iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Dr. Grace — Science Communication @gracetalkslanguage.bsky.social · 23/02/2026

So, for example, if you speak English and Spanish, both languages are always competing for your attention, and your brain is constantly “suppressing”, or shifting its attention away from, the language you’re not using! (2/2 🧵)

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Dr. Grace — Science Communication @gracetalkslanguage.bsky.social · 23/02/2026

Day 22! Yay! When we speak two languages, both languages are simultaneously “active” at in the brain at the same time. Psycholinguists call this “co-activation”. But, we don’t feel this co-activation — we aren’t consciously aware that we’re always juggling both languages. (1/2 🧵)

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Dr. Grace — Science Communication @gracetalkslanguage.bsky.social · 23/02/2026

The more frequently we hear words, the faster our mappings between form and meaning become! Eventually, we just get quick enough to “think” in our languages that are most exposed to! (3/3 🧵)

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Dr. Grace — Science Communication @gracetalkslanguage.bsky.social · 23/02/2026

That is, we have a different form in our mind for how words sound, vs. from how words are written. When we hear these forms, or read these forms, we “map” them into their respective meanings. (2/3 🧵)

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Dr. Grace — Science Communication @gracetalkslanguage.bsky.social · 23/02/2026

Fun fact February Day 21! Part of learning how to “think” in a second language involves developing “form-meaning mappings.” Basically, we have “phonological” form (or what we hear), and orthographic form (or what we see written and spelled). (1/3 🧵)

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Dr. Grace — Science Communication @gracetalkslanguage.bsky.social · 23/02/2026

For example, the sentence “the girl ran past the boy in pajamas” could mean the girl is in pajamas, or it could mean the boy is pajamas. (2/2 🧵)

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Dr. Grace — Science Communication @gracetalkslanguage.bsky.social · 23/02/2026

Day 20! The month is feeling long! Language has a lot of ambiguity. Sometimes, multiple meanings can be activated at once, which can make it a little bit more difficult to process. (1/2 🧵)

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Dr. Grace — Science Communication @gracetalkslanguage.bsky.social · 23/02/2026

In the case of “bird” or “fugle” above both meaning the same thing, we could have just as well assigned the same meaning to a word “zird” in English or “zugle” in Danish. (2/2 🧵)

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Dr. Grace — Science Communication @gracetalkslanguage.bsky.social · 23/02/2026

Fun fact day 19! Language is arbitrary. In fact, that is one of the core tenets of linguistics. For example, that “bird” means “winged animal that flies and chirps” is completely arbitrary; likewise that “fugle” means “winged animal that flies and chirps” in Danish. (1/2 🧵)

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Dr. Grace — Science Communication @gracetalkslanguage.bsky.social · 23/02/2026

But, of course, these aren’t hard definitions, and both can occur together. For example, you can “learn” a language in a classroom environment, but where that classroom environment is about immersion and focusing on communicating (over grammar and explicit learning)! (3/3 🧵)

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Dr. Grace — Science Communication @gracetalkslanguage.bsky.social · 23/02/2026

Yep, acquiring a language is generally more “implicit” as in the case of our first language. Learning is generally more “explicit” as in the case of classroom learning! (2/3 🧵)

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Dr. Grace — Science Communication @gracetalkslanguage.bsky.social · 23/02/2026

Day 18! It’s fun fact day 18! Did you know there is technically a difference between “learning” a language and “acquiring” a language? (1/3 🧵)

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Dr. Grace — Science Communication @gracetalkslanguage.bsky.social · 23/02/2026

When we “reanalyze” or “reread” the sentence, we realize that it’s actually passive! That is, “the woman [who was] paid for the jewelry became very rich”! That being said, we can see how this “incremental interpretation” leads us a bit astray! (3/3 🧵)

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Dr. Grace — Science Communication @gracetalkslanguage.bsky.social · 23/02/2026

In the above sentence, we usually interpret the sentences first as “the woman paid for the jewelry”. When we get to the word “became” we become a bit confused! When we reach the word “become” we have to “reanalyze” the sentence. (2/3 🧵)

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Dr. Grace — Science Communication @gracetalkslanguage.bsky.social · 23/02/2026

