Language - Science topic

Thank you for your insight Rhianon Allen, and Victoria Sethunya.

Interesting discussion topic, RG Scholar Nariman . . . I suggest for you to actually experience what you are talking about in this platform . . . to study here in the United States . . . You will be surprised to see and meet thousands of foreign students enrolled in every university (both public and private) in every state in this beautiful country, the United States of America. You can apply for admission to find out the requirements yourself.

Each language has its own rules and structure. Governments have nothing to do with this. It is language specific. You can not change it in a fortnight.

Regards

Mustapha Boughoulid

The same. As far as I understand, 2010 style is still used in official documents. Plus, despite the shortcomings, this is the simplest option, for which the standard Latin alphabet layout is enough.

Language remains the birth child of every children of the universe .We all know that at the birth time of every child which occurs the sound resembling the sound of the arrival creating the sound calling the problems of new arrival .Every human beings irrespective , caste , creed & religion are social animals sitting the company of their society & culture & with growth of every human beings language comes automatically in their ear & mind . It is naturally that every human beings take the meaning of understand with the language .

This is my personal opinion

Language maintenance is the maintenance of a language (usually L1) despite the influence of external sociolinguistic forces (usually powerful language(s) and language shift, is a shift, transfer, replacement or language assimilation of usually L1 to L2 due mainly to the external sociolinguistic forces influencing a speech community to shift to a different language over time. This happens because speakers may perceived the new language as prestigious, stabilized, standardized over their L1 (lower-status). An example is the shift from first languages to second language(s) such as the English language.

Social network deals with the relationships contracted with others, with the community structures and properties entailed in these relationships (Milroy, 1978,1980 &1987)

· It views social networks as a means of capturing the dynamics underlying speakers’ interactional behaviours and cultures.

The fundamental assumption is that people create their communities with meaningful framework in attaining stronger relationship for solving the problems of daily life.

Personal communities are constituted by interpersonal ties of different types, strengths, and structural relationships between links (varying in nature) but a stronger link can become the anchor to the network.

Such networks have the following characteristics, they are

Where do we find some close-knit networks? In smaller communities, but also in cities, because of cultural and economical diversity, e.g. newer emigrants communities, or High-educated individuals.

Functions:

These networks have the following characteristics, they are:

Lead to weakening of a close-knit network structure -> these are prone to change, innovations and influence between groups and may lead to language shift/language transfer/language/language replacement.

The factors are diverse and include political, social, demographic, economic, cultural, linguistic, psychological and institutional support factors. They are demonstrated in this article

Very much both. But genius is individual.

The following link is also very useful: https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783110525571/html?lang=en

There are cognitive skills that guide behavior. The deployment of these skills can be regarded as involving thought at various levels of awareness, including unconscious thought. Such know-how cannot be completely verbalized and indeed, some verbalization can interfere with the acquisition or exercise of the skill. Developers of AI drawing on human exemplars of expertise face this problem when they try to reduce skills to rules (rules are verbal) inasmuch as human experts often don't seem to employ a rule-based approach and even when they do invoke rules, their rules don't fully represent their modus operandi.

In the following link, there are nine essential skills of naturalist intelligence and how they could help us.

In the Middle East, there is no interest in this topic

Karl Pfeifer you can try Wiley or the International Journal of Linguistics, Literature, and Translation (IJLLT)

Johan Schalin Thanks for the reply. I will read it with great interest.

Dear عائشة عبد الواحد thank you for the invaluable answer.

This is a good example of why it's important to not place too much importance on p-values.

The significant p-value tells you that the statistical procedure is able to identify an effect of the interaction against the noise of the variability of the data * . Looking at the plot, your eyes, too, tell you that the slopes are different relative to the variability in the data. The error bars on the red points overlap, and those on the blue points do not.

But this significant result does not tell you that the interaction effect is large, nor that it is of any practical importance. The plot is very helpful for the reader to understand the results. The difference in slopes is small relative to the difference in Accents, and probably relative to the difference in Primes. How you interpret these observations for your reader is up to you.

__________

* This description is not technically correct, but hopefully gives you a sense of the point I'm trying to make.

Regardless of what English means in terms of colonialism, I am glad that the language of science has been standardized. Imagine making a literature search just to find relevant studies in more than 10 languages... Is necessary to discuss whether we need to migrate to another language? Perhaps if your findings are of national relevancy, you are absolutely free to publish your results in a native-speaking journal. On the other hand, if you are aiming at an international audience, English-based journals are the go.

Will message you.

This would be a great question to post in our new free medical imaging question and answer forum ( www.imagingQA.com ). There are already a few fMRI questions on there and a number of fMRI users and experts in the community. If useful, please feel free to open a new topic at the link below :

Language and culture are two inseparable entities. Therefore, language learning is at once cultural learning. One’s mastery of the linguistic elements alone does not guarantee he will be able to communicate through a language. Mastering the cultural element is a must, such recognition then cultivated an awareness in foreign language teaching experts that language and culture are inseparable

Garcia or Cangarajah's concepts of translanguaging might help you.

