How Language Seems To Shape One's View Of The World "It's on the left," he says. "No, it's southeast of here," she says. iStockphoto hide caption itoggle caption iStockphoto "It's on the left," he says. iStockphoto Lera Boroditsky once did a simple experiment: She asked people to close their eyes and point southeast. She says the difference lies in language. If you want to learn another language and become fluent, you may have to change the way you behave in small but sometimes significant ways, specifically how you sort things into categories and what you notice. Researchers are starting to study how those changes happen, says Aneta Pavlenko, a professor of applied linguistics at Temple University. If people speaking different languages need to group or observe things differently, then bilinguals ought to switch focus depending on the language they use. For example, she says English distinguishes between cups and glasses, but in Russian, the difference between chashka (cup) and stakan (glass) is based on shape, not material.
Does Language Influence Culture? (Please see Corrections & Amplifications below.) Do the languages we speak shape the way we think? Do they merely express thoughts, or do the structures in languages (without our knowledge or consent) shape the very thoughts we wish to express? Take "Humpty Dumpty sat on a..." In Russian, you would have to mark tense and also gender, changing the verb if Mrs. In Turkish, you would have to include in the verb how you acquired this information. Do English, Indonesian, Russian and Turkish speakers end up attending to, understanding, and remembering their experiences differently simply because they speak different languages? These questions touch on all the major controversies in the study of mind, with important implications for politics, law and religion. The question of whether languages shape the way we think goes back centuries; Charlemagne proclaimed that "to have a second language is to have a second soul." Differences in how people think about space don't end there.
The Best Pictures from the Academy Awards The Best Pictures infographic from Beutler Ink is an iconic timeline through the history of the Academy Awards winners for Best Picture. Can you identify the movies from the icons? Beutler Ink celebrates the 2014 Oscars with a poster commemorating each of the past 85 Best Picture winners. This is a fun design that draws the readers in by challenging them to identify the past winners based on the icons or illustrations shown for each film. The big lesson we can learn from this design, is that once an infographic image is published online, it takes on a life of its own. In this case, the audience would have no idea that the award winning pictures in this design are from the 2014 Academy Awards (popularly known as the Oscars). There’s no information that identifies this design is relevant for 2014. Also, when readers find this infographic shared on other sites, they have no way to find the original without a URL. Thanks to Jarred for sending in the link!
World Shapin About worldshapin worldshapin helps to study the interdependence of Health, Carbon footprint, Workplace equality, Living standard, Population and Education across the world through the last three decades. It also compares countries with the world, continents and other countries on the mentioned indicators, helping to understand how these factors accelerate or decelerate a country and the world in accordance with the time. To highlight the relationship between human development and sustainability, worldshapin extends the Human Development Index with three more indicators, making a total of six indicators to study their relationships on three axes: total population vs total carbon footprint education vs work place equality between men and women living standards vs health World, continents and countries get their unique shapes through the timeline based on how low or high they fare on the six indicators. About the Human Development Report
Tour Builder Important: As of July 2021, Google Tour Builder is no longer available. On July 15, 2021, Tour Builder was shut down and the following associated data will be deleted: Links to tours that you created or were shared with you Publicly available tours Information in the Tour Builder Gallery If you want to create new 3D maps and stories about places that matter to you, use the expanded functionality of Google Earth’s creation tools. About Tour Builder When Tour Builder launched in 2013, Google wanted to share a web-based tool that made it easy to add and share photos and videos to a sequence of locations on Earth. With Projects, you can turn our digital globe into your own storytelling canvas and collaborate with others through Google Drive. Learn about Google Earth & Google Earth Pro You can learn more with the Google Earth help center articles and frequently asked questions.
What Happens When A Language's Last Monolingual Speaker Dies? : Code Switch A portrait of Emily Johnson Dickerson by artist Mike Larsen. Courtesy of the Chickasaw Nation hide caption itoggle caption Courtesy of the Chickasaw Nation A portrait of Emily Johnson Dickerson by artist Mike Larsen. Courtesy of the Chickasaw Nation Emily Johnson Dickerson died at her home in Ada, Okla., last week. "This is a sad day for all Chickasaw people because we have lost a cherished member of our Chickasaw family and an unequaled source of knowledge about our language and culture," Chickasaw Nation Gov. Dickerson, 93, was one of about 65 people fluent in the Chickasaw language, which has seen its number of speakers shrink from thousands since the 1960s. "Chickasaw was the dominant language in Chickasaw Nation, both prior to and following removal [when Chickasaw people were forced to relocate to Indian Territory*]," says Joshua Hinson, director of the Chickasaw Language Revitalization Program. "She lived like our ancestors did a long time ago," Hinson says.
