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"A language comes into existence by means of brutal necessity, and the rules of the language are dictated by what the language must convey."

"The verb tweet is gradually developing its own syntax according to what it means and what its users regard as its combinatory possibilities. That is a really interesting, though unintended, large-scale natural experiment in how syntactic change works."

"Susan Levine finds that simply repeating the numbers isn't as good as helping kids understand what they mean... "Counting objects and saying, 'Oh, you have four cars: one, two, three, four,' while you point at them - seems to be better," Levine says."

"The goal of the Lexicalist project is to develop a dictionary that depicts, in real time, the changing demographics of English in the United States, a dictionary that supplements the fundamental meaning of a word or phrase with the current cultural backdrop that's informing its use today."

video archive of gorilla gestures and their meanings

Including answers to questions such as: - Can you walk us through the logic Watson would go through to answer a question such as, "The antagonist of Stevenson's Treasure Island." (Who is Long John Silver?) - ...I found myself wondering whether what it does is really natural language processing, or something more akin to word association... does Watson really need to understand syntax and meaning to just search its database for words and phrases associated with the words and phrases in the clue?

"[W]hen you can't tell if word X is a noun or a verb, that means X is a state of mind... Going by this graph from the Google Ngram viewer, it looks like the prom is still well in the lead, but EW is right that people have begun to use plain old prom a lot more in the last decade."

Abstract : According to Byram (1997), intercultural competence means to be able to interact efficiently with persons from various countries in a foreign language. The paper introduces a new (...)

Talking is arguably one of the most powerful forms of expression, alongside writing and art. We use our voices to ask questions, to deliver bad news, to tell someone we love them. But the way we talk to each other is changing. The uniqueness of our voices is being drowned out by the pitter-patter of keyboards; we're always typing, texting, responding. The positives: devices like cellphones complement face-to-face or ear-to-ear conversations. The negatives: expecting immediate responses; heightened miscommunication, and muted social interaction.

270 Catholic bishops from around the globe, representing 13 different language groups, will be convening for a week-long meeting this month. Their goal: to come up with a single document of their findings to present to Pope Francis. The final version of that document will be written in the lingua franca of the Catholic Church, which is Italian. Italian has not been the official language for all synod business for very long. Pope Francis changed the official language of synod business from Latin to Italian a couple of years ago. In the past, when the bishops gathered for a synod, they produced documents in Latin. Unlike Latin, Italian is a living language of the real world, and arguably a more neutral linguistic choice than English. However, much controversy has arisen over both translation and ideological issues, and what true meaning and intent is being conveyed by document language and wording. Massimo Faggioli, a theology scholar, noted that under previous popes, the synods worked very differently. Bishops used to gather for the purpose of rubber-stamping Vatican policy. There was no real debate over the true meaning of the official text. "But now, these texts matter," Faggioli says. "[The bishops] know that if they vote on one text or another, that might change the direction of the Catholic church on some teachings, which was not something anybody was thinking about under Pope John Paul II or Pope Benedict." Pope Francis has said he wants a more decentralized Catholic Church. And he has encouraged the bishops at the synod to speak boldly, even about subjects on which they disagree. Some of the most contentious issues at this synod are about whether or not to allow Communion to people who've been divorced and remarried, premarital cohabitation, and how the Church should talk about gays and lesbians.

Studies suggest a link between negative cognition (a.k.a. negative thinking) and increased propensity for guilt, chronic anxiety clinical depression. (Apparently, women are more prone to negative cognition than men.) Psychology professor Emeritus Tom Stevens of California State University describes some common negative thinking pitfalls and offers advice as to what you can do instead. Research has supported the efficacy of cognitive therapy (called cognitive restructuring) that replaces these styles with more positive thinking. 1. Negative bias. Negative bias is a tendency to look at the more negative side of some event, person, object, or situation. It gives a negative interpretation or a negative point of view for looking at a situation. Instead think: I will assume the best instead of assume the worst. Positive self-fulfilling prophesies tend to create positive outcomes; negative self-fulfilling prophesies tend to create negative outcomes. Negative explanations of my own or other peoples' underlying motives cause me to intensify my anger or other negative feelings. Assuming the world is a hostile place creates fear, anxiety, and anger. 2. Negative selective abstraction. Selective abstraction means taking negative features of a situation out of context and exaggerating their significance. Usually it also means negating positive features. Example: A student who gets four "A"s and one "C," then focuses on the "C's." Instead think: I will list at least one positive feature for each negative feature. I will limit my focus on negative features to constructive thoughts about how I can either accept or change the negative features. 3. Overgeneralization. When we overgeneralize, we assume far-reaching conclusions from limited data. A student made a "D" on one test. She overgeneralizes, she doesn't just think "Well, I messed up on that one test. Instead, "I may not pass the course, not ever finish college." "I must be stupid and a failure." "My whole life is ruin

