INTERACTING

WITH
LINGUSITICS ESTRUCTURA
DEL ÁREA
BOLETIN
Volumen n.º 3 El área de Lingusitica
22 October 2019 de la Uniminuto
propone un escenario
LASTEST NEWS de reflexión, discusión
y diálogo frente a
Bilingual Brain… the prefrontal posibles inquietudes
cortex and anterior cingulate que surgen del
cortex do play in a role in quehacer docente. La
helping people flip their importancia de este
language switch espacio acádemico
reside en la necesidad
Continue reading on pag.1 de brindar durante la
formación inicial del
futuro docente las
destrezas que
permitan comprender,
analizar y resolver
dichos problemas y
CHOOSE YOUR aquellos que surjan del
WORDS WISELY aprendizaje.

Surprisingly, the more two

negotiators match each other's
language styles, the worse things
are likely to go

Continue reading on pag. 2

WHAT ABOUT OUR

READING CLUB?
Give your opinion about how can
we start a Lingusitics’ reading
Club.?

Continue reading on pag. 3

 LINGUISTICS
LATEST NEWS
It seems researchers are a little closer to knowing how the bilingual brain
works. A new paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
highlights how our minds shift from speaking in one language to another. How the
Past work had already narrowed in on a couple of brain regions related to
cognitive control — the prefrontal cortex at the front of the brain and the
Bilingual
anterior cingulate cortex more toward the back — as being involved in the
switch. But these two separate acts, turning off one language and flipping on Brain Switches
another, happen simultaneously. To truly isolate where the switch happens,
researchers would have to study someone speaking in two languages at once,
and then have them shift into just one. And since most people can’t do that,
Languages
it’s been tricky for researchers to suss out what’s happening where.
Switch On, Switch Off
A team of experts from New York University and San Diego State University,
MORE INFO: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/d-brief/2018/09/11/how-the-
though, devised a clever set-up. They recruited volunteers who were fluent in bilingual-brain-switches-languages/#.XZIea0xFyUk

both English and American Sign Language (ASL). The team had those
participants produce both English and ASL simultaneously. Then, while using
a brain imaging technique called magnetoencephalography that relies on
measuring magnetic fields in the brain, the researchers had their simul-
speakers change gears into conversing in just one language. The team was also
able to test the opposite — having their bilingual participants go from one
language to two.
And it turns out past research was right — the prefrontal cortex and anterior
cingulate cortex do play in a role in helping people flip their language switch.
But, it looks like it’s a lot easier for the brain to shift into a language than it is
to shift out. The findings add a little bit of clarity to the often-murky quest of
hammering out how language plays out in the brain.

2
Choose Your Words Wisely to Win a
Negotiation
Surprisingly, the more two negotiators match each other's language styles, the
worse things are likely to go.
“I can’t pay you a cent more,” Boris tells Sophie, who’s trying to sell
him a car. But Sophie stands firm. “You’ll just have to match my
price,” she tells him.
Around the corner, Ethan and Vickie are haggling over the price of
her car. “I really can’t pay you any more,” Ethan says, but Vickie
won’t budge, either. “The price is the price,” she says.
On the surface, these two exchanges might seem materially the
same. But if you were to put them under a microscope, you would
notice a subtle difference between them. Boris and Sophie’s verbal
styles are similar to each other in some key ways; both use personal
pronouns like you and I, for example. In contrast, Ethan and Vickie’s
language styles are more divergent: While Ethan uses personal
pronouns, Vickie uses none.
In isolation, such linguistic quirks are probably meaningless. But
over the course of a conversation, they add up in telling ways,
according to a new study led by Texas Tech University psychologist
Molly Ireland. Though we’re seldom if ever aware of it, she argues,
nuances of people’s language — such as their use of personal
pronouns, articles or contractions, among many other linguistic
choices — provide clues to their mental state or social status.
A small twist of language can signal friendliness or aloofness,
deference or dominance. When two people are tuned into each
other’s mental states, they tend to match each other’s language
styles. And that engagement can spell doom in contentious
situations like negotiations.
“It sounds counterintuitive because we think of similarity and
synchrony as good for relationships,” Ireland says. And usually they
are.
“But of course matching another person’s mental state won’t bring
two people closer together if both are thinking about how they can
destroy each other.”
Leaky Language
Ireland’s insight stems from research she began as a doctoral student
at the University of Texas at Austin, in the lab of psychologist James
Pennebaker, who was studying how people’s written language
relates to their psychological and physical health.
Because scanning people’s writing for specific kinds of words is
labor-intensive, Pennebaker and colleagues automated the process.
The language-analysis software they developed, called Linguistic
Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC, pronounced “Luke”), contains a
dictionary of thousands of words, sorted into dozens of categories
— for example, words connoting anger, words pertaining to the
body, or causal words such as “because.” The software parses any
text file (including transcriptions of spoken language) and tallies the
number of words that fall into particular categories.
Although Pennebaker’s program can examine any number of word
categories, he discovered the most psychologically revealing results
came from counting “function words” such as personal pronouns
(like you and my), impersonal pronouns (like it and that),
contractions (like can’t and they’ll) and articles (like the and an). In
one study, Pennebaker and a colleague used the software to
compare pronoun use by two groups of poets: those who had killed
themselves and those who had not. Suicidal poets used the pronoun
“I” more often — perhaps a reflection of the excessive self-focus
that’s common in depression. More Info:
https://discovermagazine.com/2013/nov/10-words-bind
3
How can we start the
Linguistics’ Reading Club?
This club will encourage our students and teachers to discuss selected books in group settings; this kind of groups are

largely associated with educational institutions encouraging their students to hold book discussion meetings.
In these groups, people discuss a particular title that every person in the group has read at the same time, often with each
member, using virtual books available on the data base at university or virtual books. Steps to follow to start the reading club:

a. Post a sign-up sheet we can start by putting up a sign up form in your university lobby or on a local library bulletin

board, e mail students and teachers or use the web.

b. Seek help Each member should contribute to the club

c. Hold an introductory meeting After you have enough people sign up (6-10 people is a good number) you will need

to hold an introductory meeting. At the first meeting, members can learn each other's names and you can talk about

what kind of club people are interested in.

d. Create rules and routines At your meeting you can discuss what types of rules and routines the club should have.

WH AT D O Y O U T H I N K ?
SHARE your ideas and opinions and we will discuss the viability in our next edition.
Please send them to: cristy.paez.s@uniminuto.edu.co pnks to Professor Diego marin for
showing his interest in discussing the topic of research in the area of linguistics
5