Group 4 Language Blog

For my from the field entry, I found an article from my roommate’s women’s studies class. I apologize for not having a link or any way for everyone to see the article. I’ll be working on that over the weekend with the help of friends. Maybe I can get something up before Tuesday’s class…

Anyways, in an article written by Laurel Richardson, she discusses the gendering of language within our society. Our society as a whole uses masculine words as generic pronouns and nouns such as men, man and he. Because these words then refer to both men and women, children, as well as college students, can not connect both sexes to the generic word.

This article talks about how "in terms of grammatical and semantic structure, women do not have a fully autonomous, independent existence; they are part of man." What the author says is that often times, women are included under the generic man. An example is that when two people get married, often times the woman changes her name and therefore becomes part of the man.

In class, we have been discussing words that children learn. Lauren Richardson shows that children have problems when learning language because they can not discriminate between the word men as a gender neutral subject. An example from the text is, "an eight-year-old interrupts her reading of "The Story of the Cavemen" to ask how we got here without cavewoman." Another example is, "A ten-year-old thinks it is dumb to have a women postman." So children, literally visualize males when they see the word man.

The article also discusses how woman are defined in term of their relationships to men; men are defined in terms of their relationships to the world at large. An example: the words master and mistress- “He is the master of his trade.” And “She is his mistress.” Men are defined in terms of their power in the occupational world, women in terms of their sexual power over men.

I found this interesting because, in class, we talked about how words can have multiple meanings and how children learn to communicate. When I think about this article, I keep thinking of activation and I think that maybe this is what is happening to children while trying to understand the word men as a gender neutral subject. My feeling is that many words that are connected to men or man are activated in the children’s brain and they have a difficult time activating words associated with women. Any thoughts?

This article starts off by comparing the acquisition of sign language to the acquisition of spoken language. Both, even though most would think differently, sign language and spoken language have similar structures and acquisitions. Both types of language even have the same developmental milestones. He then proceeds to talk about how languages come to be created and that it is easier for words to be created and language to change in sign language than it is with spoken language. He attributes this to the fact that manual modality makes it easy to invent representations (signs) that even naive observers could understand.

In an earlier class we had talked about how language is always changing. Slang words and new words come up all the time, and just as fast, other words and phrases fade away. The language we speak today is very different from the language spoken just centuries ago. But what brings about this change?

Goldin-Meadow discusses the development of new sign language that arose in Israel about 200 years ago. A completely new language had to develop because about 150 members (there was a total of 3500 members in the population) were deaf. ABSL (Al-Sayyid Bedouin Sign Language) developed in order for these people to communicate. I was in awe when I read because when I think of language, I think of it being around for thousands of years. Yeah, I know it changes all the time, but to know that a completely new language just developed 200 years ago is amazing to me.

In chapter 3 of Um…there is a paragraph on page 56 that writes about how sign languages have ways of indicating pauses; the language allows for a way to say “um…” just as people without hearing difficulties can do. With this in mind I wanted to learn other aspects of how deaf people use language, including how they learn to actually speak aloud.

Within the deaf community there is a process known as oralism which involves helping the deaf learn to speak out loud. While this process of learning to speak uses the sense of hearing as a fundamental way to learn, those who are deaf obviously do not have this option. Instead they focus on two other senses, sight and touch, and work one-on-one with an instructor. The process involves the student placing their hand on the instructor’s throat while the instructor speaks different words. Through this process the student can learn how the lips move when speaking certain words and also how the muscles in the neck move when speaking.

This process requires a large amount of time and dedication for the deaf person to have a full learning experience. In addition to this hands on method computers are also becoming a useful tool for the deaf as they now have programs which emphasize facial and lip movements as words are flashed onto the screen. This helps the student to learn the movements that words make as well as teaches them to lip read. While not all of the deaf community use these tools or ever learn to speak aloud, for some this is a useful option in communicating with others more easily.

http://www.wisegeek.com/how-do-deaf-people-learn-to-speak-aloud.htm

In light of our recent class discussions concerning verbal blunders and speech disfluencies I was compelled to find an article pertaining to these aspects of speech. The article I found discussed the incidence of speech errors in Spanish. The authors were attempting to prove that Spanish speaking people do have a lexical bias (tendency for phonological errors to form existing words), in response to an earlier study that had come to the opposite conclusion, that there is no lexical bias in Spanish. It was not the final conclusion of the paper that interested me so much as it was the results they obtain during their study.

