The left hemisphere is more dominant in language. I found it interesting that this fact changes for left-handed and right-handed people. I would think there wouldn’t be a difference in brain function between our dominant and non-dominant hands. As I continued reading, the article discussed how many different parts of the brain are involved in speech, which makes sense because many factors are involved in how we talk. I also found it interesting that a “slip up” or a mistake in the wording of our sentence is not just a mistake but is actually explicable, as the words that are tripped up have a rhythm.
The whole idea of a language gene seems very problematic to me. Although there is typically a language gene, it doesn’t seem to actually have an impact on the success of students’ ability to learn. The chapter focused on the brain confused me a little. But it seemed to offer some insight into how the brain functions with language.
I have never thought about the relationship between words and “things” and how that relationship is arbitrary. What I find really cool about languages is that some have “special” words for things; often, a different language doesn’t have a word for it. The reading mentioned that in English, we just call our cousins, cousins, but in French, for example, they have a word for female cousin and male cousin. I have always been curious why some languages are so gendered, like Spanish or French, while others are not, like English. I am assuming that it comes from the family tree that each language is derived from. But as an English speaker, it is strange that a table can have a gender.
Sentence structure and grammer can have a large impact on meaning. We all know that meme:
Let’s eat Grandma and
Let’s eat, Grandma.
With this example, one comma can change the point of the sentence. Are we going out to eat with Grandma or eat Grandma?
Reading about collocations was hard to wrap my head around (that phrase might be a collocation itself). The way different languages function is fascinating. Like in English, we face a problem, but in Hebrew, we stand in front of a problem. This is making me realize that when I start learning Hebrew, I will also need to learn about their sentence structure and how their messaging might be different from English. This difference in communication isn’t even something I have thought of. Overall, there are many terms like these that I would never have considered before this reading.
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