Lo

Regards,

Joachim

Did you try Python word count?

Google Translate is free, fast, and pretty accurate. Thanks to its massive database, the software can deliver decent translations that can help you get the main idea of a text...

Interesting

Could you just say: my plate has plain plasta?

(LLS= Language Learning Strategies).

Hi Lucy Anderson,

I recently found an implementation of kprototypes in Python.

Besides, here is a useful example of kprototypes.

Neurons are not the best level of abstraction when speaking of mind. You don't talk about myocytes when you discuss about soccer. Concepts, symbols, and the various types of interactions between them, are more appropriate building blocks of mind.

Regards,

Joachim

Yes, it can. I would also suggest using CDA methodology. A word's dictionary and contextual meanings may be used as a starting point.

My offering has been in relation to: "The Surname - Where has it gone?"

Has it died or simply become obsolete?

My observation is in the medical context when conversing with patients

Using first names outside of the confines of family and friends creates an erroneous sense of intimacy and social equivalence which seems to pervade everyday professional and business activities but may have some limitations in the patient - doctor relationship.

Guy Walters' offerings in the Nov 2020 issue of 'The Spectator' magazine may be more generally applicable.@

Dear Robert Shour, I agree with Prof. Farangis Shahidzade post.

Can you give me more clarification on this subject

My pleasure, Jakob.

Dear Erin Krichilsky I'm just wondering why you are looking for "a journal that accepts publications in two languages or at least is bilingual friendly". What is it good for to publish in different languages? We used to publish our research papers in German back in the 1970's and 1980's, but then we realized that the papers were not read by many researchers abroad. Then we switched to English to make sure that our papers are read worldwide (and eventually cited).

Racism, as any other from of discrimination like untouchability or other marginalization invariably affects language acquisition. In case of academic language acquisition like teaching English as second language, there is an observed and marked indications that the degree of language learning is not the same as the 'majority ' or 'mainstream ' learners.

Hola,

Para el cálculo de la frecuencia léxica de unidades simples o complejas, se suele utilizar WordSmith o AntCon.

Saludos

All too often a clear conscience is merely the result of a bad memory.

These studies can be found on many websites

Dear Artem and Marcel,

there are two problems with post-hoc correlating errors

1) the error covariance is causally unspecific (as any correlation). If one possibility is true namely that both items additionally measure an omitted latent than estimating the error cov will fit the model but the omitted latent variable still is not explicitly contained in the model. This may be unproblematic if this latent is just the response reaction on a specific word contained in both items --but sometimes it may be a substantial latent variable missing in the model whose omission will bias the effects of other, contained latent variabels.

2) While issue #1 still presumes that the factor model is correct (but the items *in addition* share a further cause, the need for estimating error covs will appear as assign of a fundamental misspecification of the factor model: If the factor model is to simple (e.g., you test a 1-factor model where as the true structure contains more) than the only proposal the algorithm can make is to estimate error covs. These can be interpreted as the valves in a technical system. Opening the valves with reduce the pressure but not solve the problem. To the contrary: Your model will fit but it is worse than before.

One simple add-hoc test is to estimate the error cov and then to include further variables in the model which correlate (are receive / emit effects) with/from/on the latent target variable. You will often see that the model which had fitted one minute ago (due to the estimation of the error cov) again shows a substantial misfit as the factor model is still wrong and cannot explain the new restrictions and correlations between the indicators and the newly added variables.

Please not that the goal in CFA/SEM is not to get a fitting model! The (mis)fit of the model is just a tool to evaluate the causal correctness. If data fit would be the essential goal than SEModeling would be so easy: Just saturate the model and you always get a perfect data fit.

One aspect is the post-hoc justification of the error-covs: I remember once reading MacCallum (I think that it was him) who wrote that he knows no colleague who would not have enough phantasy to come to an idea to explain a post-hoc need for an error covariance. :)

Hence, besides the causal issues noted above, there are statistical problems with regard to overfitting capitalization on chance (as any other post-hoc change of the model). That is: Better look onto your items before doing the model testing and think wether they could be reasons that lead to an error covariance.

One example is the longitudinal case where error covariances between the same items are expected and are included from the beginning.

If you have to post hoc include the error covariances, carefully consider other potential reasons (mainly the more fundamental issues noted in #2) and replicate the study. But replication in causal inference context should always imply an enlargement of the model (i.e., including new variables).

Best,

Holger

http://www.multilingualliving.com/2010/05/31/does-bilingualism-multilingualism-cause-language-delay/

Good answer Soma Chakraborty

Ramiro Checa-Garcia, Thanks for You.

I wonder why you are carrying out this study?

What questions are you trying to answer, through examining social media language from different speakers in this way?

Why are these questions interesting?

If you are clear about your own answers to questions like these, you will be better placed to judge which analytical methods are likely to be appropriate.

Gladly! And I'll convey your questionnaire to my students as well.

Interesting questionnaire although quite long, but I hope your project will benefit from that.

I wish you good luck with your research!

