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This article talks about how language is the most important part of culture. I thought this article was an interesting read because I believe it builds upon one of the small group discussions we've had in class earlier on in the semester. I am intrigued by the fact that many different countries have developed a language over time as a way to communicate, and has now become one of the things that define their culture.

Teachers worried about students turning in essays written by a popular artificial intelligence chatbot now have a new tool of their own. Edward Tian, a 22-year-old senior at Princeton University, has built an app to detect whether text is written by ChatGPT, the viral chatbot that's sparked fears over its potential for unethical uses in academia. Tian, a computer science major who is minoring in journalism, spent part of his winter break creating GPTZero, which he said can "quickly and efficiently" decipher whether a human or ChatGPT authored an essay.

In this article, researches hypothesize how the expansion of dopaminergic systems may have contributed to the development of many of our unique cognitive abilities including language.

While the invention of emojis was fairly recent, researchers have found that instead of creating a new type of communication, emojis call back to ancient proto-languages and cuneiform-type scripts. Emojis can be helpful in communicating online across cultures, due to the ease of interpretation across all language systems.

Believe it or not, sperm whales communicate with clicking noises-particularly patterns of different clicks referred to as codas. Scientists have found that animal language can be, in fact, complex and structured like our own language. Though it is debated whether or not animals actually have language, researchers continue to explore whether methods such as AI can help garner meanings-if exists-behind animal communication habits.

Emojis are emerging as a new form of communication online, mostly used by younger generations as a way to add emotional depth to online communications. A study conducted suggests that while older generations are less confident about using emojis, they are able to interpret them, and use them with minimal errors.

Native languages are usually acquired in emotional, natural contexts, while foreign languages are typically learned through neutral, academic ones. As this article dives into how foreign languages affect emotional processing as compared to native languages, it finds data that shows that the emotional reactivity of bilinguals does decrease with foreign language use.

This article talks about a Facebook AI that was shut down because it created its own language that only it understood. It used english words but didn't use the same grammar or definitions for the words. It wasn't close to taking over the world or anything but it was the first time something like that happened. It is a wary foreshadowing of what could happen into the future and possibly create a Terminator SkyNet situation.

Interesting article about AI's influence and potential influence in business practices.

A new study of 37 languages by three MIT researchers has shown that most languages move toward "dependency length minimization" (DLM) in practice. That means language users have a global preference for more locally grouped dependent words, whenever possible. Apparently, it's easier for our brains to process a sentence when related words are closer together.

Here's a quick task: Take a look at the sentences below and decide which is the most effective. (1) "John threw out the old trash sitting in the kitchen." (2) "John threw the old trash sitting in the kitchen out." Either sentence is grammatically acceptable, but you probably found the first one to be more natural. A new study of 37 languages by three MIT researchers has shown that most languages move toward "dependency length minimization" (DLM) in practice. That means language users have a global preference for more locally grouped dependent words, whenever possible.

This paper talks about Chinese loanwords in selected Southeast Asian languages (Khmer, Thai, Hmong, Vietnamese, Tagalog, Indonesian) and compares how different Chinese words got into different SEA languages depending on how the Chinese integrated with the local population.

Thanks to Gabby Gonzales '24 for this site! Programmer Thomas Dimson, author of Instagram's original content-ranking algorithms, created this website which uses GPT-2 algorithm to generate words that sound like they should exist, but don't, along with definitions and examples. Example: downage (verb) dow·nage obtain or retain (something) at a reduced price "the team had to downage contracts after a series of sellout losses"

This seminal paper by Dr. Jean Berko Gleason introduces the Wug Test, a unique way to study childhood language acquisition by asking young children to pluralize nonsense words, put them past tense, and more.

This article explains how words we use to describe addiction can actually greatly affect people's willingness to receive treatment. Certain words or phrases continue to stigmatize the illness.

This article talks about how AI-generated texts can be distinguished from human writing. It explains why it is essential for us to tell them apart and why it is still not able to perfectly mimic humans.

This article discusses some of the ways AI-generated text can differ from sentences written by humans.

This article goes through the 6 distinct ways of using "like" and how society changes their views on filler words based on gender.

This is an excerpt of an article that details the evolution of the earliest writing systems. The most traceable writing system to date is the Mesopotamian cuneiform script, which follows a trackable evolutionary pattern through history. The script evolved from tokens to 2D impressions, to logographs, and then finally into something similar in concept to the modern alphabet. The Mesopotamian cuneiform script would later become the foundation of many other written languages, including the current English alphabet.

This study explores the use of filler words through the lens of gender. Filler words are more commonly associated with women due to the "valley-girl" stereotype. However, these researchers found that, while filler words were used more frequently by women in the past, men use tend to use more filler words than women present-day. This paper discusses how the shift in gender roles and social dynamics between the genders contributes to speech patters.

Filler words ("um", "uh", "like", etc) play an important linguistic role in communication. This article explores explains the different types of filler words that exist, as well as the function that they serve in conversation. It also briefly touches on the use of filler words in different demographics.

This article heavily focussed on some of the ways in which language has been affected by social media. Particularly how there have been more acronyms or shortening of words to fit a more limited media.