Should You Be Capitalizing the Word 'Internet'? If you’re a writer or an editor or a grammar nerd, or if you just happen to do a lot of reading about technology and you’ve been around for a while, you may have noticed a trend for the word “Internet” to be written with a lower-case “i” instead of capital “I”. The process is called decapitalization, but “internet” is nothing new. In 2004, Wired News’ copy chief Tony Long wrote: “Effective with this sentence, Wired News will no longer capitalize the “I” in internet. Tony Long was wrong. WIRED opinion About Susan Herring is a professor of information science and linguistics at Indiana University. The tug-of-war has been going on for years. According to Bob Wyman, a Google tech staffer and long-time Net expert, the “I” should be capitalized to make clear the difference in meaning between the Internet (the global network that evolved out of ARPANET, the early Pentagon network), and any generic internet, or computer network connecting a number of smaller networks. Go Back to Top.
Social Media in 2013: User Demographics 1.7K Flares Filament.io 1.7K Flares × Out of all internet users 67% are using social networks. And which kind of demographic uses which social network has been forever interesting for marketers. Some of the latest insights from Pew Research centers reveals the latest stats. Twitter is still used more than Pinterest, Instagram and Tumblr. Most of the findings are in line with what you might expect and some are truly surprising. Let’s dive into a further breakdown of the stats: So, who is the average Facebook user? Interestingly, here at Buffer, we’ve just completed a similar research to find out more about demographics of our users. 1.) So what about other details, age groups, demographics and more? What do you think of the latest user demographic research? Quick note: We’ve got a few secret, new Buffer features to share images directly from a page and more.
7 Characteristics Of Teachers Who Effectively Use Technology 7 Characteristics Of Teachers Who Effectively Use Technology by TeachThought Staff Ed note: This post has been updated with an updated visual from Sylvia Duckworth, who took our graphic from alwaysprepped.com (now getalma) post and created the above visual. It is also sporting a new title, as the “habits of” is a trademarked term. As such, the new graphic and phrasing appears below. In most ways, teachers that use technology in the classroom aren’t much different than those that don’t. Any teacher worth their salt assesses, and then revises planned instruction based on data from those assessments. They manage their classroom in a way that works for them, create a positive learning environment, and (great teachers especially) collaborate with a variety of stakeholders to make sure every humanly possible attempt is made to meet all students need. They care about learning more than tools, people more than curriculum, and questions more than answers. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.
Interview: Scott Stossel, Author Of 'My Age Of Anxiety' : NPR Atlantic magazine editor Scott Stossel has countless phobias and anxieties — some you've heard of, others you probably haven't. "There's a vast encyclopedia of fears and phobias," he tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross, "and pretty much any object, experience, situation you can think of, there is someone who has a phobia of it." Stossel's own fears include turophobia, a fear of cheese; asthenophobia, a fear of fainting; and claustrophobia. His new book, My Age of Anxiety: Fear, Hope, Dread, and the Search for Peace of Mind, is both a memoir and a history of how medicine, philosophy and the pharmaceutical industry have dealt with anxiety. Stossel says he wrote the book to help him understand and find relief from — or redemption in — anxious suffering. He's a very high-functioning anxious person and in fact, before this book, most of his colleagues were unaware of his problems. Interview Highlights On suffering from emetophobia, or a fear of vomiting ... Michael Lionstar/Courtesy of Knopf ...
5 Myths About How Teens Use Technology You’re not imagining it. According to a robust new study from Common Sense Media, both tweens and teens spend an inordinate amount of time on their screens, an average of four and half hours for tweens (from 8 to 12 years of age) and six and half hours for teens (13 to 18 years of age). But those numbers hide a more complex picture, one with some obvious truths and some surprises. The study looked at a wide range of media-related activities, from old school faves like reading and listening to the radio, through more recent arrivals, such as using social media and video chatting. More than 2,600 kids were surveyed, using a large national sample. The researchers asked the kids about what devices they used and how much time they spent on them. Here’s a handy graphical representation of what they found:
The Top 20 Infographics of 2013 Drew Skau published on December 5, 2013 in Design Like most recent years, 2013 has been packed full of infographics. Some were about current events, others just covered cool topics. 2013 began with a waning gibbous moon, and what better way to learn about moon phases than with Oreos. ShowMe - The Online Learning Community What teens really want to know about sex On the first day of my Sexuality and Society class, I don’t pass around anatomy drawings. I don’t hand out pamphlets about safer sex, although those are stacked on a table near the door. Instead, the first thing I do is establish ground rules. I’m all about context. In the back corner of my classroom is an old shoebox with a hole cut into the top of it. Here are some actual questions from students and my answers to them. Why is sex so good? There are two ways to answer this question. A part of the body that brings sexual pleasure when stimulated is called an erogenous zone. The second reason sex feels good is that humans have developed the emotional capacity to feel love, intimacy, and passion. While pleasure can exist without these emotions, it is much more significant when they are present. When is someone emotionally and physically ready for sex? I wish I had an answer that would be right for all people at all times, but the real answer is “it depends.” Short Answer—ABSOLUTELY NOT!!!