There are several methods of software development effort estimation which are based on different size metrics such as Function Points, Object Points, Use Case Points. The methods based on these metrics use different environmental and technical factors which influence software development effort. I want to do research on Use Case Point  based software development effort estimation. So I need a dataset of industrial software projects in which the characteristics of software projects are given in terms of Use Case Points metrics.

Human speech does indeed urge the mind to foresight and aftersight, but only up to a point, and in my world that is not very far compared with information taken into the brain visually. The latter is the main channel for creation of memory and thought, by conversion of images in the form of stored holographic structures which are capable of being reinvoked given sufficient stimulus by later experience. Apologies for my somewhat technical approach to this interesintg statement by Elliot, but I wrote a paper in November 2019 (attached) which seems to be a little relevant to his statement. It is a bone of conetention with me how language is inadequate to convey undersanding of the way in which the minds of tohers's work in the accurate transmission of information. Unfortunately, this is one of the most convenient means we have currently at our disposal for transmission of understanding, one to another, but this will change when we know more about the operation of mind and memory, on which subject I have been toiling for far too long.

Nick

Hi Moustafa Amrate This is a really thought-provoking question. In the past, that was certainly the case in many different European contexts, see for example what the prescriptivists tried to do with the English language (for ex. Dryden wanted to "fix" the language) and the (mostly failed attempts) of the Royal Society to reform the language in the XVII century. Today three examples of academies that are considered as sources of how language should be used are the Académie française in France. This body gives prescriptive rules on how good French should be, even though I don't think it uses measures to enforce its recommendations (but I'm not sure). The same can be said about the Royal Spanish Academy in Spain that gives recommendations for standardisation in the many Spanish-speaking countries (with controversies about what real Spanish is, considering that Standard Spanish is simply a regional variety, Castillan - something that it is true for EVERY Standard) is THE prevailing variety. In Italy we have the Accademia della Crusca, even though I suspect this is not formally into language planning policies as in other contexts.

It is not by chance that all these languages that I am here referring to are Romance languages, with a long history of well-established prescriptivism.

Hope this may be useful, this is not my area of study, just some comments :)

International Mother Language Day 21 February

I am not sure that you can prove that one word is better than another, but you can set criteria to judge against.

For example, in the context in which you use it, "chill" is slang and "enjoy" is not. "Observe" is more elevated vocabulary than "see." Elevated vocabulary that is not slang could be among your criteria for evaluating language.

But which vocabulary is best depends on the situation. In some situations, "chill" may be arguably better, or more appropriate, than "enjoy."

Paraconsistent logics embrace contradictions to a certain extent rather than exclude them.

"A primary motivation for paraconsistent logic is the conviction that it ought to be possible to reason with inconsistent information in a controlled and discriminating way. The principle of explosion [= the classical rule than any proposition whatsoever follows from a contradiction] precludes this, and so must be abandoned." — Wikipedia

لايستطيع القانون حفظ اللغات بشكل مطلق, بقدر محافظة الفرد على لغته والحرص على التواصل

You might like to try a variation of the unsolvable tracing task used by Roberts et al (2019). It's more typically referred to as a 'frustration tolerance task' or an 'ego depletion paradigm' than a stress induction per se, but it serves a similar purpose. Other challenging cognitive tests (e.g. serial sevens task) can also be used in the same way.

Source:

Roberts, A. C., Yap, H. S., Kwok, K. W., Car, J., Chee-Kiong, S. O. H., & Christopoulos, G. I. (2019). The cubicle deconstructed: Simple visual enclosure improves perseverance. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 63, 60-73.

I agree with all the above comments it is both the writers' and journals' responsibilites to see to it that published papers look/read professional(ly). There is a third and fourth line of responsibility however Graduate programs ought to be teaching professional (i.e. journal quality) wrtiting, and professors ought to be mentoring their students regarding writing both by demanding solid writing on exams and term papers and on theses and dissertations--even going so far as lowering grades for less than professional quality writing (and modeling such writing in their comments) and making students rewrite their theses and dissertations until they are up to snuff.

Hi Eshrak,

This is an interesting question and as any interesting question, there is no straightforward answer to it. The ID models that may fit (partially) are many and may range from the "canonical" instructional systems design ADDIE model (needs analysis, design, development, implementation, evaluation) to include rapid prototyping (AKA, rapid application development) and D3(data-driven development). The latter full advantage of data and machine learning. In 2017 van Merriënboer and Kirschner published a book on instructional design of training programs for complex learning which including courses, curricula, or environments(e.g. AI). This is the full citation: Van Merriënboer, J. J., & Kirschner, P. A. (2017). Ten steps to complex learning: A systematic approach to four-component instructional design. Routledge.

You may also find relevant the following summary of the empirical literature on the elements of effective design of computer-based interventions:

Mayer, R.E. (2008). Applying the science of learning: Evidence-based principles for the design of multimedia instruction. American psychologist, 63(8), p.760.

Kim, Y., & Baylor, A. L. (2016). Research-based design of pedagogical agent roles: A review, progress, and recommendations. International Journal of Artificial Intelligence in Education, 26(1), 160-169.

