colleges use the essays to learn more about you.

I was surprised by this article and by the fact that sometimes, our seemingly boring moments in life has the potential to transform into a great college essay. This article made me change my views of college essays and reexamine what topics I want to write about.

I liked the ideas this essay shared because I realized that if I were to have written my college essay prior to reading this article, my essay would've been similar to the majority of students who submit college essays. This site stresses the importance of being different and that having humility, humor, and personal stories in college essays are attractive. But the article did imply that there are limits and that some things such as torturing animals and showing inconsideration to other people, are inappropriate.

It seems more common now for counselors and advisors to recommend writing about everyday things, but with our own personal "flair." So it was helpful to read in this article about how there are some negative everyday experiences that are important to leave out.

British English speakers always seem to use the glottal stop: that abrupt silence that can replace the "t" in words . Ed Miliband, in an interview with Russell Brand consistently said phrases like "Gotta do it" instead of "Gotta deal with that." The question is why does the glottal stop have a bad reputation?

Students in South Africa are thought to be at a disadvantage since they switch from learning in their native language to learning in english. Researchers, however, believe that it is more advantageous to students to learn in the language in which they feel most comfortable. Switching between the mother tongue at home and English at school is shown to be a struggle for most children. Since the simplicity of the mother tongue has no ties to english, the children are basically learning two different languages at once, trying to apply the two to one another.

Research has proved repeatedly that children undoubtedly achieve much better when they start schooling in a language linked to one they can already use quite well. Using a familiar language for schooling is a big part of such success, which is why the late South African educationalist Neville Alexander advocated for mother tongue based-bilingual education.