Fun fact day 17! We process language incrementally, meaning word-by-word, as we take it all in. However, sometimes this leads us astray, as in the case of, for example, passive sentences. Take, for example, “the woman paid for the jewelry became rich”. (1/3 🧵)

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Dr. Grace — Science Communication @gracetalkslanguage.bsky.social · 18/02/2026

Basically, we see blood flow in the brain in fMRI, and blood flow causes regions of the brain to “light up”. (2/2 🧵)

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Dr. Grace — Science Communication @gracetalkslanguage.bsky.social · 18/02/2026

Fun fact, day 16! Psycho and neurolinguists can use what’s called fMRI (a special type of MRI) to investigate which parts of your brain are active while you’re processing certain types of language. (1/2 🧵)

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Dr. Grace — Science Communication @gracetalkslanguage.bsky.social · 18/02/2026

But what’s even cooler is that even the second language can influence the first language! Yep — language transfer can be bidirectional. For example, if you spent a lot of time in your second language, your first language might start to sound more like the second language when you speak it! (2/2 🧵)

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Dr. Grace — Science Communication @gracetalkslanguage.bsky.social · 18/02/2026

Fun fact — day 15! Give it up for day 15! In the last fun fact I shared, I discussed how our first language can be transferred into our second language (or, it influence our second language) and that creates accents. (1/2 🧵)

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Dr. Grace — Science Communication @gracetalkslanguage.bsky.social · 17/02/2026

Fun fact — day 14! Do you know why we have accents? Well, one of the reasons is because the first language is transferred to the second language! More specifically, we transfer the sounds of our first language to our second language! And voilà, accents.

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Dr. Grace — Science Communication @gracetalkslanguage.bsky.social · 17/02/2026

This is especially important in language acquisition, when considering how much language we’re exposed to, vs. how much we learn, and how fast we learn! (2/2 🧵)

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Dr. Grace — Science Communication @gracetalkslanguage.bsky.social · 17/02/2026

Fun fact — day 13! We hear a lot more language than we take in! This is called by “input” (all language we’re surrounded by) vs. “intake” (what we actually learn and remember). We’re surrounded by LOADS of new language every day! But we don’t remember or learn everything we hear. (1/2 🧵)

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Dr. Grace — Science Communication @gracetalkslanguage.bsky.social · 13/02/2026

But what does this mean for language acquisition? Well, to me, the ultimate takeaway is that if we can’t even define who is a “native speaker”, why is the goal of language acquisition to become “native like” or “first-language like”? Perhaps the end goal is just continual development (3/3 🧵).

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Dr. Grace — Science Communication @gracetalkslanguage.bsky.social · 13/02/2026

Across all five years and all ten classes, I’ve never seen a class come to agreement on how to define a ‘native speaker’ of a language! This really highlights just how difficult it is to pin down, even for linguists! (2/3 🧵).

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Dr. Grace — Science Communication @gracetalkslanguage.bsky.social · 13/02/2026

Fun fact, day 12! This one is a bit more personalized 🙂 Across five years and ten classes (upwards of 200+ students), I have asked every class “how do you define a native speaker.” (1/3 🧵).

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Dr. Grace — Science Communication @gracetalkslanguage.bsky.social · 13/02/2026

That is, it’s almost as if the two languages “talk.” In that case, it raises the question of how, or whether, we can compare the second language to the first! In other words, what does it mean to “sound like a first language speaker”, or “to sound native-like” in the first place? (2/2 🧵)

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Dr. Grace — Science Communication @gracetalkslanguage.bsky.social · 13/02/2026

Fun fact, day 11! Some scholars suggest that when you speak two languages, you have an “interlanguage”, or a mental grammar that is unique to the influence of both your first and second languages. (1/2 🧵)

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Dr. Grace — Science Communication @gracetalkslanguage.bsky.social · 12/02/2026

Day 10! Continuing EEG fun facts, there are “neural signatures” (or, basically, brain waves that happen at different times and that are differently shaped) that suggest that we process oddities with meaning (semantics) differently than we process oddities with grammar (syntax). Pretty cool!

