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Speaking Your Mind
In much of the world, speaking multiple languages is the norm. Virtually everyone in the Netherlands and Norway speaks passable English, and it’s possible to travel, or even get a doctorate, in many European countries
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Lexicon in the Laboratory
Not many psychological scientists can list a dictionary on their CV. As Chair of the Usage Panel of the American Heritage Dictionary, APS Fellow and word guru, Steven Pinker leads a group of 200 language
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To Avoid Stupid Mistakes, Think in French
Bloomberg BusinessWeek: Would you take a bet that offered you an even chance of winning $12 and losing $10? If you’re like most people, you would not. But what if someone offered you the bet
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Culture, Not Biology, Shapes Language
NPR: There’s no language gene. There’s no innate language organ or module in the human brain dedicated to the production of grammatical language. There are no meaningful human universals when it comes to how people
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Thinking in a Foreign Language Makes Decisions More Rational
Wired: To judge a risk more clearly, it may help to consider it in a foreign language. A series of experiments on more than 300 people from the U.S. and Korea found that thinking in
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The Science of Swearing
Why would a psychological scientist study swearing? Expertise in such an area has different practical significance inside and outside the community of psychological science. Outside the scientific community, expertise on taboo language is justification for
