Researchers have identified a previously overlooked structure underlying human language, revealing patterns that extend beyond traditional measures of emotion.

When it comes to using “big data” to analyze the patterns of society, the conversation inevitably turns to social media. Yet the world’s news media actually offers larger and richer insights into ...

A journey into the formal foundations of natural language began as Professor Ryan Nefdt delivered his inaugural lecture on 20 May.The University of Cape Town's (UCT) Mafeje Room at the Bremner ...

Like learning math, from simple counting to solving complex equations, language learning happens in a similar stepwise fashion, with each new step building on previous knowledge. Brown (1973) outlines ...

From "yeet" to "social distancing," new words and phrases constantly emerge and evolve in American English. But how do these neologisms—newly coined terms—gain acceptance and become part of mainstream ...

Cognitive linguistics is a modern school of linguistic thought that originally began to emerge in the 1970s due to dissatisfaction with formal approaches to language. As I explain in my book, ...

When we speak, our sentences emerge as a flowing stream of sound. Unless we are really annoyed, We. Don’t. Speak. One. Word. At. A. Time. But this property of speech is not how language itself is ...