The Power of Language

Informationen zum Autor Dr. Viorica Marian is the Ralph and Jean Sundin Endowed Professor of Communication Sciences and Disorders and professor of psychology at Northwestern University. Since 2000, Marian has directed the university's Bilingualism and Psycholinguistics Research Lab, receiving funding from the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation. She previously served as chair of the National Institutes of Health Language and Communication Study Section (2020-2022) and chair of the Northwestern University Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders (2011-2014). Marian is a native speaker of Romanian; a native-like speaker of Russian; a fluent speaker of English; and has studied or conducted research with a variety of other languages, including American Sign Language, Cantonese, Dutch, French, German, Mandarin, Spanish, Thai, and Ukrainian. Apart from scientific papers, Marian has written for Scientific American , Psychology Today , The Hill , Medium , Latino USA , Los Angeles Review of Books , and Chicago Tribune. Her work has been featured on NPR, PBS, BBC, NBC, and CBS, as well as many podcasts. Klappentext "This revolutionary book goes beyond any recent book on language to dissect how language operates in our minds and how to harness its virtually limitless power. As Dr. Marian explains, while you may well think you speak only one language, in fact your mind accommodates multiple codes of communication. Some people speak Spanish, some Mandarin. Some speak poetry, some are fluent in math. The human brain is built to use multiple languages, and using more languages opens doors to creativity, brain health, and cognitive control. Every new language we speak shapes how we extract and interpret information. It alters what we remember, how we perceive ourselves and the world around us, how we feel, the insights we have, the decisions we make, and the actions we take. Language is an invaluable tool for organizing, processing, and structuring information, and thereby unleashing radical advancement. Learning a new language has broad lifetime consequences, and Dr. Marian reviews research showing that it: Improves executive function-our ability to focus on the things that matter and ignore the things that don't; Results in higher scores on creative-thinking tasks; Develops critical reasoning skills; Delays Alzheimer's and other types of dementia by four to six years; Improves decisions made under emotional duress; Changes what we see, pay attention to, and recall"-- Leseprobe Chapter One Mind Boggling We live in a world of codes. Some are as strict as software, some as fluid as the mother tongue. Some expand like math beyond human experience. Some are loaded with bigotry. Some are like poetry. They are all languages. These are the codes of our minds. While you may not realize it, your mind already uses multiple codes-math, music, spoken languages, sign languages. The human brain is built to accommodate multiple codes of communication, and as we learn them, doors open to new experiences and knowledge. We come to see the world differently, and our brains are transformed as a result. Many people continue to miss out on the benefits of learning other languages, say Spanish, Mandarin, or Hindi, simply because the consequences of multilingualism are either misunderstood, minimized, or even politicized. But knowing multiple languages can lead to new ways of thinking that are otherwise unattainable. Just as learning math makes it possible to do things that are otherwise unimaginable-like building artificial intelligence, descending to the depths of the ocean, or ascending to other planets-and just as learning musical notation enables us to hear the sound of patterns composed thousands of miles away or centuries before, learning another language opens up another way of coding reality an...

Auteur

Dr. Viorica Marian is the Ralph and Jean Sundin Endowed Professor of Communication Sciences and Disorders and professor of psychology at Northwestern University. Since 2000, Marian has directed the university's Bilingualism and Psycholinguistics Research Lab, receiving funding from the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation. She previously served as chair of the National Institutes of Health Language and Communication Study Section (2020-2022) and chair of the Northwestern University Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders (2011-2014).
 
Marian is a native speaker of Romanian; a native-like speaker of Russian; a fluent speaker of English; and has studied or conducted research with a variety of other languages, including American Sign Language, Cantonese, Dutch, French, German, Mandarin, Spanish, Thai, and Ukrainian.
 
Apart from scientific papers, Marian has written for Scientific American, Psychology Today, The Hill, Medium, Latino USA, Los Angeles Review of Books, and Chicago Tribune. Her work has been featured on NPR, PBS, BBC, NBC, and CBS, as well as many podcasts.

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“Sparkles with insight.”—Daniel Pink

One of Behavioral Scientist’s Summer Books of 2023
One of Next Big Idea Club’s "7 Books that Reveal the Wonders of Writing and Language"

This revolutionary book goes beyond any recent book on language to dissect how language operates in our minds and how to harness its virtually limitless power.

As Dr. Marian explains, while you may well think you speak only one language, in fact your mind accommodates multiple codes of communication. Some people speak Spanish, some Mandarin. Some speak poetry, some are fluent in math. The human brain is built to use multiple languages, and using more languages opens doors to creativity, brain health, and cognitive control.
 
Every new language we speak shapes how we extract and interpret information. It alters what we remember, how we perceive ourselves and the world around us, how we feel, the insights we have, the decisions we make, and the actions we take. Language is an invaluable tool for organizing, processing, and structuring information, and thereby unleashing radical advancement.
 
Learning a new language has broad lifetime consequences, and Dr. Marian reviews research showing that it:

·        Enhances executive function—our ability to focus on the things that matter and ignore the things that don’t.
·        Results in higher scores on creative-thinking tasks.
·        Develops critical reasoning skills.
·        Delays Alzheimer’s and other types of dementia by four to six years.
·        Improves decisions made under emotional duress.
·        Changes what we see, pay attention to, and recall.

Résumé
“Sparkles with insight.”—Daniel Pink

A Behavioral Scientist Notable Book of 2023
A New Scientist Best Science Book   
A Publishers Weekly Summer Read 2023 Recommendation
One of Next Big Idea Club’s "7 Books that Reveal the Wonders of Writing and Language"
One of Inc.’s “13 Psychology Books to Understand Humans Way Better”

This revolutionary book goes beyond any recent book on language to dissect how language operates in our minds and how to harness its virtually limitless power.

As Dr. Marian explains, while you may well think you speak only one language, in fact your mind accommodates multiple codes of communication. Some people speak Spanish, some Mandarin. Some speak poetry, some are fluent in math. The human brain is built to use multiple languages, and using more languages…