To speak or write Black English with any level of fluency requires diligence and, more often than not, a familiarity that is both embodied and acculturated. The language ebbs and flows temporally, but also along lines of class, region, and even national origin (after all, Americans are not the only people-black or otherwise-to speak English). Black English is, like standard American English, a language worthy of both speech and study. It is distinct and recognizable, a code of speech that can function as much as a signal of authenticity or belonging as it does a way to relay words.

Ever wonder what

Words have more meaning than just their definition, and the use of words can give off emotions and more. People often use words to describe situations before thinking if what they're saying is considerate and politically correct. This article shows how the use of words can affect people's mental illnesses, and by saying the wrong thing can cause the person to feel ostracized and refuse to get theraputic help.

This article explains how emojis are used globally because they can be understood by anyone regardless of what language they speak. Everyone knows what emojis mean because the things they express are universal. This article also says that emojis can be used to add clarity and nuance to text messages, not just emotion. However, emojis cannot currently be considered a language because they don't have grammar and can't be combined to mean something more complex, although this might happen someday, as novels such as Alice in Wonderland have been translated into emojis.

While noted psychologist Gottman's 3 Skills and 1 Rule were originally intended for couples, they apply equally to any close relationship and could create better, more effective communication. In a nutshell, here they are: Here are Dr. Gottman's three skills and one rule for crucial conversation: The rule: Understanding must precede advice. The goal of an intimate conversation is only to understand, not to problem-solve. Premature problem solving tends to shut people down. Problem solving and advice should only begin when both people feel totally understood. Skill #1: Putting Your Feelings into Words The first skill is being able to put one's feelings into words. This skill was called "focusing" by master clinician Eugene Gendlin. Gendlin said that when we are able to find the right images, phrases, metaphors, and words to fit our feelings, there is a kind of "resolution" one feels on one's body, an easing of tension. Focusing makes our conversations about feelings much deeper and more intimate, because the words reveal who we are. Skill #2: Asking Open-Ended Questions The second skill of intimate conversations is helping one's conversational partner explore his or her feelings by asking open-ended questions. This is done by either asking targeted questions, like, "What is your disaster scenario here?" or making specific statements that explore feelings like, "Tell me the story of that! Skill #3: Expressing Empathy The third skill is empathy, or validation. Empathy isn't easy. In an intimate conversation, the first two skills help us sense and explore another person's thoughts, feelings, and needs. Empathy is shown by communication that these thoughts, feelings, and needs make sense to you. That you understand why the other person's experience. That does not mean that you necessarily agree with this person. You might, for example, have an entirely different memory or interpretation of events. Empathy means communicating that, given

Africanized versions of the Arabic alphabet are collectively called "Ajami." Much as the Latin-based alphabet is used to write many languages, including English, Ajami is not a language itself, but the alphabetic script used to write a language: Arabic-derived letters to write a non-Arabic-in this case, African-language. "Ajami" derives from the Arabic a'jamiy, which means "foreigner" or, more specifically, "non-Arab." Historically, Arabs used the word to refer to all things Persian or non-Arab, a usage they borrowed from the ancient Greeks. Yet over the last few centuries, across Islamic Africa, "Ajami" came to mean an African language written in Arabic script that was often adapted phonetically to facilitate local usages and pronunciations across the continent, from the Ethiopian highlands in the east to the lush jungles of Sierra Leone in the west. The use of Ajami is tied to the religious spread of Islam. From its beginning, Islam was a literate religion. Iqra' ("read") is the first word of God's revelations to Muhammad that became the Qur'an. Knowledge of Islam meant knowledge of the revealed word of God: the Qur'an. Consequently, wherever Islam went, it established centers of learning, usually attached to mosques, where children learned to read and write Arabic in much the same way that European and American children have often been taught literacy by using the Bible. For members of African societies where oral tradition predominated, Arabic was the first written language to which they had been exposed.

CNN has looked at the Penn Center to learn more about the Gullah language and what people are doing to preserve it and its culture. (https://glc.yale.edu/sites/default/files/files/Gullah%20Language.pdf) Gullah is a creole English based language that has been influenced by African languages. Gullah is also known to be from the "target language" of English. This means that the words they use are what the dominant and economically well group of people often used.