I just realized that I haven’t written anything since October due to bad mood, no time and no inspiration. I’m not sure my mood is any better today, but at least I have time and inspiration (I’ve been home sick with a fever for two days now). The inspiration comes from my thesis work that I started working on last week before I got ill, but because my fever is creeping back in I’m just going to present you with a few links to what I’m working on, and then you can try to figure out what my project is really about.
First, I want to look at something called imageability – or the ease with which a word gives rise to a mental sensory image. High imageable words are supposedly easier to process and produce than low imageble words. Further I’m planning on looking at something called phonological neighbourhoods. Which is also something that’s supposedly positive for speech production (not so much for perception). And then I’d like to study their interactions. In people with acquired language impairments.
I’m probably the only person in the world getting crazy excited about this, but I really can’t wait to get on with it! Hope this stupid flu will just pass over as soon as it came…
If you’re still not convinced that linguistics is a science, or at all interesting to study, please spare an hour and have a look at this educational show from 1959: http://www.archive.org/details/alphabet_conspiracy. At times it’s quite old-fashioned, but it would be sad if the world (even that of linguistics) had not evolved in 53 years.
Good luck on the thesis and the flu. Mine has now lasted since the first of January, and since I didn’t take it easy enough( went back to work too soon), it came back with friends. Remind me to haul you out for a cup of tea sometime soon.