The experimenters used pairs of words which they displayed on a computer screen to observers. The observers were to read these pairs as fast as they could, one pair right after the other. Some pairs were target pairs (those pairs in which the errors were likely to occur) and others were primer pairs (those pairs which caused the observer to activate certain phonemes right before the target pairs). The most interesting result to me was that shorter words produced more errors than longer words.

The authors suggest this pertains to phonological neighborhoods. Phonological neighbors, according to the authors, are words that are identical, except for a single phoneme. Smaller words have more phonological neighbors than longer words, so there is a greater opportunity for an error to occur. Examples given by the authors include the following: cat has many phonological neighbors, such as bat, chat, fat, and so on; whereas paleontology has no phonological neighbors. Therefore there are more opportunities for errors when using shorter words.

I found this extremely interesting. I would have thought the exact opposite, that longer words would produce more errors because they are more complex, syllabically speaking. I thought this article was very appropriate for our recent class discussions and I hope it will generate some thoughts that can be carried over into our future classes.

The title of this article is Spoonish Spanerisms: A Lexical Bias Effect in Spanish. The Authors are Robert J. Hartsuiker, Bjorn Roelstraete, Ines Anton-Mendez, and Albert Costa. The article was found in the Journal of Experimental Psychology, 2006, Vol. 32, No. 4, 949-953.

In a study done by Catherine E. Snow and Marian Hoefnagel-Hohle, the critical period for language acquisition was studied by looking at second language acquistion. The researchers expected that second language acquisition would be relatively fast, successful, and similar to first language acquisition as long as it takes place during the critical period (usually before puberty). English speakers of different ages, who were learning to speak Dutch, were used for the study. It was found that participants in the age groups of 12-15 and adults made the fastest progress during the first 12 months of learning Dutch, but that the 8-10 and 12-15 year old achieved the greatest control of the language. Participants of the 3-5 year old age group scored the lowest on all tests. The results found did not support the hypothesis being studied.

What do these results mean about the critical period? Is there even a critical period? If there was, wouldn't it make the sense that the youngest participants would have had the best experience at learning to speak the Dutch? I also would have thought that the adults would have had a very difficult time, but they actually made the fastest progress. What do you think causes the difference between first language acquisition and second language acquisition?

After skimming through People magazine I came to an article about a child who suffered from selective mutism. We’ve been talking about many different aspects of language but have not looked at those who are unable to utilize these aspects. With this being said I found the article on selective mutism to be very interesting and decided to look up more information on the subject.

Selective mutism, usually found in children, is not caused by misunderstanding language or not knowing how to speak well. Instead it is a psychiatric disorder where the child does not speak in major social settings for at least one month. They do however speak in other settings, most commonly in the home to their parents and a few others. This disorder becomes noticeable usually when the child enters school and is expected to speak in the classroom. It may be related to issues like extreme shyness or a phobia of social embarrassment or social settings but dramatically interferes with the daily life of the child. Forms of treatment include various medications in addition to behavioral treatments like desensitization, positive reinforcement and rewards.

People magazine presented a quote from the child suffering from selective mutism that states “When I try to speak, my bones feel like glass, my skin feels like paper, and my lips are glued shut.” I found this quote to be powerful and made me want to learn more. There are a lot of different websites for this condition but the one I found most helpful was
http://www.selectivemutismfoundation.org/about.shtml

For the topic of my paper I am looking at how bilingual patients with brain damage recover faster than those who are monolingual. While searching through articles I came across an article in the magazine Scientific American Mind, that while it did not necessarily pertain to all aspects of my topic of interest, still grabbed my attention to further read.

This article titled Freeing a (Locked-In) Mind and written by Karen Schrock demonstrated that current studies are being done in which vegetative patients may soon be able to communicate their thoughts. I became immediately interested because it had seemed that until now brain-damaged patients were thought of as “there is nothing we can do”, and there was no way to determine if a patient with brain damage would ever come to or not. It is interesting to think about this because while we have discussed in class the different verbal and non-verbal ways we communicate, we have not discussed the inability to communicate with others, and after reading about these recent studies I thought that more discussion on this topic was worthwhile.

