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Language and Amygdala Hijack

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Cultural practices acknowledge taboo words. Taboo words are words or phrases that are constrained because of social norms. In English, taboo words are classified into three categories: First is dirty words. They are concerned about sex and excretion such as bugger and shit. S econd is words related to the Christian religion such as Christ and Jesus. Third is words that are used in animal abuse. In other words, we call a person by the name of an animal, such as bitch.  Bilinguals may have different degree of emotionality for L1 and L2. In some cases, bilinguals tend to have a stronger emotion when speaking or listening taboo words in their first language compared to their second language. Some show greater ease in expressing taboo words in their second language. This is applicable if their second language is acquired early. In this context, AoA (age of acquisition) plays a significant role to what extent the second language speaker uses their first or second language in expressing their

How does Parentese Relate to Word Recognition?

Parentese refers to language that the children receive when they were very young. Their parents or caregivers' languages become a crucial foundation for children later language development. The language of the parents, which include the sound, spelling, meaning of words, as well as the grammatical rules of the language, shape the children's ability in recognizing and even distinguishing languages, whether it is their mother tongue or something else for instance.  How does that take place? The extensive contact between parents, especially a mother, has been a numerous language inputs for the children. It can be proven by the fact that the language acquisition starts from the pregnancy. When a mother talks to a child in the womb, it indicates that the children start absorbing the sound pattern of their mother. We can see the children's responses towards their mother's talks or physical contact stimulus. The recognition process is continuously taking place when they were b

Language Competence and Language Performance in SLA

It is generally accepted that language competence and language performance are two different and separated features in language learning (English). We need to suggest that separating both features are inappropriate. This discusses the importance of establishing the merging of both features to be a 'successful' language learner and how cognitive growth is influenced by the sociocultural settings where the language learners are exposed.  Language competence refers to learners' knowledge of the learning language, including the morphosyntactic rules and structures. Language inputs such as listening and reading are sources to the building-blocks of the language knowledge. On the one hand, language performance is the application of the language knowledge in practical terms, such as in communicative settings. Understanding those terms are fundamental in this stage as this clues how we refer to the object of the conversation.  In second language learning context such as English, mo

Why Competitive Sports for Children?

Some parents or caregivers believe that exposing children to physical exercises waste time, energy, and money. They thought that it is better for children to stay at home and complete their homework, instead of playing indoor or outdoor sports. However, competitive sports are advantageous to children physically, emotionally, and socially. First, children can gain physical benefits from competitive sport participation. They can build strong muscles and bones as they are active physically. For instance, playing badminton, which is very popular in Asian countries such as Indonesia, China, and Japan, requires players to move around to score. Defense, jumping smash, and netting, indeed, push the players to step back and forward, left and right side at any orders. In other words, it is downward impossible for children to stay inactive while in the court. Therefore, active movement strengthens the whole parts of their bodies, including their ankles and sleeves. Furthermore, emotional matu

English or Local Language?

This is such a debatable issue the school should introduce English first to students than native languages. Some claim that learning English gains more benefit than learning the native language. In contrast, some believe that mother tongue should be prioritized. This essay is mainly concerned about the importance of both languages. In education context, numerous online learning resources are available in English. This is because one of the purposes of the material production aims to gain worldwide viewers. Students who are interested in studying marine lives for example, they can learn them effectively and interestingly by taking advantage of National Geographics for Kids website. While the language used is English, students with English proficiency are more advantageous than monolingual speakers.  However, maintaining local languages is also essential. This is because the use of local language can increase a sense of belonging to where we are rooted. When we use the same language, Mad

Language in Society*

The hypothesis starts when Whorf argues that the Hopi people in Arizona do not conjugate verbs into past, present, and future tenses as English speakers do and that their words for units of time (like “day” or “hour”) were verbs rather than nouns. From this finding, he believes that Hopi people do not see time as a physical object that can be counted in minutes and hours, as contrast to English speakers. Hopi people, according to Whorf, view time as a formless process. Others than account that Hopi people do not have any concept of time (Green, 2023) . Its relativity can also be seen from a number of languages. English and many other European languages normally that perceive the future in front of us and the past as being behind us, in Swedish for instance (framtid/front time). But In Aymara language, spoken by Aymara people who live in Andes in Bolivia, Chile, Peru and Argentina, the word for future means “behind time”. They tend to make backward gestures when talking about future

Theoretical and Applied Psycholinguistics*

One of the topics covered here is about the stages in children language acquisition. This section provides useful information about ages, that all parents or caregivers need to be aware of, should come along with their vocabulary accretion. Meaning that children in a particular age should indicate a particular tier of recognized and meaningful words. Furthermore, this also addresses the speech and language delay, that is increasingly becoming an anxious issue especially in the last two decades. The students doing language studies can make the most of this book. The reason for this is that Psycholinguistics is one of the course units offered. The materials that are presented friendly-language use can help them to gain understanding effectively. However, non-linguistics students such as Psychology, and practitioners, researchers, teachers, parents, and anyone interested in children language development can take advantage of it too. This could be a source for further developmental knowl