Blog 9

The Science of Accents

In the article the author, Esther Inglis Arkell, states that a person's accents varies depending where one lives. Humans are not the only ones that have accents, animals as well. She states that " Goats say bahhhh with different accents, depending on where they live" (Arkell). Babies ar ealso born with the ability to absorb any type of sound and language. At some point in our lives, we lose the ability to make certain sounds due to the fact that we cannot longer hear them.  A scientists at the University of Washington did hearing tests on babies from 6 months to 1 year old. This experiment was established to understand what kind of sounds babies could hear. the scientists discovered that babies who have been around Japanese speakers, could not hear the letter "R". It was surprising that babies who have been around English speakers had a hard time distinguishing the letter "R" from "I" as well.

Blog 8

Humans are the only known species to acquire a complex language. We are able to express ourselves in full sentences with the limited grammar that we have. In the Article, "Language Acquisition", by  Henna Lemetyinen she states that infants who are at least 12 months old are able to understand causative languages and grammar. Skinner's conclusion was that children learn language by associating words with meanings. However, Chomsky argued that children will not acquire the tools they need with just the language input alone. He proposed the theory of Universal Grammar and use verb categories with noun categories. Further research suggests that children are sensitive to patterns in language and will detect utterances from what they have heard.

Language Acquisition

Blog 7

In the article " Disappearing Languages" by Rosemarie Ostler, she mentions that most of the languages will vanish in the near future. Linguist predict that in the year 2050, around 6,000 languages will extinct. Around 90% of the languages could become extinct by 2100 and only 10% of the languages will be "safe" from extinction as they are passed on from generation to generation. Today, 40% of the languages have already vanished, so it is no surprise that languages will decrease. The decreasing in languages will make it easier for people to communicate as everyone will have a common language;however, language diversity will be very limited. In the article it states that people need to pass their languages from generations to generations to keep them alive because just like a plant, language does not last forever. It is not certain why language is "important" , but it might come in handy in the future.

Disappearing Languages

Blog 6

Why do we use metaphors? are they really important? 

It is true that everyone thinks differently and sees the world in different perspective, so that is why metaphors are part of our lives. Metaphors give us the opportunity to think what we want, instead of just coming right out and say it. In the Article a teacher is asked a question about metaphors in "Hamlet" and why he used them. The teacher did an experiment with their students to why was Denmark compared to a prison. The teacher took out the word "prison" and asked the students to describe the word. Surprisingly, many students answered differently, but all connected to the same chain of emotion. 

http://theliteracycookbook.wordpress.com/2013/01/18/why-we-use-metaphors/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0lWkrd67Nk

Blog 5

http://www.omniglot.com/language/articles/sle.htm

I picked this article because it is interesting to see how people who join a former exchange program helps them to learn a different language. I found it interesting that the top 20 languages worldwide are Chinese, Spanish, English, Hindi, Arabic Portuguese, Bengali, Russian, Japanese, Javanese, German, Lahnda, Telugu, Marathi, Tamil, French, Vietnamese, Korean, Urdu, Italian, Malay, Persian, Turkish, and Oriya. The Student Exchange Program is helpful because students who are learning a foreign language can get hands on experience with what they are learning. I agree with this article because it gives a student the ability to experience culture, history and it makes the student respect the language. The Student Language Exchange Program is beneficial to our community because it reinforces student's ability to learn a foreign language.

Blog # 4

http://www.omniglot.com/writing/greek.htm

The article is about Greek language and how it was developed. Greek belongs to the indo-European language and around 13 million people speak it.  Greece nd Cyprus have adopted Greekas their official  language and it is still a minority Lagrange in other places such as Italy, Romania , and Ukraine. What interested me the most Out about this article is that Greek has been around since 1500 BC. Greek is the only language that uses vowel sounds in its alphabet. This article impacts the world because it gives us an idea of how all languages are connected and how languages change over time. I agree with this article because language is very diverse but at the same time it is connected to one root of all the languages. I want to learn more about Greek and it's alphabet. It seems like a difficult language to learn as it has many symbols. 

Blog 3- What is Voice, Speech, and Language?

http://www.nidcd.nih.gov/health/voice/Pages/whatis_vsl.aspx


I picked the Article " What is Voice? What is Speech? What is Language? " because it breaks down the meanings of what makes up language. I found most interesting about this article that voice and speech are very distinct. Voice being generated by the airflow in the lungs creates sound and the strength of the pressure causes the vocal folds to vibrate. I agree with this article because it is very informative and it gives an excellent explanation how our body works to produce our feelings. The topic affects the world because it educates people about language and how it is a huge part of life.