This article explained how we can now detect when somebody is consciously aware. Through new advancements in fMRI scans researchers can see which areas of the brain are most active during thought processes. Adrian Owen of the University of Cambridge discovered that a vegetative patient was indeed conscious when they asked her to imagine herself doing various tasks, such as playing tennis or walking through the rooms of her home, while they scanned her brain using fMRI. They did the same with healthy controls and found that when both the vegetative patient and the healthy controls were asked to perform the task, their brains showed similar activation in motor and spatial navigation areas. Owen then used this same basic principle to devise a protocol for talking to a vegetative patient. If the patient imagined playing tennis, it meant, “yes”. If they imagined walking through the rooms of their home it meant “no”. Through practice on healthy subjects, researchers have learned to tell apart thought-only responses of “yes” and “no” in under a minute, and are now preparing to test this technique on a vegetative patient whom they have already found to be aware. Succeeding would mean that we can “converse” with a lock-in person for the first time ever. I find in amazing that patients will soon be able to communicate without having to say or do anything. This puts a new meaning on the phrase of reading one’s mind.

This article came from a language journal, Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools. This article caught my eye because as a student teacher, I am interested in helping educate children the best way possible. This study examined 2nd grade teachers' perceptions of the academic, social, and behavioral competence of students with speech sound disorders (SSD's). Results of this study showed that a majority of teachers have negative attitudes toward children with articulation disorders. It appears that speech intelligibility influences teachers' perceptions of the academic, social and behavioral competence of students. It has been reported that Teacher's perceptions regarding the behavioral and academic competence of students be the best predictors of teachers' referrals for special education. Improving a student's intelligibility may have an effect on a teacher's referral decision for academic, social and/or behavioral special education services.

I feel that teachers can impair children at a very young age by putting them into special education. By segregating the children, teachers are reinforcing the stereotypes society gives people with SSD’s, which are behavioral problems, academic problems, and social problems. The study showed that some teachers believed that SSDs cause these stereotypical problems. Therefore, there is a need to educate teachers that there is no known direct causal link between SSds and school-based problems. Although children with SSDs face a risk for academic problems, many children with SSD’s experience no school-based problems. Should teachers have to go through special training to counteract society bias concerning children with SSD’s? Also, for the student being segregated in the special education classroom because of a speech impediment, how would this affect him/her, especially if there is no reason for them to be in the room other than a speech impediment?

As we have been discussing in class, people who do not speak the standard language of their society have a very difficult time being successful in an academic setting. We threw around several possible reasons for this problem in class, some of which dealt with a basic lack of being able to interpret what is being taught. This is a very significant problem. With this inability to learn, it is extremely difficult for immigrants to become educated. Without education one’s options in life are severely diminished. For this reason a study was done in an attempt to better understand why people have difficulty learning in a second language. Nursing students in Australia were evaluated based on an English Language Acculturation Scale (ELAS). Acculturation was an idea I was unaware of prior to reading this article. It is defined as, “those phenomena which result when groups of individuals having different cultures come into continuous first-hand contact, with subsequent changes in the original cultural patterns of either or both groups.” The evaluations of nursing students who spoke English as a second language were compared to their grades in nursing classes. A positive correlation was observed. This basically meant that the more acculturated the students were, the better they did in an academic setting. A positive correlation was also observed between acculturation and length of residence in Australia. The Authors believed that poor academic performance was due to low-English acculturation. Their suggestion for improving academic performance was to immerse the students in English, forcing them to be acculturated quicker. Does this seem like a good solution? Recall our reading for last class which discussed bridge readers. The non-English speaking students who were immersed in English and left to fend for themselves did not learn as quickly as those students who used bridge readers to slowly transition from their first language to English. So what are we to do? Is acculturation the best means of helping non-standard speakers to learn or should the problem be approached from another direction.

A recent and interesting article that I came across in Science Daily titled: Boys’ and Girls’ Brains are Different: Gender Differences in Language Appear Biological provided evidence for biological differences in language abilities between boys’ and girls’. Researchers from Northwestern University and the University of Haifa have shown that areas of the brain associated with language work harder in girls than in boys during language tasks, and found that boys and girls rely on different parts of the brain when performing these language tasks. For the study, fMRI was used to measure brain activity in 31 boys and in 31 girls from ages 9 to 15 as they performed spelling and writing language tasks. The study consisted of both visual (reading words without hearing them) and auditory (hearing words but not reading them) tasks. The researchers found that girls showed significantly greater activation in language areas of the brain than boys. The information in both of the tasks provided evidence for activating areas of the brain associated with abstract thinking through language in girls. In boys, however, accurate performance depended, when reading words, on how hard visual areas of the brain worked. In hearing words, performance depended on how hard auditory areas of the brain worked. This evidence could help inform teaching and testing methods, as well as providing support for single sex classrooms. And as a result of this study, the evidence shows that when testing, boys may be more effectively evaluated on their knowledge gained from lectures using oral tests and on knowledge gained by reading using written tests. Girls, however, would not benefit from these same methods because their language processing seems to be more abstract in approach. This study concludes by mentioning that if the pattern of females relying on an abstract language network and of males relying on sensory areas of the brain extends into adulthood, it could possibly explain why women often provide more context and abstract representation than men. A good example is that women tend to provide more information when giving directions than men do.

