Babies are linguistic super-geniuses!
They know a lot about their own language, and they’re able to infer things from other languages. But a new study shows that unloading bulk language upon them isn’t as important as the conversational turns that happen in the back-and-forth of interaction. What does this mean for linguistics?
Daniel Midgley talks to researcher Rachel Romeo on this episode of Talk the Talk.
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Daniel and Rewi chat ahead of the show. A study on children in the Dominican Republic shows that spanking correlates with language delays.
Also at https://www.patreon.com/posts/18233236
Animation
by the Mystery Animator
Full interview
Here’s the full audio of Daniel talking with Rachel Romeo of MIT and Harvard University about her work in child language acquisition, and how turn-taking with caregivers is a better predictor of language acquisition than buckets of words.
Also at https://www.patreon.com/posts/18187971
Cutting Room Floor
Ben is bored by babies. But you know what his kid likes: that misbegotten film The Polar Express. And what was parenting like before phones?
Daniel tells more about words that have flipped from terrible to terrific. And why do we describe white people as Anglo-Saxon anyway?
Also at https://www.patreon.com/posts/18275450
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Show notes
Spanking Children Can Hurt Development of Social and Language Skills
https://saludmovil.com/spanking-children-can-hurt-development-of-social-and-language-skills/
Infants recognize foreign languages as a form of communication
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/01/180124085553.htm
NYU: Infants Recognize Foreign Languages as a Form of Communication
https://www.nyu.edu/about/news-publications/news/2018/january/infants-recognize-foreign-languages-as-a-form-of-communication.html
Babies can spot language, even when it’s not spoken
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/02/babies-can-spot-language-even-when-it-s-not-spoken
Three-month-old infants can learn abstract relations before language comprehension
https://news.northwestern.edu/stories/2018/april/three-month-old-infants-can-learn-abstract-relations-before-language-comprehension/
Rachel R Romeo
https://gablab.mit.edu/index.php/14-sample-data-articles/212
Back-and-forth exchanges boost children’s brain response to language
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/02/180214145833.htm
In my day, the word “Awesome” was reserved for things like curing Polio and walking on the Moon, not for food or TV shows.
— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) 13 April 2018
Online Etymology Dictionary: awesome
https://www.etymonline.com/word/awesome
Arika Okrent: 13 Words that Changed from Negative to Positive (or Vice Versa)
http://mentalfloss.com/article/65987/13-words-changed-negative-positive-or-vice-versa
The Grammarphobia Blog: How “terror” gave us “terrific”
https://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2013/08/terror-terrific.html
Language Log: Neil deGrasse Tyson on linguists and Arrival
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=31383
Merriam-Webster Responded To A Viral Neil DeGrasse Tyson Tweet About The Word ‘Awesome’ & Their Clapback Was Pretty, Uh, Awesome
https://www.bustle.com/p/merriam-webster-responded-to-a-viral-neil-degrasse-tyson-tweet-about-the-word-awesome-their-clapback-was-pretty-uh-awesome-8785561
Optus posts job ad asking for Anglo-Saxon applicants
https://www.smh.com.au/business/companies/optus-posts-job-ad-asking-for-anglo-saxon-applicants-20180413-p4z9f8.html
Optus removes online job ad calling for ‘Anglo Saxon’ staff at Neutral Bay store
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-04-13/optus-removes-online-job-ad-calling-for-anglo-saxon-staff/9653270
Optus investigating ‘racist’ job ad seeking ‘Anglo Saxon’ staff
https://www.sbs.com.au/news/optus-investigating-racist-job-ad-seeking-anglo-saxon-staff
The Anglo-Saxon or Old English Language
http://www.thehistoryofenglish.com/history_old.html
10 things you (probably) didn’t know about the Anglo-Saxons
https://www.historyextra.com/period/anglo-saxon/10-things-you-probably-didnt-know-about-the-anglo-saxons/
OPTUS HR REP: Look, we did advertise for an Anglo Saxon, and your references described you as ‘manna mildust ond monðwaérust, léodum líðost, ond lofgeornost’ but we’ve decided to go in another direction. Sorry not to have better news.
JOB APPLICANT: *shrugs* Wyrd bið ful aræd! https://t.co/yfnlc0e7bR
— Patrick Stokes (@patstokes) 13 April 2018
Old English Epic Poetry: Beowulf
http://www.blackwellreference.com/public/tocnode?id=g9781405159630_chunk_g97814051596309
Old English – Wyrd biþ ful ārǣd – What does this mean?
https://www.duolingo.com/comment/20520288/Old-English-Wyrd-biþ-ful-ārǣd-What-does-this-mean
Thinnernyms (short headline words) include axe, bash, flay, helm, hike, ire, mar, quiz, spat, vie, vow, woo
— David Astle (@dontattempt) 12 April 2018
Common Newspaper Words
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CommonNewspaperWords
Newspaper Headlines
http://www.isabelperez.com/module4_tesis/headlines.htm
What Is Headlinese?
https://www.thoughtco.com/what-is-headlinese-1690921
Transcript
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