Please let me know if you have more questions.

Best,

Quite an appealing discussion! Any postulates on the topic can be only speculative until we finally meet an alien race. However, literature, and more specifically, SF, has contributed some invaluable ideas. The Encyclopedia of Fictional and Fantastic Languages by Tim Conley and Stephen Cain gather loads of such examples.

For instance, Ted Chiang's Heptapod A, and Heptapod B. The former, as described in the novella, sounds like "a wet dog shaking the water out of its fur" (119), that is, an unpronounceable sound for human physiology. The latter, in turn, was so different that enabled its speakers to realise time in a non-linear way.

There are also cases like the Kesh language, describe in Ursula Le Guin's Always Coming Home that is more phonetically similar to human languages but quite distinct when it comes to grammar, which also happens because of physiological differences between humans and the aliens.

Most of the cases to point into one direction: if the alien species are physiologically similar to humans, so are their languages; whereas if the aliens' physical buildup is different, so is their language. As Michael W. Marek has mentioned, the unimaginably different culture the alien races might have developed over millennia of existence may cause quasi-untranslatable languages - we can already see similar cases in human languages. That makes total sense, in my opinion.

Yes, we can make science more clear and powerful with new language, but we can't neglect English because English currently plainly settled as the principle language of universal logical correspondence, specialists keep on distributing their work in different dialects than English too.We encourage mainstream researchers to attempt to handle this issue and propose potential methodologies both for incorporating non-English scientific knowledge viably and for upgrading the multilingualism of new and existing information accessible just in English for the clients of such learning.

Hakan Ringbom's (2007) Cross-linguistic Similarity in Foreign Language Learning is devoted to this issue. He mentions that the degree of congruence between the systems determines how much facilitation there will be in language learning.

Hemispheric lateralization refers to the distinction between functions of the right and left hemispheres of the brain. If one hemisphere is more heavily involved in a specific function, it is often referred to as being dominant (Bear et al., 2007). Lateralization is of interest with regards to language, as it is believed that language is a heavily lateralized function: certain aspects of language are found to be localized in the left hemisphere, while others are found in the right, with the left hemisphere most often dominant. This was initially proposed by early lesion-deficit models and studies with split-brain patients, and has been shown in more recent years through tests like the Wada test and imaging studies. There have been studies which show that there are anatomic asymmetries located near and around the regions associated with language, and each hemisphere has shown to play its own but separate role in the production and comprehension of speech. The hemispheric lateralization of language functions has been suggested to be associated with both handedness, sex, bilingualism, sign-language, and a variance amongst cultures. It has also been proposed that a reorganization occurs following brain injury that involves a shifting of lateralized function, as long as the injury occurs early in life.

French physician Jean Baptiste Bouillaud (1796-1881) was one of the earliest proponents of hemispheric language lateralization. On February 21, 1825, Bouillaud presented a paper to the Royal Academy of Medicine in France which suggested that, because so many human tasks are performed using the right hand (such as writing), the left hemisphere might be the in control of that hand. This observation implies that language, at the core of writing, would be localized in the left hemisphere. It was already known at this time that motor function was primarily controlled by the hemisphere ipsilateral to the side of the body through lesion studies. Bouillaud also proposed that speech is localized in the frontal lobes, a theory that was carried on by Bouillaud’s son-in-law Simon Alexandre Ernest Aubertin (1825-1893), who went on to work with famed French neurologist Paul Broca in 1861. Together, Aubertin and Broca examined a patient with a left frontal lobe lesion who had lost nearly all ability to speak; this case and several others similar to it became the basis behind the earliest theories of language lateralization.

📷

Paul Broca, image obtained from Clower, W. T., Finger, S. (2001)

French neurologist Paul Broca (1824-1880) is often credited as being the first to expound upon this theory of language lateralization. In 1861, a 51-year-old patient named Leborgne came to Broca; Leborgne was almost completely unable to speak and suffered from cellulitis of the right leg. Leborgne was able to comprehend language but was mostly unable to produce it. He responded to almost everything with the word “tan” and thus came to be known as Tan. Broca theorized that Tan must have a lesion of the left frontal lobe, and this theory was confirmed in autopsy when Tan died later that year (Bear et al., 2007). In 1863, Broca published a paper in which he described eight cases of patients with damage to the left frontal lobe, all of whom had lost their ability to produce language, and included evidence of right frontal lesions having little effect on articulate speech (Bear et al., 2007). These findings led Broca to propose, in 1864, that the expression of language is controlled by a specific hemisphere, most often the left (Bear et al., 2007). “On parle avec l’hemisphere gauche,” Broca concluded (Purves et al., 2008)- we speak with the left hemisphere.

German anatomist Carl Wernicke (1848-1904) is also known as an early supporter of the theory of language lateralization. In 1874, Wernicke found an area in the temporal lobe of the left hemisphere, distinct from that which Broca had described, which disrupted language capabilities (Bear et al., 2007). He then went on to provide the earliest map of left hemisphere language organization and processing.