I feel that this study relates to topics we have already read about and discussed in class. A few of our readings have examined the different aspects of teaching in the classroom, and it seems that the evidence provided by this study could be one way to modify teaching and/or testing techniques to even the playing field for both boys and girls. We have already discussed changes that have been made and other possible changes that could be made for bilinguals when testing, but this study shows that maybe we should test boys and girls differently based on the knowledge that they activate different areas of their brain, or in other words, think differently.

click here to read about the study

After watching the films in class which help us to look at the different accents across the country I thought it would be interesting to learn a bit more about the main features of accents because in one form or another, we all have them.

Accents typically are classified in two ways including Regional Accents and Foreign Accents. Our accents and that of others help us to identify a lot of features about a person such as their background, where they are from, etc. Problems arise with accents when we have trouble understanding someone, have to repeat ourselves constantly so others can understand us (which may cause one to avoid social interactions), or when a listener focuses on your accent more than the content of your language. With these problems at hand some put in the time and effort to change their accents which is known as “accent modification” or “accent reduction”. This can be accomplished with the help of a speech-language pathologist who can help you to learn to change your speech pronunciation. They will begin by evaluating your accent by looking at sound pronunciation as well as the stress, intonation, and rhythm of one’s speech. Also they will listen to your speech in conversation. After all evaluations have taken place the speech-language pathologist will set goals to help one modify their accent and improve your communication as a whole.

While accents can cause problems they are also an important part of showing who someone is. With this in mind it is important to realize that accents are not speech impediments and that they are an important part of our global culture.
http://www.asha.org/public/speech/development/accent_mod.htm

Due to our recent class discussions concerning language differences across societies, I researched articles concerning translation and how it affects understanding between cultures. I found a very interesting article by Kevin Heffernan regarding English movie titles being translated into Japanese. Heffernan explains that the Japanese use one of two methods for adapting foreign language. One is transliteration and the other is translation. Transliteration attempts to replicate the pronunciation of the original foreign word by using loan words, borrowed from English. With transliteration there is very little concern for semantics. Japanese examples include “bed”>beddo and “restaurant”>resutoran. Translation on the other hand is more focused on semantics with little concern for original pronunciation. Japanese examples include “telephone” > denwa (“electricity” + “speak”) and “evolution” > shinka (“progress” + “change”).
Heffernan also mentions that it is not difficult for Japanese speakers to avoid using loanwords; yet, in some cases they make excessive use of these words anyways. Heffernan attributes this to the desire of young Japanese people to give the impression of youthfulness, manage social distance, and make value judgments about the west. I found it very interesting that Japanese speaking people attempt to borrow English words in an attempt to sound more youthful. This idea was supported by the results of Heffernan’s study. He collected Japanese adaptations of American movie titles from the last 7 decades and rated the extent to which they used English loan words. As a result, he found that over the last 7 decades Japanese adapted movie titles have been gradually increasing in the amount of English loanwords that they use. This is obviously correlated with the desire of young people to use English loanwords. So, why is this? Why would Japanese youth be attracted to English? And, do we have any parallel examples of this in America?

Heffernan, K. (2008). An Investigation of Diachronic Change in Communication Accomidation. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 27, 86-93.

With my second major being studio art, I have an interest in images. I stumbled upon this article and found it interesting. Overall, this article discusses how artists use words in their pieces of artwork. In the past few decades, artists have increasingly used works in conjunction with visual images. A quote that I was interested in was, “The forms in which words and language fragments are presented in visual formats are as various as the types of art, but they are united by the fact that the words serve to increase the image’s potential for meaning.”

Overall, the article discussed that the visual and verbal signs were in the images to heighten potential for meaning. Or sometimes, artists use words to confuse the reader. Artists used a variety of techniques to bring a play between what is more real- the object, word, or painted surface. My favorite example is Jasper Johns’ False Start, he labeled actively painted color areas with names of hues other than those represented: “Red” on blue, “blue” on red, “white” on yellow, and so on. Much of John’s work is concerned with “the definition of art and non-art: “real” objects and “art” objects. Again, working with the connection between what is real by using language and words. I think this article relates to our class discussions because language can be about people’s perceptions and I believe that art too is based on other people’s perceptions. With art, art can be subjective and I think that language too can be. I find it interesting that while communicating, people use a variety of methods to stress what they are saying and that artists can also do this with words in their images.

