You do not necessarily have to follow online cats on social media to read the book, but if you do, you might have come across one or the other cat-inspired linguistic process before or have perhaps found a meowlogism not mentioned in the book. Yet, regardless of your online habits, a curiousity for all things […]
Read MoreIt is commonly known that our brain abilities, including reasoning, memory, imagination, and attention, are shaped by the social world. We absorb ways of thinking, behaving, and learning through exposure to life in the home, neighbourhoods, schools, communities, and broader contexts. This knowledge is often cited under the umbrella of Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory, which proposes […]
Read MoreToday many European minority language communities are undergoing profound changes, in part as a result of globalisation, increased mobility and accelerating socio-economic fragmentation within heartland areas. Whereas in the past the family and community network ensured inter-generational language transmission, now it is mainly the statutory education system which provides the skills necessary to communicate effectively […]
Read MoreQ: Let’s start with the title of your book. Why use the term minoritized languages? A: It’s a question of emphasis: there is nothing intrinsically “minor” about the languages (or even the factual question of being a numerical “minority” for many cases, such as Zulu in South Africa), but the fact that the languages in […]
Read MoreAll scientific fields were born from philosophy. And most were born a long time ago. So long ago that conversations between the philosophic ‘parent’ and the scientific ‘child’ are currently non-existent. For example, it’s rare to see collaborative research that involves a physicist and a metaphysician, and you won’t find a philosopher at a chemistry or […]
Read More“Life as a Bilingual” – a highly successful blog and now a new Cambridge book Back in 2016, Cambridge Extra published an interview[1] of François Grosjean[2], a recognized expert on bilingualism, who talked about his Psychology Today blog, “Life as a Bilingual”[3] which he had started back in 2010. He discussed a number of topics […]
Read MoreWho could have imagined this kind of success for a scientific blog on bilingualism? In 2016, François Grosjean was interviewed about his Psychology Today blog, “Life as a bilingual”, by Ewa Haman, Faculty of Psychology, University of Warsaw. The Polish translation appeared under the title, “Nie mógłbym nawet marzyć o takiej liczbie czytelników” on dwujęzyczność.info. […]
Read MoreFor a long time, linguists have thought of language as a tool for thinking. Under this view, how we use language for communication is not particularly interesting because it does not tell us anything about the ‘core’, ‘inherent’ properties of language. Nowadays, many language scientists argue that communication is an important factor that explains why […]
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