A good deal of what we know about language lateralization comes from studying the loss of language abilities following brain injury (Bear et al., 2007). Aphasia, the partial or complete loss of language abilities occurring after brain damage, is the source of much of the information on this subject (Bear et al., 2007). As shown in the studies of Bouillaud, Aubertin, Broca and Wernicke described above, lesion studies combined with autopsy reports can tell us a a lot about the localization of language, which ultimately has supplied information on lateralization. Lesion studies have shown that, not only is the left cerebral hemisphere most often dominant for language, but also that the right hemisphere generally is not, as lesions in the right hemisphere rarely disturb speech and language function (Bear et al., 2007).

The dangers of using lesion studies are, of course, that they may overemphasize the relevance of particular localized areas and their associated functions. The connection between brain regions and behaviours is not always simple, and is often based on a larger network of connections. This is shown in the fact that the severity of an individual’s aphasia is often related to the amount of tissue damaged around the lesion itself (Bear et al., 2007). It is also known that there is a difference in the severity of the deficit depending on whether the area was removed surgically, or was caused by stroke. This is the case because strokes affect both the cortex and the subcortical structures; this is due to the location of the middle cerebral artery, which supplies blood to the areas associated with language, as well as involvement of the basal ganglia, and is often the cause of stroke. As such, surgically produced lesions tend to have milder effects than those resulting from stroke (Bear et al., 2007).

File:Splitbrain.jpg

An example of a study involving language in a split-brain patient. The individual says he does not see anything, because the dominant left hemisphere cannot "speak". Image obtained from Experiment Module: What Split Brains Tell Us About Language

Studies of patients who have had commissurotomies (split-brain patients) have provided significant information about language lateralization. Commissurotomy is a surgical procedure in which the hemispheres are disconnected by cutting the corpus callosum, the massive bundle of 200 million axons connecting the right and left hemisphere (Bear et al., 2007). Following this procedure, almost all communication between the hemispheres is lost, and each hemisphere then acts independently of the other. What is striking about split-brain patients with regards to the study of language lateralization is that a word may be presented to the right hemisphere of a patient whose left hemisphere is dominant, and when the patient is asked to name the word they will say that nothing is there. This is because, although the right hemisphere “saw” the word, it is the left hemisphere which “speaks.” If that same word is presented to the left hemisphere, the patient is able to verbalize the response (Bear et al., 2007). As such, split-brain patients have presented substantial evidence that language function is generally lateralized in the left hemisphere.

The Wada test was created by Juhn Wada at the Montreal Neurological Institute in 1949, and was designed specifically to study lateralization. A fast-acting barbiturate such as sodium amytal is injected into the carotid artery on one side (although current procedures prefer to use a catheter which is inserted into the femoral artery), and is then transported to the cerebral hemisphere on the opposite side. It then serves to anaesthetize that side of the brain for approximately 10 minutes, after which it begins to wear off and the functions which were disrupted by the anaesthetic gradually return, often displaying aphasic errors (Bear et al., 2007; Wada and Rasmussen, 1960). During the time in which the patient is anaesthetized, he or she is assessed on their ability to use language. If the left hemisphere is anaesthetized and is the dominant hemisphere, the patient loses all ability to speak, whereas if the left hemisphere is anaesthetized but the right hemisphere is dominant, the patient will continue to speak throughout the procedure (Bear et al., 2007).

In a study published in 1977, Brenda Milner used the Wada test to demonstrate that 98% of right-handed people and 70% of left-handed people have a dominant left hemisphere with regards to language and speech function. Her results also showed that 2% of right-handed people have a dominant right hemisphere, which is the same percentage of patients that display aphasia following a lesion to the right hemisphere (Branch et al., 1964).

This procedure is also used prior to brain surgery in order to determine the dominant hemisphere, so as to avoid removal of an area associated with speech and language.

Functional transcranial Doppler ultrasonography (fTCD) is a non-invasive method for examining event-related changes in cerebral blood flow velocity in the middle cerebral arteries(Knecht et al., 1998). This technique can reliably assess which hemisphere is dominant and to what extent, which regards to language lateralization. Studies using fTCD have shown a linear relationship between handedness and language (Knecht et al., 2000).

Electrical stimulation was pioneered by Wilder Penfield and his colleagues at the Montreal Neurological Institute in the 1930s, and helped to identify certain lateralized areas associated with speech and language. Electrical stimulation is the application of an electrical current directly to the cortical tissue of a patient who is conscious. Penfield found that stimulating the left frontal or temporal regions of the left hemisphere with an electrical current accelerated the production of speech. He also found that stimulation can cause inhibition in complex functions like language, as applying a current to the areas associated with speech production in the left hemisphere while the patient is engaged in speech serves to disrupt this behaviour (Penfield, 1963). This procedure is performed during surgery while the skull is removed, and as such it is not a commonly used method of assessment.

Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) is a non-invasive procedure, often combined in studies with MRI, which has helped to map the regions associated with speech, showing lateralization to be dominant in the left hemisphere. TMS has also shown that, following brain injury, it is more likely that it is the tissue surrounding the lesion that acts in a compensatory way rather than the opposite hemisphere providing compensation. The major drawback of TMS is, of course, the fact that the magnetic stimulation must pass through the scalp, skull, and meninges before stimulating the brain region of choice.

