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A Swedish union has set up a hotline for workers to report instances of "mansplaining" as part of a weeklong effort to raise awareness of a certain kind of condescending elocution that men use to explain to women things they already understand.

Excellent study. "While it has long been recognized that certain areas in the brain's left hemisphere enable us to understand and produce language, scientists are still figuring out exactly how those areas divvy up the highly complex processes necessary to comprehend and produce language. ... Two brain areas called Broca's region and Wernicke's region serve as the main computing hubs underlying language processing, with dense bundles of nerve fibers linking the two ... Working with patients suffering from language impairments because of a variety of neurodegenerative diseases, Wilsons' team used brain imaging and language tests to disentangle the roles played by the two pathways. ... The study marks the first time it has been shown that upper and lower tracts play distinct functional roles in language processing."

While the left hemisphere of the brain is where the processing and understanding of language is, different sections of the brain control different parts of language. Two separate areas of the brain control the ability to remember and understand specific words, and the other controls how we construct sentences and make sense of them. If one of these sections is damaged, the other can still work properly, so it is possible to be able to remember words and what they mean but not know how to create sentences.

Stephen Wilson, an associate professor in the University of Arizona's Department of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences, studied the upper and lower white-matter connecting pathways between Broca's region and Wernicke's region: the two areas of the brain that are hubs for language processing. Brain imaging and language tests were used to examine patients suffering from language impairments caused by neurodegeneration. Wilson discovered the pathways have distinct functions. Damage to the lower pathway affects lexicon and semantics: "You forget the name of things, you forget the meaning of words. But surprisingly, you're extremely good at constructing sentences." Conversely, damage to the upper pathway creates problems in syntactic processing and figuring out the relationship between words in a sentence.

Language isn't found in just one part of the brain but rather in separate individual parts that are responsible for different aspects of language. Neurodegentive diseases that target specific areas of the brain affecting language, only have a partial effect on the patients ability to understand and communicate.

"Web addicts have brain changes similar to those hooked on drugs or alcohol, preliminary research suggests. ... Dr Hao Lei and colleagues write in Plos One: 'Overall, our findings indicate that IAD has abnormal white matter integrity in brain regions involving emotional generation and processing, executive attention, decision making and cognitive control.' ... Prof Gunter Schumann, chair in biological psychiatry at the Institute of Psychiatry at King's College, London, said similar findings have been found in video game addicts. ... further studies with larger numbers of subjects were needed to confirm the findings." Link to the actual study: http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0030253

It's a very thorough map of North American English dialects, based on pronunciation patterns.

Has American English become homogenized? Have our regional ways of saying particular things - sometimes in very particular ways - receded into the past? Or do we talk as funny as ever?

"Herrera also discovered teens in the Phillippines and Mexico who think it's "cool" to send text messages in regional endangered languages like Kapampangan and Huave."

Love this!~

"Brain scans of modern stone-tool makers show that key areas in the brain's right hemisphere become more active when they switch from making stone flakes to more advanced tools. Intriguingly, some of these brain regions are involved in language processing... 'Our study reinforces the idea that toolmaking and language evolved together as both required more complex thought.'"

"Microbloggers may think they're interacting in one big Twitterverse, but researchers at Carnegie Mellon University's School of Computer Science find that regional slang and dialects are as evident in tweets as they are in everyday conversations."

"The idea of "> Language > Place" is to create a collaborate virtual journey through different places, in different formats, and with different languages included - the main language is english, yet the idea is that every post also includes snippets or terms of other languages, and refers to a specific place, country, region or city. "

Wednesday, November 26, 2014 By Byron Spice / 412-268-9068 PITTSBURGH-Some people say that reading "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" taught them the importance of friends, or that easy decisions are seldom right. Carnegie Mellon University scientists used a chapter of that book to learn a different lesson: identifying what different regions of the brain are doing when people read.

