Episodes
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Myth 5
Similar to another myth discussed, people believe that the younger a child is when they start to acquire a second language, the more skilled or successful they will be. This is why most individuals will tell you to ensure your child learns other languages as soon as possible. However, there is no...
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Chapter 20
Continuing on what we discussed in the last chapter, sociolinguistic variation can also be associated with cultural differences. The book defines culture as the ideas and assumptions about the nature of things and people that we learn when we become members of social groups. Culture can be…
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Chapter 19
Unlike the last chapter, this chapters focuses on the fat that not every person in the same geographical area will speak in the same way. Language variation may differ due to education or economic status, as well as gender. These are indicators of a membership in different social groups or speech...
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Podcast Ch. 18
While our book has mainly been focused on a whole language, such as English or Spanish, it is also important to note the variety that each language has. For example, the English languages used in America is different that the English spoken in Australia or Britain. Geographically, even if a...
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Podcast Ch. 17
The English language was not always the one that we are familiar with to this day. The study of older languages and how they developed into modern languages is known as philology. The study of philology lead to the creation of “family trees” to show how languages were related to one another. In...
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Podcast Ch. 16
Writing, according to our text, is defined as the symbolic representation of language through the use of graphic signs. This system has to be learned through sustained conscious effort. Writing is a relatively new phenomenon, and not every language has a written form. In fact, even among people...
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Podcast Ch. 15
Most commonly, when we consider language acquisition, we think of speech. However, language can also be acquired through sign, or sign language. Some of these children even sign in their sleep, similar to how children will talk in their sleep. Like spoken language, sign language is different in...
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Podcast Ch. 12
Neurolinguistics is the study of the relationship between language and the brain. Obviously, the capacity for language is located in the brain, but as evidenced by Phineas Gage, it is not located in the front. Our texts states that the parts of the brain related to language exist in the areas…
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Podcast Ch. 11
In chapter 10, we discussed how language users successfully interpret what one another is trying to convey. They study of language beyond the sentence, in text and conversation is referred to as discourse analysis. Typically, one is concerned with accurate representation of forms and structures…
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Podcast Ch. 10
According to our text, communication relies on recognizing what speakers mean when they use a certain word. This is termed pragmatics, which is the study of speaker meaning. Pragmatics is how we interpret what is meant even if it is not explicitly said or written. This relies on shared…
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Study of Language: 2
An interesting point brought up in chapter one of our text is whether humans are the only ones capable of language. While there have been instances where people have thought that animals have spoken, these animals have been shown to simply be imitating something they have heard humans say. It…
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Study of Language: 1
Where does language come from? Does it come from a divine source or are we, as humans, genetically predisposed with the capability to speak? According to Charles Darwin, the earliest known humans already had a musical ability of communicating with each other. While humans do have the ability to...