Imaging studies have proven to be incredibly useful in determining lateralization of language abilities. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and positron emission tomography (PET) have been able to show the complex circuitry associated with speech and language; they have also proven to be consistent with the findings from previous lesion studies, as well as Penfield’s electric stimulation (Bear et al., 2007). There has been some controversy regarding bilateral activation shown in fMRI studies, the reasons unknown, however it has been suggested that perhaps the right hemisphere is involved in aspects of speech that are not measured by such tests as the Wada procedure (Bear et al., 2007). A significant finding is that fMRI results during developmental years show activation during speech and the use of language mainly in the left hemisphere, providing further evidence in support of left hemisphere dominance (Bear et al., 2007).

The perisylvian cortex of the left hemisphere is involved in language production and comprehension, which is why it is often referred to as dominant, or said to "speak" (Ojemann, G. A., 1991; Purves et al., 2008). Roger Sperry and his colleagues’ split-brain studies have shown that the left hemisphere is also responsible for lexical and syntactic language (grammatical rules, sentence structure), writing and speech (Purves at al., 2008). Other aspects of language which are thought to be governed in most people by the left hemisphere include audition of language-related sounds, recognition of letters and words, phonetics and semantics.

The right hemisphere, though generally not dominant in terms of linguistic ability, has its role in the use of language. Split-brain studies present evidence that, despite the right hemisphere having no “speech,” it is still able to understand language through the auditory system. It also has a small amount of reading ability and word recognition. Lesion studies of patients who have right hemisphere lesions show a reduction in verbal fluency and deficits in the understanding and use of prosody. Patients who have had their right hemisphere surgically removed (hemispherectomy) show no aphasia, but do show less obvious deficiencies in areas such as verbal selection and understanding of metaphor. It has thus been concluded that the right hemisphere is most often responsible for the prosodic and emotional elements of speech and language (Purves et al., 2008).

The structural differences between the right and left hemisphere may play a role in the lateralization of language. In the nineteenth century, anatomists observed that the left hemisphere’s Sylvian fissure (lateral sulcus) is longer and less steep than that of the right (Bear et al., 2007). In 1980, Graham Ratcliffe and his colleagues used evidence of this asymmetry of the Sylvian fissure, shown in carotid angiogram, combined with results of Wada testing, and found that individuals with speech regions located in the left hemisphere had a mean difference of 27 degrees in the angle of the blood vessels leaving the posterior end of the Sylvian fissure, while those with language located in the right hemisphere had a mean angle of zero degrees.

File:Planum temporale.jpg

Asymmetry of the planum temporale. Image obtained from Labspace:Understanding Dyslexia

In the 1960s, Norman Geschwind and his colleagues at Harvard Medical School found that the planum temporale, the superior portion of the temporal lobe, is larger in the left hemisphere in almost two thirds of humans (Geschwind & Levitsky, 1968), an observation which was later confirmed with MRI (Bear et al., 2007; Purves et al., 2008). This asymmetry exists even in the brain of the human fetus (Bear et al., 2007). The correlation of this asymmetry with the left hemisphere’s language dominance is refuted by many due to the fact that 67% of people show this structural asymmetry, while 97% show left hemispheric dominance. Another problem which exists in examining asymmetry of the planum temporale is how the anterior and posterior borders of this region are defined, and the fact that investigators differ in this definition. This is especially a problem when the transverse gyrus of Heschl, used to mark the anterior of the planum temporale, appear in double (which is not unusual). There are differing opinions as to whether or not the second transverse gyrus should be defined as being within the planum temporale, or outside of it (Beardon, A. A., 1997).

The correlation between handedness and hemispheric lateralization is described in the results of the Wada test, described above. The majority of the population is right handed (approximately 90%), and the Wada test results propose that 93% of people’s left hemisphere is dominant for language (Bear et al., 2007). A linear relationship between handedness and langage has been shown using fTCD in a study done by Knecht et al. (2008); their findings show an 27% incidence for right hemisphere dominance in their group of left-handers, a finding consistent with the notion of there being a linear relationship between handedness and incidence of right hemisphere dominance in left-handers (Knecht et al., 2000). This study used a word generation task, and admits that perhaps a measurement of prosody or other such suspected right hemisphere functions may have a different relationship with handedness (Knecht et al., 2000). It is also true that correlation does not necessarily imply causation, and it is also suggested that there is no direct relationship between handedness and language at all, as the majority of left-handers also have their language lateralized in the left hemisphere (Purves et al., 2008). It is, however, a physical example of functional asymmetry, and it is certainly possible that a more substantial connection between handedness and language will be found.

