Sunday, July 31, 2005

Psychology and stockmarkets: Mind your language

Filed under: Language in society

Agent metaphors are those in which words normally applied only to animate beings are used in an inanimate context, such as the stockmarket. Research to be presented to the American Academy of Management`s annual conference in Honolulu at the beginning of August suggests that agent metaphors have a strong effect on investors` behaviour. People expect animate activity to persist, and they transfer that expectation to inanimate market activity when it is expressed in agent metaphors.

Read the full article at The Economist



Chinese language hot in America

Filed under: Language in society

China is casting such a huge shadow on the United States that many Americans are scrambling to learn the Chinese language in a bid to retain their competitive edge.

Read the full article at Times of India



Man Wants to Create Town for the Deaf

Filed under: Language in society

Marvin Miller has one very bold idea: He wants to build a new town where there is none, a community that would be carved out of the farm fields and draw hundreds of people from across the nation - maybe even the world. What would set this town apart is it would be home to deaf and hard-of-hearing people who want to live together. They`d raise their families here, send their kids to school and share a common language: sign language.

Read the full article at Yahoo! News




 
Saturday, July 30, 2005

Pre-Incas kept detailed records too

A sophisticated arrangement of knots and strings, found on the site of the oldest city in the Americas, indicates ancient Peruvians were skilled at conveying detailed information much earlier than once thought.

Read the full article at ABC News



`Foreign accent syndrome` explained

Some patients who suffer brain injuries occasionally lose the ability to talk in their native accent - but now scientists may know why.

Read the full article at BBC News



Bibliography on study of Turkic language to be issued

A chair of study of Turkic language of the Baku Slavic University is planning to publish a bibliography on study of Turkic language.

Read the full article at AzerTAj



L is for lalochezia (Dirty Words: The Story of Sex Talk)

Filed under: Language in society

Seductively billed as “the perfect book for lovers, and language-lovers, alike”, Dirty Words attempts to catalogue every English word ever used for sexual purposes.

Read the full article at Guardian Unlimited




 
Friday, July 29, 2005

Teaching method holds the key in Chinese learning

Filed under: Language in society

Why is the Chinese language giving the world such a hard time? Hao Ping, director of Beijing Foreign Languages University, spoke at the First World Chinese Conference in Beijing, claiming that Chinese learning and teaching methods have relied upon European language acquisition theory, which is completely inappropriate as the two language families are radically different.

Read the full article at China Daily



Foreigners Beat Chinese Team in Varsity Chinese Linguistics Competition

Filed under: Language in society

The first prize in a recent Chinese language competition went to an overseas team this year, which beat the local Chinese team, much to the consternation of many Chinese.

Read the full article at The Epoch Times



Thursday, July 28, 2005

The word from the beginning

Filed under: Origins of language

About “The Unfolding of Language”, a book by Guy Deutscher, a professor of ancient Semitic languages at the University of Leiden in Holland, which embarks on the difficult task of tracing the roots of the modern tongues.

Read the full article at CNN



Turkish Children Learn Their Mother Tongue Earliest

Filed under: Language acquisition

A research conducted worldwide has established that Turkish children are the fastest at learning their native language.

Read the full article at Zaman Online



Sunday, July 24, 2005

‘Authentic’ Shakespeare on stage

The Globe Theatre in London is to stage an entire Shakespeare play in its original pronunciation.

Read the full article at bbc