“By eschewing obfuscatory verbosity of locutional rendering, the circumscriptional appelations are excised.” [sic, emphasis mine]

Post originally published on: Dave's Blog (please leave your comments over there)

Unintentional Self-Referential Jocularity

Experiments.

Allow me to illustrate:

Situation 1. Computer science paper:

“Mmn. These graph mapping simulations are really taking a while to complete, maybe I should get a new laptop.”

Situation 2. Cognitive science paper:

“Yes, hello, I’d like to order a dozen rhesus monkeys with proper wiring and electrode setup. Do you deliver?”

Post originally published on: Dave's Blog (please leave your comments over there)

The problem with neuroscience paper-writing at home…

Despite its pompous title, it is very much layman-oriented and designed as a general presentation of creolization.

What is creolization, I hear you ask?

Well, it’s a fascinating phenomenon observed in communities where kids raised by speakers of a pidgin end up spontaneously producing a more grammatically advanced language of their own (a creole). Not only does it happen in practically every known instance of such pidgin-speaking communities, but a similar process has been observed in Nicaragua with sign language.

Beyond their ethnological and linguistics interest, Creolization studies give great insights as to how humans learn to speak and the cognitive process involved.

If you have some interest into either of these fields, you can read the whole thing here:
Creolization and Cognitive Theories of Language Acquisition

And by the way, don’t let the pedantic tone fool you… I don’t have the slightest idea what I’m talking about in there: I am neither a linguist nor much of a cognitive scientist. This particular assignment just happened to have enough wiggle room that I could escape the dreary droning of a typical math’n'physics paper in my choice of topic.

Feel free to post comments, additional info or point out some of the gross inaccuracies no doubt littering the text in the comment area provided to that effect.

Post originally published on: Dave's Blog (please leave your comments over there)

Do you know Creole?