Chinese is one of the world’s oldest languages and spoken by over one billion people. Its pronoun system may be on the cusp of significant change.
Articles on Linguistics
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The climate pledges that countries submit to the UN may or may not detail policy and regulatory measures, making it difficult for researchers.
Trump’s campaign produced campaign materials in Spanish to reach more voters. Now that he’s president, his White House is going English-only.
Most screenwriters need to be able to craft characters outside their own backgrounds and experiences. But it isn’t easy and often requires collaboration – with AI able to offer a helping hand.
Between the 10th and 15th centuries, the gold market boomed, especially in Egypt, Persia, India and China. Southern Africa played a crucial role in meeting demand.
Researchers identified statistically coherent patterns in whale song that may be a signature of cultural learning.
Standard rates of diversification predict there should be many unrelated Indigenous languages on the mainland. But this is not the case.
Growing up with more than one language has obvious advantages for children.
Words of the year do not have to be new coinages, but may be existing words that seem to have become particularly apposite or resonant.
Previous research has shown that people tend to approach hypothetical problems in a more rational and less intuitive fashion when these are presented in a language that is not their native one.
The winners offer a window into the spirit of the times.
Language changes because of how it finds itself most gainfully employed by speakers through time. So it’s OK to say “The movie literally blew my mind” and not mean it … literally.
Noam Chomsky’s notion of the human instinct for freedom ties together his many intellectual pursuits, from educating creative, independent citizens to rejecting social and economic hierarchies.
From “ouch” to “ay”, human expressions of pain are similar across the globe, hinting at something fundamental about how humans form language.
When we interact with a chatbot, deeply ingrained habits make us behave as if it’s a person.
Decoding emergent languages in AI can have many behefits.
An embarrassing health condition is not a good place to start a conversation with the spouse of a workmate you’ve just met at a Christmas party. Here’s another approach …
We found that the usage of supposedly upper-class words varied, but not in a way that correlated with social class.
What the iconic musical tells us about accent prejudice and class.
Politicians have long used the phrase ‘I misspoke’ when backpedaling for verbal inaccuracies or blunders. Now it’s used as a euphemistic recasting of lying as an inadvertent mistake.
Top contributors
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Professor of Linguistics, Monash University
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Senior Lecturer in Linguistics, Monash University
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Roger J. Kreuz is a Friend of The Conversation.
Associate Dean and Feinstone Interdisciplinary Research Professor, University of Memphis
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Associate Professor in Linguistics, Macquarie University
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Associate Professor in Sociolinguistics, University of Cambridge
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Professor of Linguistics, University of York
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Professor of Linguistics, University of Nevada, Reno
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Senior Research Fellow of Linguistics, University of Colorado Boulder; Griffith University; University of New England
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Professor of Linguistics and English, Florida International University
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Associate Professor of Linguistics and Director of Language Lab, The University of Western Australia
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Professor of English Language and Literature, University of Oxford
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Francesco Perono Cacciafoco is a Friend of The Conversation.
Associate Professor in Linguistics, Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University
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Professor of Psychology, Cornell University
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Maïa Ponsonnet is a Friend of The Conversation.
Researcher, Linguistics, Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS)
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Honorary Associate Professor in Writing, The University of Queensland