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Expressing thanks may be one of the simplest ways to feel better. In positive psychology research, gratitude is consistently associated with happiness. Gratitude helps people feel more positive emotions, relish good experiences, improve their health, deal with adversity, and build strong relationships. Two psychologists, Dr. Robert A. Emmons of the University of California, Davis, and Dr. Michael E. McCullough of the University of Miami, asked participants in their study to write a few sentences each week, focusing on particular topics. After 10 weeks, those who wrote about gratitude were more optimistic. Another leading researcher in this field, Dr. Martin E. P. Seligman, a psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania, tested the impact of various positive psychology interventions on 411 people, each compared with a control assignment of writing about early memories. When their week's assignment was to write and personally deliver a letter of gratitude to someone who had never been properly thanked for his or her kindness, participants immediately exhibited a huge increase in happiness scores. This impact was greater than that from any other intervention, with benefits lasting for a month. Overall, gratitude is a quality that one can successfully cultivate further with more practice.

This article talks about how social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and Reddit have helped researchers track the dynamic of a relationships of people who have broken up. There are signs you might be able to detect when a relationship is about to end, even before either person consciously aware of this. The subtle changes in language leading up to a breakup, such as the use of "I"-words, talking more about other people than ideas, and referencing their partner quite a bit (because their identities are still so strongly knit), for example, can be seen as evidence of an impending split.

Article provides helpful reminders re: active listening; see article for specific how-tos. The seven tips: 1. Paraphrase 2. Ask questions 3. Express empathy 4. Use engaged body language 5. Avoid judgement 6. Avoid giving advice 7. Take turns

This article focuses on a new book which argues that informal online communication is sometimes more advanced than even the most elegant prose. It also explores the possibility that internet slang makes people better writers due to the fact that it sharpens the user's communication skills to get the point across, even through the use of emojis.

Canadian linguist Gretchen McCulloch rails against linguistic prescriptivism. She feels that people should exhibit flexible and receptive attitudes towards linguistic change: "We create successful communication when all parties help each other win." She also notes that "the only languages that stay unchanging are the dead ones."

A connection has been found between students who study foreign language and higher SAT scores. For each additional year that students study a foreign language, they are expected to perform better on both the math and language portions of the SAT. Although the SAT is not a direct measure of intelligence by any means, this gives evidence to support that studying a foreign language helps develop both math and English language skills. I would be interested in seeing how foreign language study affects IQ Test scores.

The author, a specialist and researcher in linguistics and discourse analysis, was interested in communication between individuals from different cultures. The misunderstandings it provokes are often based on unconscious reflexes and reference points which makes them all the more damaging. Communication between humans would be very difficult, if not impossible, without discursive memory. Our memories allow us to understand each other. Gregory Charles says in a tweet after the attack at the Grand Mosque in 2017, "Every nasty word we utter joins sentences, then paragraphs, pages and manifestos and ends up killing the world." This idea is defined by specialists in discourse analysis by theconcent of interdiscoursement. Not being aware of this discursive mechanism can cause many misunderstandings. Understanding it certainly helps to communicate better. Putting yourself in your audience's place is the key to good communication.

Straddling the imaginary border between the Balkans and Central Europe, Slovenia is home to two million citizens united by a common language. But this wasn't always the case. For about six hundred years, the Slovene lands were the domain of the Habsburgs, with the occasional appearance by the French, Italians, Hungarians, and Serbs. The Slovene language-and with it the core of Slovene identity-should by all rights have disappeared long ago, subsumed by the much stronger languages and political powers surrounding it. The language survived thanks to the efforts of many people, from the 16th-century protestants who first wrote it down to the 18th- and 19th-century intellectuals who coaxed it out of the church and spread it among the people. Among their arsenal of weapons: a cookbook, wielded by one relentlessly determined priest, Valentin Vodnik. Vodnik was a man of boundless energy, curiosity, and drive: Besides his work as a priest and later a high-school teacher and headmaster, he was fluent in half a dozen languages, wrote some of the first Slovene poetry, published the first Slovene newspaper, and began corresponding with intellectuals in Slovene. Vodnik's mission was popularizing and elevating the reputation of the language at a time when educated Slovenes mostly spoke German, considering their native tongue to be the vernacular of poor illiterate farmers, unfit for polite society and incapable of expressing complex ideas.

An app called Duolingo is the top app to learn a new language. The site includes learning vocab and grammar and doing exercises that are tailored to what the person learns quickly and what the person need to repeatedly review. Teaching language has changed from early "grammar translation" (learning grammar rules and translating sentences) to "audiolingualism" (learn rules and patterns by repeating sentences over and over) after World War II to other methods in the 60s and 70s that turned into a general "communicative approach" which focuses on the function of language as communication not the rules and structure. The app is mostly "audiolingual" because it drills users to repeat words and phrases over and over, but it also helps users learn a lot of words, reminds them to practice, and keeps them practicing with virtual rewards so can be effective.

Talks about why texting is important and how integral it is in our modern day relationships.

This article ultimately explains that texting is simply the next form of communication. It isn't something to be bashed, but rather celebrated. While it has a loose etiquette, texting can help a myriad of people (as this article elaborates on).

Babies first start learning language by listening to the rhythm and intonations of speech. They specifically listen to high pitches versus low ones and the loudness of syllables in speech. Before a baby is even born they already begin developing language. When in the womb, the intonation patterns of the mother are heard in the womb. "Baby talk" used by people to infants is a crucial part of an infants learning.Parents often exaggerate these aspects of language, which helps a baby to acquire it. Research shows babies prefer listening to this exaggerated, singsong way of talking compared to regular adult talk.