The tendency for women to score higher than men on language-related tasks is perhaps the result of the fact that women also tend to have a larger corpus callosum than men, indicating more neural connections between the right and left hemispheres. fMRI studies show that women have more bilateral activation than men when performing rhyming tasks, and PET studies show that women have more bilateral activation than men during reading tasks. Perhaps the bilateral activation implies the use of what are thought to be right hemisphere language abilities, such as prosody and intonation. Research has also shown that women have a greater ability to recover from left hemisphere brain damage; the evidence provided by the imaging studies in combination with the results of recovery following injury have led to the controversial suggestion that language is more unilateral in men than in women.

Sign language has shown to be lateralized in the left hemisphere of the brain, in the left frontal and temporal lobes. This is known through the use of lesion studies, in which the patients had left hemisphere lesions in the areas associated with language which impaired their ability to sign, while right hemisphere lesions in the same areas show no linguistic deficit (Hickock et al., 1998). Lesions in the right hemisphere of signers did, however, show a limited use of spatial information encoded iconically (which is when the sign is similar-looking to its referent). This is in keeping with the belief that visuo-spatial ability is a right hemisphere function and suggests that the role of the right hemisphere in sign language is in the non-linguistic features of sign language.

Bilingualism is thought to be an overlapping of populations of neurons corresponding to each language, all of which are located in the frontal and temporal regions of the left hemisphere associated with speech comprehension and speech production.

When thinking of language there is a tendency to focus on that language in which you think, however it has been proposed that lateralization of language functions can vary from culture to culture. Asian languages show more bilateral activation during speech than European languages, likely because Asian languages employ a far greater use of right hemisphere abilities, for example prosody, and the use of spatial processing for the more “pictorial” Chinese characters; Native American languages also show a good deal of bilateral activity.

Studies have been done following brain injury to determine the level of recovery of language and speech ability, and whether or not recovery is based on lateralized function. Bryan Woods and Hans-Leukas Teuber looked at patients with prenatal and early postnatal brain injury located in either the right or left hemisphere and drew several conclusions. First, if the injury occurs very early, language ability may survive even after left hemisphere brain damage. Second, they found that an appropriation of language regions by the right hemisphere is responsible for the survival of these abilities, but because of this there is a tendency for visuo-spatial ability to be diminished. Third, right hemisphere lesions have the same effect in prenatal and early postnatal patients as they do in adults. Brenda Milner and Ted Rasmussen used the Wada test to determine that early brain injury can cause either left, right or bilateral speech dominance, and that those who retained left hemisphere dominance had damage that was not in either the anterior (Broca’s) or posterior (Wernicke’s) speech zone. Those whose dominance shifted to the right hemisphere most often had damage to these areas. Milner and Rasmussen also found that brain damage which occurs after the age of 5 does not cause a shift in lateralization but rather reorganizes within the hemisphere, potentially employing surrounding areas to take responsibility for some aspects of speech.

In patients who have had hemispherectomy of the left hemisphere, the right hemisphere can often gain considerable language ability. When performed in adulthood, speech comprehension is usually retained (though speech production suffers severe deficits); reading capability is small, and there is usually no writing capability at all.

1. In terms of hemispheric lateralization and split-brain patients (individuals which have had commissurotomies), if the word “pencil” was presented to the right field of vision of a split-brain patient and he/she was asked to report what they had seen, the patient would respond:

a) by selecting a pencil with the contralateral hand

b) by saying the word “pencil”

c) by saying “nothing is there”

d) by selecting a pencil with the ipsilateral hand

2. The left hemisphere is responsible for all aspects of syntax, except parsing. True or false?

3. What is the structural evidence given to explain the fact that women tend to score higher than men on language-related tasks? What implications might this have on gender differences in patients with aphasia?

4. What 3 conclusions did Bryan Woods and Hans-Leukas Teuber draw regarding the reorganization of language ability following brain injury? Would there be differences in such reorganization in people who are hearing impaired?

5. Through what anatomical system is the right hemisphere able to understand language? What happens to language ability following a removal of the right hemisphere? In what ways do individuals who have had their right hemisphere removed differ from split-brain patients?

6. What were the symptoms of the patient “Tan” which, when presented to neurologist Paul Broca in 1861, propelled Broca to his theory regarding hemispheric language lateralization? Based on current methods of assessment, would Broca's theory still be considered valid today? Why or why not?

7. Which type of study would be best used in order to assess anatomical asymmetry and why?

8. Which type of study is most useful in assessing the connection between hemispheric language lateralization and handedness, and why?

Beaton, A. A. (1997). The Relation of Planum Temporale Asymmetry and Morphology of the Corpus Callosum to Handedness, Gender, and Dyslexia: A Review of the Evidence. Brain and Language 60, 255–322

Bear, M. F., Connors, B. W., Paradiso, M. A. (2007). Neuroscience: Exploring the Brain, 3rd edition. Lippincott Williams & Wilkins: USA.

Branch, C., Milner, B., Rasmussen, T. (1964). Intracarotid Sodium Amytal for the Lateralization of Cerebral Speech Dominance. Journal of Neurosurgery, Vol. 21, No. 5, pp 399-405.

Clower, W. T., Finger, S. (2001). Discovering Trepanation: The Contribution of Paul Broca. Neurosurgery, Vol. 49, No. 6, pp 1417-1426.

