A language teacher began research on pop music and learning after seeing how her students had a remarkable aptitude to memorize song lyrics. The study investigates the mnemonic values of songs and learning.
This research project looks into a certain sentence structure that appears in most Germanic languages, the Verb Second constraint. This kind of homologous structure may hold clues about whether universal grammar really exists.
This article discusses both emoji use, and emoji effects in language and expression. The vast majority of web users use or have used emojis, and the emojis that we use can yield information about us such as our general age and interests. Furthermore, emojis may be a form of language simplification and a return to pictogram communications.
Emoji use is on the rise, but so is GIF use. GIF's allow users to quickly express complex emotion more completely than a a handful of emojis could. One user says "I'm not that great with words, but if I find the perfect GIF, it nails it." GIF's may be the next frontier of electronic communication.