Lynn Edler - Intro to Language Studies

Follow me down the rabbit hole... I had to read a peer-reviewed linguistic research paper for my Introduction to Language Arts class. Oh holy buckets, that was NOT easy reading!  I attempted to read the entire paper. I highlighted things. I tried to make sense of all the data. I read the paper, and re-read the paper, multiple times. And...because I'm extra...I also downloaded the other paper we could read for the same assignment. I only HAD to read one. But I figured I'd read the second one as well in case it was easier...or something. I consider myself a smart enough and well-read person. But the word "raciolinguistic" was all over this paper. It was easy enough to determine that this was a combination of the words "race" and "linguistic". But I wanted to know more. I googled the word. (From the image above) A raciolinguistic perspective  seeks to understand the interplay of language and race within the historical production of nation-state/coloni...

When I tell my Alexa to announce that dinner is ready, not only does this magical electronic device understand what I'm saying, but it does just that by first ringing a dinner bell on all my connected Amazon devices and then speaking my recording of, "Dinner is ready." This is no small electronic feat. Behind all the devices we carry that understand spoken language: Siri, Google, Alexa, and more, is a team of Language Engineers using their knowledge of linguistics and human nature to improve the accuracy of our verbal commands. I read a fascinating interview with Language Engineer, Brent Woo, on the website Superlinguo . I had never thought about linguistics being such an important part of making our artificial intelligence (AI) work the way it does. When asked, "What is your job?" this was Mr. Woo's response: Language Engineers work on the language designs for voice assistants. When you say something funny like “let’s raise the roof” and the voice assistant...

In an effort to seek out other sources on linguistics, I took a gander on the page Unravel . If English words had jobs , by Christopher Hoyt, was absolutely hilarious. The letter, written by the word LIKE, and the corresponding answers from management (named MERCURY), had me laughing all the way through. Using comedy, the article talks about how language continues to adapt and change as our culture changes.  👉 One of the tongue-in-cheek points I think Hoyt was trying to make is the average English vocabulary is shrinking. LIKE said that they understood management had to make some "tough calls about which words you would keep on staff." I decided I wanted to see if that was true. My husband and I have had conversations about diminished word use and the increase of emojis and gifs to get points across. A quick Google search led me to an article by David Shariatmadari: Why it's time to stop worrying about the decline of the English language . Right away, this article seemed...

 Learning about the Gullah Geechee language I stumbled upon Sunn m'Cheaux and his work while killing time on TikTok. I wanted to make sure my For You Page was diverse and included creators of color so I followed him. I found how he connected language to racial issues fascinating. Prior to TikTok, I had no idea how much I seriously enjoyed those parts of linguistics. The short video lessons opened my eyes to concepts I had never had presented to me before. For example, Sunn m'Cheaux made a post (see video attached at the top) on July 10, 2022 about the use of the word "throwed" in Usher's hit song "Confessions" (see video attached below). He explains that "cross-over" (white) audiences misheard the lyrics because "throwed" was not a formally recognized word at the time the song came out.  Watch this   These are my confessions Just when I thought I said all I can say My chick on the side said she got one on the way These are my confessi...