Literal Lucy to the rescue: A new way to distinguish between literal meaning and contextual meaning
A new linguistic study of how individuals interpret various types of utterances sheds more light on how literal and contextual meaning are distinguished. View More (2012-03-12)
Computer programs that think like humans
Intelligence - what does it really mean? In the 1800s, it meant that you were good at memorising things, and today intelligence is measured through IQ tests where the average score for humans is 100. View More (2012-02-14)
The advantage of ambiguity
Why did language evolve? While the answer might seem obvious - as a way for individuals to exchange information - linguists and other students of communication have debated this question for years. View More (2012-01-20)
Deaf sign language users pick up faster on body language
Deaf people who use sign language are quicker at recognizing and interpreting body language than hearing non-signers, according to new research from investigators at UC Davis and UC Irvine. View More (2012-01-13)
Different reading devices, different modes of reading?
A book or a screen - which of these two offers more reading comfort? There are no disadvantages to reading from electronic reading devices compared with reading printed texts. View More (2011-10-21)
Dissecting Dyslexia: Linking Reading to Voice Recognition
When people recognize voices, part of what helps make voice recognition accurate is noticing how people pronounce words differently. But individuals with dyslexia don't experience this familiar language advantage, say researchers. View More (2011-08-01)
Even before language, babies learn the world through sounds
It's not just the words, but the sounds of words that have meaning for us. This is true for children and adults, who can associate the strictly auditory parts of language- vowels produced in the front or the back of the mouth, high or low pitch-with blunt or pointy things, large or small things, fast-moving or long-staying things. View More (2011-07-12)
Archaeologists uncover oldest mine in the Americas
Archaeologists have discovered a 12,000-year-old iron oxide mine in Chile that marks the oldest evidence of organized mining ever found in the Americas, according to a report in the June issue of Current Anthropology. View More (2011-05-20)
Artificial Grammar Reveals Inborn Language Sense, JHU Study Shows
Parents know the unparalleled joy and wonder of hearing a beloved child's first words turn quickly into whole sentences and then babbling paragraphs. View More (2011-05-16)
Sign language users read words and see signs simultaneously
People fluent in sign language may simultaneously keep words and signs in their minds as they read, according to an international team of researchers. View More (2011-03-23)
NYU researchers identify neural circuits used in processing basic linguistic phrases
New York University researchers have isolated neural activity that reflects basic mechanisms used by the brain to combine elementary pieces of language in order to construct complex ideas. View More (2011-03-01)
Language Patterns Are Roller-Coaster Ride During Childhood Development
Why, and when, do we learn to speak the way that we do? Research from North Carolina State University on African-American children presents an unexpected finding: language use can go on a roller-coaster ride during childhood as kids adopt and abandon vernacular language patterns. View More (2011-02-25)
What if we used poetry to teach computers to speak better?
A better understanding of how we use acoustic cues to stress new information and put old information in the background may help computer programmers produce more realistic-sounding speech. View More (2010-11-18)
New search method tracks down influential ideas
Princeton computer scientists have developed a new way of tracing the origins and spread of ideas, a technique that could make it easier to gauge the influence of notable scholarly papers, buzz-generating news stories and other information sources. View More (2010-10-21)
Tactile input affects what we hear: UBC study
Humans use their whole bodies, not just their ears, to understand speech, according to University of British Columbia linguistics research. View More (2009-11-30)
Babies with an accent
In the first days of their lives, French infants already cry in a different way to German babies. View More (2009-11-09)
Losing your tongue
Elder Tommy George has not spoken his aboriginal language of Kuku Thaypan for three years, since his brother died. "It might die in the throat, but it stays alive in the heart," he said to the Queensland Courier-Mail in June, 2009. View More (2009-11-02)
What's the semantic organization of human language?
Language networks are small-world and scale-free, although they are built based on different principles. Similar global statistical properties shown by language networks are independent of linguistic structure and typology. View More (2009-08-11)
Language change can be traced using gigantic text archives
Historical collections that include everything ever written in a dozen American and British newspapers since they started are now available electronically. View More (2009-06-29)
Multilingualism brings communities closer together
Learning their community language outside the home enhances minority ethnic children's development, according to research led from the University of Birmingham. View More (2009-02-10)
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