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"It turns out that very young children [4-6 yrs] can understand and even use ironic speech, even if they cannot describe what they have done to a researcher."

Essay/study by Deborah Tannen: "So the key to why having sisters makes people happier - men as well as women - may lie not in the kind of talk they exchange but in the fact of talk. If men, like women, talk more often to their sisters than to their brothers, that could explain why sisters make them happier." See also discussion on Language Log: http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=2739 (they advise us to be wary of overstating the significance of the results)

"Christian missionaries have become strangely vital to conserving endangered languages... In 1951 Pittman had started interviewing missionaries and linguists about the languages that were spoken in the parts of the world where they worked. The result was a language catalogue called Ethnologue... For example, the Spanish priests who followed the conquistadors into South America documented indigenous languages as they went."

"Mothers and fathers used to bring up children: now they parent. Critics used to review plays: now they critique them. Athletes podium, executives flipchart, and almost everybody Googles. What's the driving force behind it? "Looking for short cuts, especially if you have to say something over and over again, is a common motivator," says Groves."

"The current, long-standing theory suggests that children learn their first words through a series of associations; they associate words they hear with multiple possible referents in their immediate environment....A small set of psychologists and linguists, including members of the Penn team, have long argued that the sheer number of statistical comparisons necessary to learn words this way is simply beyond the capabilities of human memory.... rich interactions with children-and patience-are more important than abstract picture books and drilling."

This commercial is about Progressive, a insurance company. In most of the commercials, they use the "Red Herring" fallacy, bringing an irrelevant matter into the conversation. At the end of the commercial, Flo talks about his feminine looking shoulder bag randomly, which displays the fallacy stated above. I think they do this so observers remember the commercial as informative but at the same time entertaining.

This commercial was a commercial of a guy who was walking around. As he walked around he noticed that the people around him were digital people and creatures who looked foreign and strange. The guy finally walked into a diner where he ordered a coke. The monster next to him accidentally grabbed for his coke at the same time he did and the monster became a normal girl and no longer a "stranger". The enthymeme here is that everyone and anyone is no longer a stranger if they like coca cola. they imply that if two people like the same thing they are no longer strangers because they share something in common and can relate to each other. However this statement is not always true. Just because you share a liking for one thing with someone else doesn't automatically mean that the other person is no longer a stranger to you.

"With Twitter and other microblogging platforms, teachers from elementary schools to universities are setting up what is known as a "backchannel" in their classes. The real-time digital streams allow students to comment, pose questions (answered either by one another or the teacher) and shed inhibitions about voicing opinions. Perhaps most importantly, if they are texting on-task, they are less likely to be texting about something else."

"They are making the inference - not consciously - that when someone has difficulty making a word They are most likely referring to an object that is rare," says Aslin.

"They found that in any given humpback population, all the males will sing the same mating song. But the tune's pattern and structure will occasionally change, and as more catchy versions emerge They spread across the ocean - for some reason almost always moving west to east - and supplant the older, now stale songs."

"Now, after a computer analysis of three decades of hit songs, Dr. DeWall and other psychologists report finding what they were looking for: a statistically significant trend toward narcissism and hostility in popular music. As they hypothesized, the words "I" and "me" appear more frequently along with anger-related words, while there's been a corresponding decline in "we" and "us" and the expression of positive emotions."

"Even though these students are fluent in English, their brains still automatically translate what they see into Chinese. This suggests that knowledge of a first language automatically influences the processing of a second language, even when they are very different, unrelated languages."

This was interesting because the children speak their own animal language.

Strange but true story with interesting connections to the "Genie" case and the critical period hypothesis. In 2008, in Amstedten, Austria, two brothers, age 5 and 18, were discovered. They were being held captive in a cellar with their mother. The boys use animalistic noises rather than words to communicate with each other. Other than their mother, age 42, who'd lost most of her reading and writing skills after being imprisoned 24 years ago, their only source of linguistic input was a TV. A police officer who met the two boys noted They communicate with noises that are a mixture of growling and cooing. "If They want to say something so others understand them as well They have to focus and really concentrate, which seems to be extremely exhausting for them."

Hey, you guys: let me know if this article is "true" as far as Punahou students go. Does the word "drama" mean for you what it means for the students they interviewed? And is what they say about using the word "bullying" true? Maybe you could just comment here or send me an email. Thanks!

People who speak more than one language fluently will process maths (yes, that word is correct: very British!) differently when they switch between languages, a new study has found. The study examined Belgians who are dual-fluent in German and French. While they were able to solve the simple tasks with equal proficiency, they took longer to calculate the complex task in French and made more errors than they did when doing the identical task in German. Different regions of the brain were in use when the participants were solving problems in different languages--no surprise, more cognitive effort was needed when using a second language.

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.

Briefly explores the difference of "swear" words and their severity across the globe.

For curses to have impact, they need a dominating societal power and control structure attached to them. Strong language often involves naming things you desire but aren't supposed to desire; at the very least, it aims to upset power structures that may seem a bit too arbitrary. We tend to think of swear words as one entity, but they actually serve several distinct functions. Linguist Steven Pinker, in The Stuff of Thought, lists five different ways we can swear: descriptively, idiomatically, abusively, emphatically, and cathartically. Worldwide, words for genitalia are the most common focus of preferred strong language, the kind used by default for Pinker's five functions.

We often think of "bad" language as something universal to everyone around the world. But swearing is special to each and every language. Depending on the type of language, there are different ways to express anger. For example, in Bikol (a type of language in the phillipines) they have a whole different vocabulary to use when conveying the emotion of anger. In Luganda (an african language) they can convey anger by just changing the noun class prefix. As we can see different cultures convey their emotions differently and there is no "one way" to swear or show anger.

In this article, scientist Wilkie Freud followed a group of chimpanzees around to learn more about the origin of language. The human lineage broke from chimpanzees roughly 7.9 million years ago. The study they found was that the chimpanzees use language when necessary, like when a snake is seen. they will shout an alarm call to warn other about the danger. they also seem to grunt when they enjoy food. This shows how chimpanzees and humans have similar but very different types of language.

An International Year is an important cooperation mechanism dedicated to raising awareness of a particular topic or theme of global interest or concern, and mobilizing different players for coordinated action around the world. In 2016, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution proclaiming 2019 as the International Year of Indigenous Languages, based on a recommendation by the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. At the time, the Forum said that 40 per cent of the estimated 6,700 languages spoken around the world were in danger of disappearing. The fact that most of these are indigenous languages puts the cultures and knowledge systems to which they belong at risk. In addition, indigenous peoples are often isolated both politically and socially in the countries they live in, by the geographical location of their communities, their separate histories, cultures, languages and traditions. And yet, they are not only leaders in protecting the environment, but their languages represent complex systems of knowledge and communication and should be recognized as a strategic national resource for development, peace building and reconciliation. they also foster and promote unique local cultures, customs and values which have endured for thousands of years. Indigenous languages add to the rich tapestry of global cultural diversity. Without them, the world would be a poorer place.

Although many people are wary of how much people actually learn from television and screentime, many people are able to learn different languages through the use of TV and shows. The Nistel sisters were able to become proficient in Spanish and English from watching TV shows every day after school. They claim that They never paid attention in English class and did not mention about ever taking Spanish lessons.