Words R Us

The author examines the meaning of rizz, which is derived from "charisma." This term, rizz, proves how dynamic language is. Rizz also emphasizes the role of online platforms, such as TikTok, where younger people can own and coin their linguistic expressions.

This article describes a linguistic experiment that took place in Antarctica in 2017-2018. Scientists going to Antarctica were surveyed on their pronunciation of specific words, and by the end of the four month trip, the team pronounced one of the words in a different way to their individual original pronunciation. This illustrates that accents form through prolonged social and geographical isolation.

This article discusses the AI company Sanas' invention of technology that can mask "non-preferred" accents, intended for use in call centers. Controversy has erupted over the consequences of this technology, namely white-washing and the erasure of the culture and identity that is tied to accents.

This website comprehensively lists events associated with Mahina ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi (Hawaiian Language Month). Feel free to participate and attend!

This article discusses a different type of language - cinematic language. It is the way a film communicates with its audience through not just the dialogue, but through the camera shots, the editing techniques, the sound effects, the score, and the story. It is an immersive, vivid form of communication between the filmmaker and the viewer.

This article discusses how both verbal and body language can indicate deceit in conversation. Although there is no established method of lie detection, many psychologists are working towards creating a more accurate system to do so using a combination of technology that analyzes facial expression, speech patterns, and more.

This scientific paper analyzed the types of code switching in a presidential speech, those being tag, intesentential, and intrasentential. Tag refers to adding a "tag" phrase in a differing language at the end of a phrase or sentence. Intesentential refers to a switch after a full sentence, and intrasentential refers to a switch in the middle of the sentence.

This article focused on the main types of code-switching and their purposes. This occurs in two main ways: 1) switching/combining two separate languages, and 2) using different accents and dialects around different people. Code-switching can be used both for comprehension and as a group belonging mechanism.

This article focussed on how the covid lockdown had affected the language acquisition of children, ranging from about 1 to 3 years old. It talked about how screen use was shown to lower the amount of words learned during the same periods of time as compared to face to face interaction with another person.

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.

The U.S. National Library of Medicine launched the Unified Medical Language System (UMLS) in 1984 to help computers understand biomedical meaning as well as retrieve and integrate information from various electronic sources such as patient records and biomedical literature. From the set up of parameters for vocabulary sources, to the release of the UMLS "Metathesaurus," this article takes a look at how a vocabulary database tackled the most significant barrier to the application of computers in medicine, the lack of standard language in medicine.

By activating internalized values and norms, accents play a role in the formation and categorization of one's cultural identity, resulting in culturally specific patterned cognition. This article looks at the way accents give rise to cultural shifts in perspective and decision-making within bicultural individuals who have accented English, suggesting that bilinguals adopt cultural values and attitudes associated with their target language and demonstrating that accent alone can affect people's cognition. It highlights the idea of cultural frame-switching in which a person's interpretive frames shift because of the situational cues linked with their bicultural identity.

Swearing is used in many parts of everyday speech, but still has some great mysteries. What are the grammatical categories of different swear words? Why do we swear? Why is society so affected by swear words? Why are swear words bleeped out on television?

Psycholinguist Steven Pinker examines the emotional impact of swearing and the evolution of words considered taboo, also reflects on several issues surrounding the issue of what language is offensive and about guidelines that might inform our personal and institutional judgments about when to discourage, tolerate, and even welcome profanity?

This article is about how words can effect our outlook on life, but also our physical health.

This is a thesis paper exploring the various theories regarding the evolution of Chinese characters. It is highly unlikely that the Chinese took inspiration from the Mesopotamian cuneiform script, which may have formed at around the same period in time. The author makes the claim that while it is true that Chinese characters may have started off as drawings or pictographs, in the most ancient form of the script, the characters are far from any recognizable images of items. It is very likely that the Chinese script went through a similar evolution process as to the Mesopotamian cuneiform, but no such archeological evidence for this theory has been found.

This language talks about the use of filler words in sentences and speech. Used limitedly, there are nothing wrong with filler words, but they may take away from how confident and put together you appear. It also covers hedge words, and how they make your sentences less impactful.

This article took another take on filler words and expanded on how filler words can actually be useful if used in an intentional way.

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

This article explains the evolution of language and the influence AI has on modern language. Author Rob Toews gives his insight into the dangers of AI (bias and toxicity) and possible trends in AI linguistics.

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.

A writing of Bowling Green University professor Becca Cragin in which she explores the various ways sexuality is taught in the media, classrooms, and other social settings and what have been, in her experience, the most effective methods to inform others on the sensitive topic.