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Category: General Language
What does Genie’s case illustrate about first language acquisition?
The linguistics textbooks will tell you that the unfortunate case of Genie (feral child) demonstrates that puberty delimits a window of opportunity for language acquisition, past which full language acquisition is not possible. Genie learnt enough English for the first time at 13 to communicate, but her English was never grammatical. There are plenty of […]
Why is the splashing sweat emoji associated with semen?
For obvious iconic reasons. It is the Emoji that looks the most like ejaculate. Even if it takes some imagination. And food dye. [math]unicode{x1F4A6}[/math] What I find amusing, and of course semiotically inevitable, is how thoroughly this secondary meaning has become conventionalized. You’ll see the Emoji used to refer to ejaculate, without it being disambiguated […]
What language games do linguists play?
More of a polyglot game, this, than a linguist game, but: switch the TV to a foreign language film halfway through, and try to work out what the language is. The fact that the language almost always sustains a local film industry does constrain the possible choices. The rule of thumb I worked out quite […]
What are linguistic problems in swearing?
Use of swearing to affirm solidarity. There’s a lot of that. In fact, what the contextual cues are to differentiate between swearing used to affirm solidarity, and swearing used to express hostility. Cultural factors associated with the use of swearing to affirm solidarity: what are the demographics? Working class? Youth? Gender? Other correlates? Are particular […]
Is there any word which cannot become a conceptual metaphor?
I’m not strong on cognitive linguistics, but it’s an intriguing A2A. What does it take for a word to become a conceptual metaphor? The meaning it expresses needs to be transferred to an analogous conceptual domain from its normal meaning; as a result of this, some of its meaning is preserved (the meaning that survives […]
How long would it take an isolated group of people to develop what would be considered their own language?
This is a question linguists don’t want to answer, because it raises the spectre of glottochronology. Glottochronology is an assumption made in the fifties, that a core 100 or 200 words of vocabulary in all languages would be lost at a constant rate. The figures that a study came up with was 86% retention per […]
How can I, as an 18-year-old first year college student, help in Kumaoni language conservation?
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kumaoni_language There will be different answers depending on who speaks the language, where, what the community attitudes are to it, and what kinds of resources you have access to. One starting point is Kat Li’s answer to How can modern society preserve dying languages? From Wikipedia, it seems Kumaoni is in the same category as […]
Could emoticons form the script of a new constructed language?
http://joehale.bigcartel.com/product/wonderland-emoji-poster Obviously, Vote #1/#2 Daniel Slechta’s answer to Could emoticons form the script of a new constructed language? and Daniel Ross’ answer to Could emoticons form the script of a new constructed language? (I disagree with Daniel Ross’ first point, that the emoji must be conventional and not iconic for them to be a language […]
Do linguistics departments normally include mostly women, gay men, vegans, and leftists?
http://www.economist.com/blogs/johnson/2013/07/teenage-hyperpolyglot-0 Hahahahaha. Well, let’s see. Linguistics in the West appears to have broken down the barriers against women getting academic promotion relatively early, and the majority of enrolments at undergraduate level in my department were women. I remember a male linguist (Newmeyer? Pullum?) citing approvingly a hotelier’s guide to the convention partying styles of various […]
My native language is English, but it seems that more inflected languages are widly more complex. Does every language really have equally complex grammar?
Drop everything you are doing, and upvote Joachim Pense. Vote #1 Joachim Pense’s answer to My native language is English, but it seems that more inflected languages are widly more complex. Does every language really have equally complex grammar? There are some bad answers here, and some good answers here. There’s a progression of sophistication […]