A thousand words - or a few?

“A picture says more than a thousand words”. I think most of us have said or heard this, but maybe without giving it much thought. The implicit meaning is the more words you convey, the better. Is that always true?
Persons with communications impairments often need some sort of augmentative or alternative communication (AAC). Spoken language [...]

Language and personality

I’m reading Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain by Oliver Sacks, and came upon this quote:
We are a linguistic species — we turn to language to express whatever we are thinking, and it is usually there for us instantly. But for those with aphasia, the inability to communicate verbally may be almost unbearably frustrating [...]

Mathematics in sign language

I met a sign language teacher (my fiancé’s brother’s girlfriend’s brother’s girlfriend…) the other day and she told me about a problem with the national math exams.
All children here have to take the national math exams. Children whose first language is sign language have a right to get the questions translated to sign language, [...]

Scrabble - what do you need to win?

I was thinking about which abilities you need to be good at Scrabble. Presumably you would need a rather good vocabulary and a good ability to re-arrange letters in your mind. Also you should need some strategical skills and logical thinking. But if you possess these qualities, will you immediately be good at Scrabble?
I found [...]

Guest-posting

I made a comment on this post at the Cognition and Language Lab, and was very flattered when I was asked to guest-post on that topic! Read my post here and then bookmark the blog for further reading!