Words R Us

English is a very widespread language and is spoken in various places around the world. Spanish and Chinese are also both very popular languages. But why can't they be as dominant as english? In English a necessity for places around the world?

Linguists can generally be divided into two groups: prescriptivists, or those who hold that language is governed by fixed rules of grammar, and descriptivists, or those who believe that patterns of actual usage reflect the way the language is used. In extremely broad strokes, if prescriptivists are anal retentive, then descriptivists are free-to-be-you-and-me.

Tense people may miss the subtle warning signs of danger Image: Roc Canals Photography/Getty Images Worrywarts, beware: all that fretting may be for naught. Anxiety has long been interpreted as a symptom of hyperawareness and sensitivity to danger, but a study published last December in Biological Psychology turns that logic on its head.

Text messaging is a surprisingly good way to get candid responses to sensitive questions, according to a new study to be presented this week at the annual meeting of the American Association for Public Opinion Research.

Studies show that musicians are better at identifying emotion. "Looking for a mate who in everyday conversation can pick up even your most subtle emotional cues? Find a musician, Northwestern University researchers suggest. In a study in the latest issue of European Journal of Neuroscience, an interdisciplinary Northwestern research team for the first time provides biological evidence that musical training enhances an individual's ability to recognize emotion in sound."

For he/she's a jolly bad pronoun How English Lost its Genders When Nouns Grew Genitals and other exciting articles

ABSTRACT: The present investigation examined the impact of bicultural identity, bilingualism, and social context on the psychological adjustment of multicultural individuals.......We concluded that, in the process of managing multiple cultural environments and group loyalties, bilingual competence, and perceiving one's two cultural identities as integrated are important antecedents of beneficial psychological outcomes.

Positive effect of technology on language

A new prospective study of six-month-old infants at high genetic risk for autism identified weak head and neck control as a red flag for autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and language and/or social developmental delays.

I found this really interesting while researching for my field research project. It talks about how humans have the ability to read words that are spelled incorrectly.

This was an interesting study I read while doing my research experiment on filler words. It is a similar study however it examines disfluency not only due to filler words but other factors as well.

The amygdala is an almond shaped mass of nuclei located deep within the temporal lobe of the brain. It is a limbic system structure that is involved in many of our emotions and motivations, particularly those that are related to survival. The amygdala is involved in the processing of emotions such as fear, anger and pleasure. > Additional link provided to other neurological terms such as the hippocampus.

Hawaiian nonprofit organization Awaiaulu, Inc. is in the midst of a massive translation project fueled by history, newspapers, and volunteers, that aims to bridge the gap between Hawaii's past and present. About 100 Hawaiian-language newspapers published from 1834 to 1948 are being translated by roughly 3,000 volunteers.

Interesting experiment done on various Inuit populations.