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The Stanford Literary Lab is a research collective that applies computational criticism, in all its forms, to the study of literature. Check out their pamphlets to read more about their various literary projects, including "The Emotions of London", "The Language of World Bank Reports."

By Lera Boroditsky (Stanford researcher) "Scholars have long wondered whether different languages might impart different cognitive abilities. In recent years empirical evidence for this causal relation has emerged, indicating that one's mother tongue does indeed mold the way one thinks about many aspects of the world, including space and time. The latest findings also hint that language is part and parcel of many more aspects of thought than scientists had previously realized."

Learning the intricacies of human languages is hard even for human children and non-native speakers - but it's particularly difficult for AI. Scientists have already taught computers how to do simple tasks, like translating one language to another or searching for keywords. Artificial intelligence has gotten better at solving these narrow problems. But now scientists are tackling harder problems, like how to build AI algorithms that can piece together bits of information to give a coherent answer for more complicated, nuanced questions. "Language is the ultimate frontier of AI research because you can express any thought or idea in language," states Stanford computer science professor Yoav Shoham. "It's as rich as human thinking." For Shoham, the excitement about artificial intelligence lies not only in what it can do - but also in what it can't. "It's not just mimicking the human brain in silicon, but asking what traits are so innately human that we don't think we can emulate them on a computer," Shoham said. "Our creativity, fairness, emotions, all the stuff we take for granted - machines can't even come close."

Is it better to fit in or stand out? That question has vexed all of us at one time or another, from teenagers to aspiring executives to sociologists. The answer, says Stanford Graduate School of Business professor Amir Goldberg: It depends.

"Tweenage girls who spend endless hours watching videos and multitasking with digital devices tend to be less successful with social and emotional development ... The girls' answers showed that multitasking and spending many hours watching videos and using online communication were statistically associated with a series of negative experiences: feeling less social success, not feeling normal, having more friends whom parents perceive as bad influences and sleeping less. ... The survey findings are bad news, given that the 8 to 12 age range is critical for the social and emotional development of girls, and because children are becoming active media consumers at an ever-younger age. ... Higher levels of face-to-face communication were associated with greater social success, greater feelings of normalcy, more sleep and fewer friends whom parents judged to be bad influences. Children learn the difficult task of interpreting emotions by watching the faces of other people, Pea said. ... For the negative effects of online gorging, "There seems to be a pretty powerful cure, a pretty powerful inoculant, and that is face-to-face communication," Nass said."

"Researchers map thousands of letters exchanged in the 18th century's "Republic of Letters" ... According to Edelstein, "We tend to think of networks as a modern invention, something that only emerged in the Age of Information. In fact, going all the way back to the Renaissance, scholars have established themselves into networks in order to receive the latest news, find out the latest discoveries and circulate the ideas of others." ... "when you have a rich, dense and geographically expansive correspondence network," what exactly puts you at the hub? In other words, are you the leading light because you are a great thinker with provocative ideas? Or are you a good patron who can bring people together? Or is it that "you have goodies to give?""

"Two scholars of the 17th and 18th centuries say the earlier era prefigured the "information overload," with its own equivalents of Twitter, Facebook and Google+. Social networks have been key to almost all revolutions - from 1789 to the Arab Spring." Also includes an short, interesting video interview with the researchers.

The human voice appears to trigger pleasure circuits in the brains of typical kids, but not children with autism, a Stanford University team reports. The finding could explain why many children with autism seem indifferent to spoken words. The Stanford team used functional MRI to compare the brains of 20 children who had autism spectrum disorders and 19 typical kids. In typical kids there was a strong connection between areas that respond to the human voice and areas that release the feel-good chemical dopamine, but that connection was reduced in autistic children. Connections between voice areas and areas involved in emotion-related learning also were weaker, creating greater communication difficulties. The new study's suggestion that motivation is the problem could explain why speech often comes late to children with autism even though the brain circuit involved in processing spoken words seems to function normally; the reward circuitry isn't working the way it does in typical children.

"Frank said, "all of that leaves open the question of whether language is really the only way to represent numbers." Mental Abacus, or MA, suggests the answer is no. It advises practitioners to visualize a 400-year-old style of abacus known as a soroban. Students often flick their fingers when they calculate, miming the movement of abacus beads."

interesting overview of what's out there

Many linguists, including Noam Chomsky, contend that language in the sense we ordinary think of it, in the sense that people in Germany speak German, is a historical or social or political notion, rather than a scientific one. For example, German and Dutch are much closer to one another than various dialects of Chinese are.

This article talks about how the usage of African American Vernacular English, or AAVE can be influenced based on location. This "bidialectal competence - the ability to speak two different dialects - potentially makes them less subject to dialect discrimination on both educational and economic fronts." This is due to AAVE being commonly associated with being of lower class or intelligence.

Why do Jane Austen's literary works endure some 200 years after her death? The Stanford Literary Lab ran computational analysis on the words contained in Austen's work. Eschewing the fantastical and dramatic elements typical of novels both in Austen's lifetime and ours, Austen is more concerned with social realities and human nature. Her works display emotional intelligence; she employs more words about emotions and time, as well as abstract words connected to states of mind and social relationships.

This article provides an insight into an interview with Christopher Manning, a Stanford professor of computer science and linguistics. He is focused on computational linguistics, also known as natural language processing. Natural language processing involves creating algorithms that can allow computers to understand written and spoken language and then intelligently respond. This involves systems such as Siri, Alexa, and Google Voice. These systems are pretty advanced technology, however, they are still far from perfect. Manning notes that people will probably still be working on natural learning processing in twenty years.

This post discusses the Chinese Room thought experiment, which examines whether or not computers are actually able to understand us and our words, or if they're just stringing together certain words by association.

This article goes over the effects of adults speaking directly to toddlers and their language development.

This report touches on a bunch of different aspects on how language defines us. It shows us through short summaries and linked sources how language can tell us behavioral patterns, inform our knowledge about other languages, and predict perceived stereotypes.

This article talks about the impact language has on shaping people and culture. It dives into how language influences perception, behavior, and understanding, affecting everything from personal identity to social norms. It also discusses how language can be a tool for empowerment and change but can also perpetuate stereotypes and inequalities.

In 2010, two articulate powerhouse linguists, Lena Boroditsky, of Stanford, and Mark Liberman, of U. Penn., squared off on the above topic. Boroditsky advanced the Neo-Whorfian position that language does indeed shape thought. Liberman countered, noting that thought also shapes our language we speak, and the way we live shapes both language and thought. When we encounter or create new ideas, we can usually describe them with new combinations of old words. And if not, we easily adapt or borrow or create the new words or phrases we need. As Edward Sapir once put it, "We may say that a language is so constructed that no matter what any speaker of it may desire to communicate … the language is prepared to do his work."