5/26
Michele W. Berger
Senior Science News Officer
mwberger@upenn.edu
Linguistics
New journal focuses on how the mind and brain process language
New journal focuses on how the mind and brain process language
The open-access, online-only Glossa Psycholinguistics recently published its inaugural issue after more than two years of effort from Penn linguist Florian Schwarz and colleagues around the world.
People imitate accent features they expect to hear, even without hearing them
People imitate accent features they expect to hear, even without hearing them
Research from postdoc Lacey Wade confirmed this idea, what she calls expectation-driven convergence, in a controlled experiment for the first time. The work reveals just how much the subconscious factors into the way people speak.
A partnership to preserve Kashaya
A partnership to preserve Kashaya
Since the 1980s, linguist Eugene Buckley has studied this Native American language, now spoken by just a dozen or so people in northern California. In collaboration with members and descendants of the Kashia Band of Pomo Indians, he’s built a database of Kashaya words, sounds, and stories.
In These Times: Fear and loathing and science
In These Times: Fear and loathing and science
Season three of the School of Arts & Sciences podcast explores scientific ideas that get big reactions.
Mapping words to color
Mapping words to color
Researchers led by postdoc Colin Twomey and professor Joshua Plotkin developed an algorithm that can infer the communicative needs different linguistic communities place on colors.
TikTok talk
TikTok talk
Largely characterized as a Gen Z phenomenon, TikTok is a video-sharing app with more than 100 million active users in the U.S. alone—and it’s changing the way that we speak, says sociolinguist Nicole Holliday.
The intonation Black/biracial men use to speak about race
The intonation Black/biracial men use to speak about race
In a study of college-educated biracial men, ages 18 to 32, sociolinguist Nicole Holliday found that, when asked about race, this group frequently brought up law enforcement unprompted and discussed the subject using vocal tone more generally associated with white speakers.
The influence and importance of language
The influence and importance of language
Labels for what happened Jan. 6 at the U.S. Capitol were very different from those used to describe the Black Lives Matter movement or the 2020 election results. How much weight do individual words actually have? It depends on the context.
Why the pandemic introduces language that is ‘hard to explain’
Why the pandemic introduces language that is ‘hard to explain’
Linguist Andrea Beltrama discusses new words and phrases that have entered the language during the current health crisis, and the “massive” impact the pandemic has had on language.
New database aims to make Alzheimer’s diagnosis easier and earlier
New database aims to make Alzheimer’s diagnosis easier and earlier
A five-minute online session will allow neural health to be tracked across time, so that doctors can make an earlier diagnosis and researchers can evaluate medications and other treatments.
Media Contact
In the News
The Conversation
What makes us subconsciously mimic the accents of others in conversation
Lacey Wade of the School of Arts & Sciences writes about a phenomenon called “linguistic convergence” when people copy word choices, mirror sentence structures, or mimic pronunciations.
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Slate.com
Interrupting to show we care
Nicole Holliday of the School of Arts & Sciences interviewed experts about cooperative overlapping, which some cultures perceive as a sign of engagement and others view as a sign of disrespect.
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Slate.com
TikTok language rabbit hole
Nicole Holliday of the School of Arts & Sciences co-hosted a podcast episode about linguistics and TikTok.
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Science
No shared language? No problem! People across cultures understand clues from ‘vocal charades’
Gareth Roberts of the School of Arts & Sciences weighed in on a linguistic study that found that people can use vocal sounds to mimic parts of the idea they’re trying to convey, such using chewing noises to evoke the word “food.”
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NBC Philadelphia
Zoom, social distance, ‘blursday’: The coronavirus has changed how we speak
Nicole Holliday of the School of Arts & Sciences spoke about how language has evolved amid the pandemic. “Social changes can bring sort of a boom of new words that are used more commonly or old words that sort of get resurrected,” she said. “As the whole world has changed as a result of the pandemic, that has opened up some opportunities for new words to spread.”
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NPR
When Republicans attack ‘cancel culture,’ what does it mean?
Nicole Holliday of the School of Arts & Sciences spoke about the origins and evolution of the phrase “cancel culture.” “It is used to refer to a cultural boycott,” she said. “We’ve had the term ‘boycott’ forever and ever. It just means, ‘I’m not going to put my attention or money or support behind this person or organization because they’ve done something that I don’t agree with.’ That is not new; that’s very old.”
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