On the Isle of Man, illustrator Vicky Webb, 31, and Manx husband Dylan, have designed a book using Manx words to both help children learn the alphabet and keep the ancient Manx language alive.

Today, people who can't speak or write because of paralysis have very limited ways of communicating, e.g. using a pointer to touch words or letters on a screen or having computers track their eye movements. In a medical first, researchers harnessed the brain waves of a paralyzed man unable to speak - and turned what he intended to say into sentences on a computer screen. Dr. Edward Chang, a neurosurgeon at the University of California, San Francisco, led the work in developing a "speech neuroprosthetic" -- decoding brain waves that normally control the vocal tract, the tiny muscle movements of the lips, jaw, tongue and larynx that form each consonant and vowel.

What vocal fry is, how it can help or hurt you socially, and whether or not it will cause health concerns.

Emotional contagion is the phenomenon of "catching" other people's emotions and moods. According to Elaine Hatfield, a psychology professor at the University of Hawaii, humans are hard-wired "to automatically mimic and synchronize facial expressions, vocalizations, postures, and movements with those of another person and, consequently, to converge emotionally." Primitive emotional contagion is a basic building block of human interaction. It helps us coordinate and synchronize with others, empathize with them, and read their minds-all critical survival skills. When we mimic, the body gets feedback about the expressions we've taken on; we then feel what the other person is feeling. Gary Slutkin, a physician, epidemiologist, and founder and CEO of the nonprofit Cure Violence, says that emotional contagion, specifically anger and violence, springs from four mechanisms involving the brain: 1. Engagement of the cortical pathways for copying, a behavior related to mimicry. The most contagious behaviors are the most emotionally engaging, as well as the ones carried out by the people who are most relevant to you. 2. Activation of the brain's dopamine system, which works in anticipation of a reward. "Activation of that system puts you down a pathway toward what is important socially and for survival," he says. If you anticipate being rewarded for responding to someone with anger or violence, you are more likely to get on that behavioral track. 3. The brain's pain centers activate from veering off or being shut out from getting a reward. "A sense of I can't stand it lights up in the context of disapproval." 4. Serious injuries or abuse cause the limbic system and amygdala in the lower brain to become hyperreactive. "This causes you to be less in control, which accelerates violent behavior," Slutkin says. It also makes you more likely to get angry and be quick to react. "Then there's hostile attribution, another part of what happens with the limbic sy

This talks about how to effectively use self-affirmations and how they can help you.

Multilingualism has been shown to have many social, psychological and lifestyle advantages, including superior ability to concentrate, solve problems and focus, better mental flexibility and multitasking skills. Moreover, researchers are finding a swathe of health benefits from speaking more than one language, including faster stroke recovery and delayed onset of dementia. A steady stream of studies over the past decade has shown that bilinguals outperform monolinguals in a range of cognitive and social tasks from verbal and nonverbal tests to how well they can read other people. Greater empathy is thought to be because bilinguals are better at blocking out their own feelings and beliefs in order to concentrate on the other person's.

English as She Is Spoke is a charming 19th century (1884) phrasebook created by a Portuguese gentleman, Pedro Carolino, who only wanted to help teach the English language to his peers, but instead created a literary disaster that became a linguistic phenomenon. Check out the digital scan of the book here: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/english-as-she-is-spoke-1884

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.

Researchers from Brown University and King's College London have uncovered new details about how brain anatomy influences language development in young kids. Using advanced MRI, they find that different parts of the brain appear to be important for language development at different ages. Their study, published in the Journal of Neuroscience, found that the explosion of language acquisition that typically occurs in children between 2 and 4 years old is not reflected in substantial changes in brain asymmetry. Structures that support language ability tend to be localized on the left side of the brain. For that reason, the researchers expected to see more myelin -- the fatty material that insulates nerve fibers and helps electrical signals zip around the brain -- developing on the left side in children entering the critical period of language acquisition. Surprisingly, anatomy did not predict language very well between the ages of 2 and 4, when language ability increases quickly. "What we actually saw was that the asymmetry of myelin was there right from the beginning, even in the youngest children in the study, around the age of 1," said the study's lead author, Jonathan O'Muircheartaigh, the Sir Henry Wellcome Postdoctoral Fellow at King's College London. "Rather than increasing, those asymmetries remained pretty constant over time." That finding, the researchers say, underscores the importance of environment during this critical period for language. While asymmetry in myelin remained constant over time, the relationship between specific asymmetries and language ability did change, the study found. To investigate that relationship, the researchers compared the brain scans to a battery of language tests given to each child in the study. The comparison showed that asymmetries in different parts of the brain appear to predict language ability at different ages. "Regions of the brain that weren't important to successful language in toddlers became more important i

Ubiquitous video technology and social media have given deaf people a new way to communicate. They're using it to transform American Sign Language. For more than a century, the telephone has helped shape how people communicate. But it had a less profound impact on American Sign Language, which relies on both hand movements and facial expressions to convey meaning. Until, that is, phones started to come with video screens. Over the past decade or so, smartphones and social media have allowed ASL users to connect with one another as never before. Face-to-face interaction, once a prerequisite for most sign language conversations, is no longer required. Video has also given users the opportunity to teach more people the language - there are thriving ASL communities on YouTube and TikTok - and the ability to quickly invent and spread new signs, to reflect either the demands of the technology or new ways of thinking.