Early in the semester we talked a lot about disfluencies. After the conclusion of our coverage of this topic, I came away thinking that even though disfluencies probably do have a specific role in language, that if used too much, they would have a negative impact on language comprehension. I recently found an article by Susan Brennan that disputes this idea.

In 2001, Brennan and Schober did a study testing how different types of disfluencies influence comprehension. Mid-word interruptions, mid-word interruptions with fillers, and between-word interroptions were compared. The study found that the use of disfluencies did not hurt comprehension in any way. In fact, in the case of mid-word interruptions with fillers, comprehension was achieved faster and with equal accuracy.

So this study provides just one more reason why disfluencies are needed in our language, and why they really shouldn't be looked upon as verbal "blunders"

I came across an interesting review article titled Dissociating Language and Word Meaning in the Bilingual Brain by Michael W.L. Chee. The study was conducted by Crinion and colleagues, and gives a neuroscience perspective of dissociating brain regions sensitive only to word meaning from those sensitive to the combination of meaning and language. I found this article interesting because I agree with the statement presented in the article of how “there seems to be an ease with which bilingual persons can communicate in different languages with relatively little confusion.” Also, we have recently discussed in class how a deaf signer can also read English and I became interested in how the brain processed this. Though instead, I found an equally interesting article describing this process for bilingual speakers.

There have been functional imaging studies on bilingualism that have evaluated how different languages are represented in the brain by looking at both the single-word and sentence levels. However, it appears that much less work has addressed the question of how a bilingual can keep languages apart during reading and language production. In the studied that was reviewed, it was demonstrated that there are language dependent neuronal responses while single words are processed for meaning.

This study examined German and English, and Japanese and English bilingual participants. The participants had to make a semantic decision regarding the second word of visually presented prime-target pairs of two written names (of objects or animals, or one of each). There was a 250ms time interval between the onset of seeing the prime and target word. Each target word was associated with one of three possible verification questions that focused primarily on the perceptual properties of the object or animal. For example, they had to make a decision relating to leg length (long or short legs), coloration, and open or closed handles (spoon vs. teacup). This design not only manipulated the language of the target word, but also whether the prime and target were semantically related or unrelated, and whether they were written in the same or different languages. This led to the following conditions for each target language: 1. Same language with an unrelated meaning 2. Same language with a semantically related meaning 3. Different language with an unrelated meaning 4. Different language with a semantically related meaning 5. Different language with the same meaning.

In the left caudate, it was found that there was greater activation for unrelated-semantically related primes in the same language. However, when there was a different language presented activation was greater than semantic priming within languages. This was consistent with Crinion’s proposal that caudate responses increase when there is a change in semantics or a change in language. From these findings, it had been suggested that the left caudate plays a universal role in monitoring and controlling the language that is in use at any given time. This study is important because previous functional imaging experiments could not answer this question, and Crinion et al replicated these results over three different experiments.

I found another article that deals with words and images in modern art. I found this article interesting because it discusses a few of the aspects of language that we have been talking about in the classroom. It also discusses the types of interactions between verbal and visual signs.

The author, Morley, demonstrates that there are two ways the viewer can become engaged in the work; through visually scanning the image or through reading the words. Morley further discusses that words and images are signs and can be reduced to three basic types: the iconic, the symbolic and the indexical. He continues to discuss how words can be understood as the signifier and the signified. The signifier is the written and aural form of the word itself, where as the signified is the meaning ascribed to that form.

Morley also discusses the types of interactions that occur between these verbal and visual signs; trans-medial, multi-medial, mixed-media, inter-media. In trans-medial interactions, the one is essentially a supplement to the other. In multi-medial interactions, word and image coexist more closely. They are sharing the same space, though remaining clearly distinguished in terms of spatial relations. In mixed-media interactions, word and image are only minimally separated from one another. Finally, in inter-media relations, there is an emphasis that writing is indeed a visual language. It appeals to the eye and the mind. The book of Kells is a great example

According to Morley, “Artists have sought different organizations of the spaces and contexts within which word and image appear.” Throughout the article, when discussing the four types of interactions of words and images, he gives examples of various art periods that have used the interaction. Overall, Morley discusses how artists use these relationships and interactions when creating their work.

