2454: Neutral Position of Articulators Aug 30, 2021

The neutral position of an articulator—which is to say where one rests one's tongue, lips, etc. when not speaking—will actually vary notably between speakers of different languages. For instance, Russia speakers tend to leave their tongues flat on the floor of their mouths, while English speakers keep them towards the middle, pointed to the alveolar ridge (sometimes called 'teeth-ridge'). More remarkable even, bilinguals can be seen making adjustments relative to the language in question such as when presented with linguistic stimuli that switches languages in an MRI machine. Again, this happens even when the person is not speaking or even necessarily planning to speak.

2232: Nacirema Jan 24, 2021

'Nacirema' is a term used in sociology as a way to describe American or otherwise broadly Western behaviors in a way one might do for other cultures in a somewhat voyeuristic manner. The term was coined in 1956 as a reverse of the spelling of 'American' and was first used in the article "Body Ritual among the Nacirema" as a satirical piece describing mid-50's grooming, pharmaceuticals and basic aspects of history in the way some might describe foreign, tribal cultures. Though initially just published as a one-time event in American Anthropologist, several other papers by other authors came to use this term for similar effect.

1284: Parapraxis: Psychologists vs. Linguists Jun 16, 2018

Parapraxis is another term for a Freudian slip, i.e. making a linguistic error which is subconsciously motivated (humorously: "when you say one thing and mean your mother"). There is a large debate going on between linguists and psychologists on this subject; in a classical psychoanalytic reading (though there are plenty of new theories) the erroneous replacement word is drawn in this assumedly systematic way from words which are related—in general—semantically, with much more emphasis placed upon the meaning of the slip that other factors such as how it sounds. A more strictly linguistic approach to this problem—forgetting for a moment the different takes within the neurolinguistic and psycholinguistic fields—would consider more factors, such as how a word sounds, and more to the point, how it is stressed. Think about how you may have experienced a word on the tip of your tongue (ToT), believing it started with one sound, and actually it began with a different sound, but the sound you remembered featured somewhere in the word where the stress may have been placed (if you haven't done this in the past, don't worry, but maybe considering playing with this in the future).

Make sure also to check out Word Facts' analysis of the film, Arrival.

1280: Critical Period Jun 12, 2018

Children have an astounding ability to learn languages. Not only are they better at discerning between sounds in a way those over the age of around 5 can, their neuroplasticity allows them to learn—theoretically—as many languages as they are exposed to. This period of around 4 to 6 years is known as the Critical Period, and though it affects most areas of learning, it has been found that as one ages, languages are not stored in the brain in the same way, and that one's first languages will often be linked to emotions, whereas the languages one learns later, especially well into adulthood, tend to rely on following systems and logic. Of course, this is somewhat of a generalization, but you can certainly expect that should one curse in pain, that will likely be in her first language.

Make sure also to check out Word Facts' analysis of Arrival: /stonewordfacts/2018/06/the-linguistics-in-arrival.html

1230: When to...Pause Apr 22, 2018

Do people think in terms of individual words, or clauses as they speak?

The answer is that, while of course people think of the actual words, people largely think in terms of clauses. That is why most pauses will happen between clauses, but not between, say, an adjective and a noun. However, while so called 'major-delays' (around a second) may happen between clauses without sounding abnormal, if a speaker used one between words it would sound extremely choppy, and often speakers will paraphrase or go as far as to ramble in order to remain fluent until the end of a clause. So called 'minor-clauses' still do exist between words if the speaker is searching for the word, but again, this will rarely be more than .6 seconds. There will be more about this in the next few days. Stay tuned tomorrow for the next Word Facts videos.

To see some hypothetical Word Facts, visit Patreon.com/wordfacts. Check out the Youtube too: https://youtu.be/Kgg5P7IIzvk

1221: People Make Sense of Bad Grammar Apr 13, 2018

People do not just freeze at ungrammaticality, and try instead will try to make sense of things. This is how talking to someone newly learning a language may say something like "I likes it" or a baby may say "I holded it" and this is not impossible to understand, though it is obviously ungrammatical. A prime example of this is most of the entries in the book "English as She is Spoke", the title alone of which shows just this very idea. The famous line "...he speak the frenche as the Frenchmen himselves. The Spanishesmen believe him Spanishing, and the Englishes, Englishmen." In the obvious places where there are linguistic issues, generally what would need to be supplemented to make it sound normal would be words that are phonetically similar (somewhat), and usually syntactically similar to what is already there. In this way, language is less a formula and more a set of clues for interpreting signs.
To see some hypothetical Word Facts, visit Patreon.com/wordfacts. Check out the Youtube too: https://youtu.be/Kgg5P7IIzvk