Jack Hitt article on how languages die and efforts to keep them alive; notes estimate that half of more than 6,000 languages currently spoken in world will become extinct by end of century; says working to stem tide range are graduate students heading into the field to compile dictionaries, charitable foundations devoted to the cause, like Endangered Language Fund, and transnational agencies, like European Bureau for Lesser Used Languages; describes scene in Puerto Eden, tiny fishing village on Wellington Island in Patagonia region of southern Chile, home of last six speakers of Kawesqar, language native to area since last ice age; photos (L)

Developmentally, teens are at particular risk for reckless online behavior, including secrecy regarding social networking. Many people - adults and kids alike - view likes, loves, comments and followers as a barometer for popularity, even within a smaller, closed group. Teens can quickly get caught up in the feedback loop, posting and sharing images and videos that they believe will gain the largest reaction. Over time, teens' own values may become convoluted within an online world of instantaneous feedback, and their behavior online can become based on their "all about the likes" values rather than their real-life values. There is a very real biological basis for this behavior. The combination of social media pressure and an underdeveloped prefrontal cortex, the region of the brain that helps us rationalize decisions, control impulsivity and make judgments, can contribute to offensive online posts. In a recent study, researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles, found that the areas of teens' brains focused on reward processing and social cognition are similarly activated when they think about money and sex - and when they view a photo receiving lots of likes on social media. When teens viewed photos deemed risky, researchers found the brain regions focused on cognitive control were not activated as much, suggesting that it could be harder for them to make good decisions when viewing images or videos that are graphic in nature.

Currently, one-quarter of American children don't learn to read. This not only endangers them socially and intellectually, but cognitively handicaps them for life. One 2009 study of 72 children ages eight to ten discovered that reading creates new white matter in the brain, which improves system-wide communication. White matter carries information between regions of grey matter, where any information is processed. Not only does reading increase white matter, it helps information be processed more efficiently. Reading in one language has enormous benefits. Add a foreign language and not only do communication skills improve-you can talk to more people in wider circles-but the regions of your brain involved in spatial navigation and learning new information increase in size. Finally, research shows that reading not only helps with fluid intelligence, but with reading comprehension and emotional intelligence as well.

This article talks about Pelota mixteca, a sport, and how it has been keeping Oaxacan, a native mexican language, alive. The article talks about the stigma and resistance Mexicans and Mexican-Americans face when speaking non-English languages or their local languages.

The correlation of foreign accents with "bad" characters could have concerning implications for the way kids are being taught to engage with diversity in the United States. The most wicked foreign accent of all was British English, according to the study. From Scar to Aladdin's Jafar, the study found that British is the foreign accent most commonly used for villains. German and Slavic accents are also common for villain voices. Henchmen or assistants to villains often spoke in dialects associated with low socioeconomic status, including working-class Eastern European dialects or regional American dialects such as "Italian-American gangster" (like when Claude in Captain Planet says 'tuh-raining' instead of 'training.') None of the villains in the sample studied seemed to speak Standard American English; when they did speak with an American accent, it was always in regional dialects associated with low socioeconomic status.

The takeaway suggestions: 1.Give one piece of constructive feedback and let it stand on its own. Don't undermine your message by padding it with irrelevant positive statements. This might be uncomfortable at first, but research shows that people are hungry for constructive feedback. 2. Before your next one-on-one, pause to reflect before giving feedback. If you're stressed or rushed, you're more likely to deliver feedback without compassion or empathy - even if that's unintentional. 3.When you notice a problem, find a way to surface it immediately. Don't just hope a problem will go away, or assume someone else will fix it. When you speak up with compassionate directness, everyone benefits. 4. In your next meeting or one-on-one, consider another person's perspective. It can be as simple as pausing before a meeting to ask yourself, "Where is this person coming from?" By zooming out, you'll be better able to see others' motivations and understand their priorities. 5. When you receive constructive feedback, write it down and come back to it later. This will allow you to move beyond the emotion of the moment and consider more dispassionately whether it holds truth for you. 6.Turn a digital exchange into an in-person conversation. A lot of nuances of human communication are lost in digital interaction. When you get to know your co-workers as people instead of just names in your inbox, you'll build trust and camaraderie. 7. Once a day, have a conversation where you mostly listen. Don't underestimate the power of your silence. Instead of giving your opinion or changing the subject, invite the other person to go deeper.

Deaf people from Philadelphia have a noteworthy, distinctive regional accent in their signg language. When most people talk about a dialect in spoken languages, and in sign languages too, a lot of what they center on are lexical differences: differences in words. In ASL, there are many, many signs that have lexical differences. For example, the (Philadelphia) sign for hospital is exceptionally different from what standard ASL would be, and among other things. To the point where the signs are not able to be deciphered based on what they look like. The historical reason for the differences between Philadelphian sign language and standard ASL: the first school for the deaf was founded by a French teacher, and therefore Philadelphia sign is more akin to French signing than American signing.