Researchers at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center, Emory University, have identified a feature in the brain that is unique to human language. I found this article interesting because we all know that language is exclusive to humans, and we discuss this fact in class, however, the findings in this study provide evidence of connectivity in brain regions for this uniqueness when compared to brain regions of chimpanzees, and sheds light on an evolution aspect of how human language has evolved. Therefore, I found this article appropriate for this class to grasp a better understanding for language being specific to humans.

The study that was conducted was the first to use diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), which is a non-invasive imaging technique that was used to compare the human brain structures to those of chimpanzees. James Riling, a researcher at Yerkes, looked at the arcuate fasciculus, which is a pathway that connects brain regions involved in human language. The researchers then examine the size and pathway of the arcuate fasciculus in human, rhesus macaques, and chimpanzees. They found that the human arcuate fasciculus had a larger and more widespread projection to areas in the middle temporal lobe – which is involved in analyzing the meanings of words. Furthermore, they not only found that the human brain evolved larger language areas, but has also evolved a network of fibers to connect those regions that were not found in the rhesus macaques and chimpanzees. This ultimately supports human’s superior language capabilities.

This study is important because it was the first use of the DTI, which before, researchers lacked non-invasive methods to study brain connectivity directly. And, according to Yerkes researcher Todd Preuss “DTI now makes it possible to understand how evolution changed the wiring of the human brain to enable us to think, act, and speak like humans.”

Click here to read more

This article talks about how American Sign Language has shifted from being more iconic to consisting of more arbitrary gestures. It disproves many myths about ASL, for example that it is universal. But if this were the case, than the French and British would able to understand it. They have their own sign language and can't understand ours. The second myth is that ASL is simply pantomimic. But if this were the case, then wouldn't anyone be able to understand it? Even someone who has never come across it before should be able to understand what is being communicated if the signs exactly mimic the verbal words. And wouldn't this also make sign language universal for everyone?

This article interested me because I remembered the class we had maybe a week or two ago when we were talking about Saussure. I don't think we every really came to a conclusion on whether we thought that sign language was more arbitrary or iconic. So I guess this article is just another viewpoint we can add into our debate about it.

I remember reading in Talking Hands about how important facial expressions are when signing to someone. I’ve been told that I use a lot of facial expressions when I speak and was interested to see just how signers utilize them as well.

Facial expressions are very important in assisting signers and helping them to understand one another. An example of possible expressions, besides typical expressions that show emotion (smiling when we’re happy, etc), include eye gazes, eye shifts, clenched teeth, tilting one’s eye brows and head shifts. These signs may be especially important in certain situations because some signs used in sign language can be used to show two different things, depending on how one moves their head or the expression that they have on their face. If one actually mouths words while signing it also helps their partner learn to lip read and associate certain words with certain mouth gestures. In this way the mouth can also be an integral part of communicating.

In the same way that a person can be unenthusiastic with their speech, which may confuse their conversational partner, signers can be halfhearted when they sign. Just as this would confuse a verbal partner it also confuses a signer’s partner of what exactly they are signing. It can also send a message that they are not interested in speaking with them. Therefore the importance of using facial expressions properly is very important, especially because the audience of a signer looks at their face more than the signer’s hands when conversing with them.

http://www.essortment.com/lifestyle/signlanguageex_shrn.htm

As I was skimming through the language log, I found an entry that caught my eye. It was “yeah no” by Mark Liberman. He discusses how people often say “yeah no” when answering questions. His example is, “Did you like Columbia?” “Yeah no I loved it.” The entry talks mostly about who uses this statement most. However, this is not he aspect I found to be most interesting. There was something that really surprised me. While I was reading the article I had the notion in my head that, “well, obviously people say ‘yeah no’ sometimes, when they are answering questions like: ‘Did you not like that food.’” The yeah is in immediate response, in an effort to quickly let the asker know that you did like the food, and the no is to indicate that there statement was wrong. As I read more of the blog entry I found my assumption was entirely off.
I kept telling myself that these speakers, using “yeah no” were incorrect, that they should just be saying one or the other, for example, “No, I did like that food.” I was wrong however. As Liberman explains, “Here both yeah and no are independently appropriate – ‘yeah I loved it’ because the basic answer to the question is positive, and ‘no I loved it’ because love is being contrastively substituted for like. This may seem like a weird thing to blog about. I just thought it was interesting that for my last assignment for this class I was reminded one more time that I do not understand language. There are many misconception surrounding language and even after taking this class I am not immune to misconceiving.