Geschwind, N., Levitsky, W. (1968). Human Brain: Left-Right Asymmetries in Temporal Speech Region. Science, New Series, Vol. 161, No. 3837, pp. 186-187.

Hickok, G., Bellugi, U., Klima, E. S. (1998). The neural organization of language: evidence from sign language aphasia. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, Vol. 2, No. 4, pp 129-136.

Jay, T. B. (2003). The Psychology of Language. Prentice Hall: New Jersey, USA.

Knecht, S., Deppe, M., Ebner, A., Henningsen, H., Huber, T., Jokeit, H, Ringelstein, E.-B. (1998). Noninvasive Determination of Language Lateralization by Functional Transcranial Doppler Sonography : A Comparison With the Wada Test. Stroke, Vol. 29, pp 82-86.

Knecht, S., Deppe, M., Drager, B., Bobe, L., Lohmann, H., Ringelstein, E.-B., Henningsen, H. (2000). Language lateralization in healthy right-handers. Brain, Vol. 123, pp 74-81.

Kolb, B., Whishaw, I. Q. (2009). Fundamentals of Human Neuropsychology, 6th edition. Worth Publishers: USA.

Ojemann, G. A. (1991). Cortical Organization of Language. The Journal of Neuroscience, Vol. 7, pp 2281-2287.

Penfield, W. (1963). The Brain's Record of Auditory and Visual Experience. Brain, Vol. 86, No. 4, pp. 595-696.

Purves, D., Augustine, G. J., Fitzpatrick, D., Hall, W. C., LaMantia, A., McNamara, J. O., White, L. E. (2008). Neuroscience, 4th edition. Sinauer Associates, Inc.: Massachusetts, USA.

Wada, J., Rasmussen, T. (1960). Intracarotid Injection of Sodium Amytal for the Lateralization of Cerebral Speech Dominance Experimental and Clinical Observations. Journal of Neurosurgery, Vol. 17, No. 2.

This is a very interesting point you're making. Regarding CEFR, as it is stated in the name, is a reference and not concrete. Hence, some overlap between bands. I would be more willing to give students a copy of the CEFR chart for them to refer to throughout the course to see what they are doing. As mentioned by Sandy Arief, this would be a great place to start. Good luck. https://www.cambridgeenglish.org/Images/126011-using-cefr-principles-of-good-practice.pdf

Hi , in my paper on assessment policy change- The Challenges of Implementing Assessment Policy Change and the Mitigating Factors for Success at Schools in Malaysia, I relied on Halasz (2002); Fullan, (2005); Priestley (2005), Priestley et al (2010). In describing teachers' reaction to change and reform where they feel professionally marginalized, dis-empowered and afflicted by bureaucracy, I relied on sources from Ball (2008); Goodson (2003); and Levin, 2008. Though I did not specifically zoom in on language, it is part of the overall context. I think you will these literature indirectly useful.

Please take a look at the following link.

As a field of study still in its infancy, I don't think there is an agree upon definition for the various terminology out there. Crystal himself referred to it as 'netspeak and textspeak' in his glossary, but it is from 2004 so this may not reflect current usage. 'Textese' also appears commonly in recent scholarly literature. Perhaps you could do keyword search terms in some research databases and see what comes up more frequently?

I don't think that franco-arabe means texting someone in Arabic. As hyphenation suggests, it is a mixture of Arabic and French, a case of code-mixing in the dialects of Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia as a result of French cultural colonization. True, most often in texting people French is transliterated in Arabic, but that does not make such texting franco-arabe.

Hello Karolina,

I've just happened on your discussion. We are always communicating through movement, intentionally or not aren't we? I work and dance a lot with people who don't have verbal language, so yes dancing, moving and touch is their language. I'm also interested in your ideas around being multi-lingual. It is not something I'd considered before, how speaking a different language changes the language of the body. However, since I moved to France 3 and a half years ago and observed my children become bilingual I am fascinated in how the tone of the body (as well as the voice of course), quality of movement and gestures change when they speak French. They quite literally become different people and I think respond differently to situations depending on whether they are 'in' English or French. You are probably experiencing that when you teach in different languages, are you teaching from a different place, attitude, orientation? I think it is more than just sound and rhythm etc....Just thoughts but I'm interested in your research...

Thanks Lisa

sometimes

Hi There, I was actually involved in some research on this theme looking at identity formation within the context of the conflict on Twitter, I've some quite good sources available and the research may be of interest to you - do let me know if you have any questions and I'd be happy to help: https://arrow.dit.ie/icr/vol16/iss1/8/ We also got some media coverage for the paper, which may give a quick insight into our focus: Jerusalem Post: https://www.jpost.com/Blogs/Conflict-and-Technology/Portraying-Israeli-and-Palestinian-Identities-on-Twitter-565928 London School of Economics: http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/mec/2018/09/22/portraying-israeli-and-palestinian-identities-on-twitter/ Political Studies association: https://www.psa.ac.uk/insight-plus/blog/portraying-israeli-and-palestinian-identities-twitter