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Dr. Grace — Science Communication @gracetalkslanguage.bsky.social · 12/02/2026

In EEG, electrodes are placed all over the scalp. Electrodes placed over one part of the scalp can still pick up activity from different locations of the brain. One thing EEG CAN do well is tell us in milliseconds *when* something happens! (We call this temporal precision.) (3/3 🧵)

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Dr. Grace — Science Communication @gracetalkslanguage.bsky.social · 12/02/2026

Actually, on an episode of Grey’s Anatomy, the doctors suggested using EEG on a patient suffering from seizures, to nail down the location of those seizures. But actually, EEG actually can’t reveal the location in the brain of where things happen. (2/3 🧵)

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Dr. Grace — Science Communication @gracetalkslanguage.bsky.social · 12/02/2026

Day 9! (Almost caught up.) Linguists who study the brain are called psycholinguists and neurolinguists. Psycho- and neurolinguists can use a technique that measures brain waves to study how your brain responds to language. This is called electroencephalography, or EEG. (1/3 🧵)

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Dr. Grace — Science Communication @gracetalkslanguage.bsky.social · 11/02/2026

As the word unfolds, your brain narrows down which word to “select” and can rule out the competing candidates. (2/2 🧵)

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Dr. Grace — Science Communication @gracetalkslanguage.bsky.social · 11/02/2026

Day 8! (Catching up from a busy couple days!) When you first hear a word begin to be a spoken, your brain has lots of other words activated at the same time, based on the commonalities in sound between all the words (1/2 🧵)

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Dr. Grace — Science Communication @gracetalkslanguage.bsky.social · 08/02/2026

In a bilingual environment, a baby will be able to hear the distinct sounds in both languages, even after this six month mark! For example, a baby consistently exposed to both English and Spanish will be able to hear and perceive the distinct sounds of both languages.

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Dr. Grace — Science Communication @gracetalkslanguage.bsky.social · 08/02/2026

Day 7! (Just a touch late.) Did you know that babies can distinguish sounds in all languages until about 6 months to 1 year of age? Then, they begin to show preference towards their native language.

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Dr. Grace — Science Communication @gracetalkslanguage.bsky.social · 08/02/2026

Day 6! (A little late!) Day 6 fun fact is that we develop sensitivity to sound even before we’re born — we begin to develop sensitivity to rhythm (what linguists call “prosodic patterns”) in utero!

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Reposted by Dr. Grace — Science Communication

Merriam-Webster @merriam-webster.com · 07/02/2026

There, there…

tweet: “as English speakers we have to sort out the 'had had' situation. it's frankly embarrassing to the language”

Merriam-Webster Quote Tweet: “But, it’s not wrong that that occurs.”

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Dr. Grace — Science Communication @gracetalkslanguage.bsky.social · 06/02/2026

For another example, if we speak a Romance language like Spanish or French, if we hear the article “la” we’re unconsciously predicting that a “feminine” noun will come next! (3/3 🧵)

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Dr. Grace — Science Communication @gracetalkslanguage.bsky.social · 06/02/2026

For example, for English speakers, if we hear a sentence like “I love dogs”, as soon as we hear the word “love” we’re unconsciously predicting that a noun will come next (the object of “love”, or what we love), based on what we know about English grammar! (2/3 🧵)

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Dr. Grace — Science Communication @gracetalkslanguage.bsky.social · 06/02/2026

Day 5! Give it up for day five! Keeping on with the theme of the past few days, while we’re processing language, we’re also generating predictions about what comes next! (1/3 🧵)

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Dr. Grace — Science Communication @gracetalkslanguage.bsky.social · 05/02/2026

In the sentence “I like dancing” we’re taking in everything while we’re processing that sentence, from the “l” sound in the word “like”, all the way up the word’s meanings, and the grammar or “syntax” of the sentence! (2/2 🧵)

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Dr. Grace — Science Communication @gracetalkslanguage.bsky.social · 05/02/2026

Day 4! Continuing on in the theme of yesterday’s fun fact, when we process language, we process it “incrementally” ! Take the sentence “I like dancing.” (1/2 🧵)

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Dr. Grace — Science Communication @gracetalkslanguage.bsky.social · 04/02/2026

Day 3! Today’s fun fact is that we process language in a millisecond-by-millsecond fashion! I’m including a video to illustrate JUST how fast that is — it took me 23 milliseconds just to start and stop my stopwatch!

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Dr. Grace — Science Communication @gracetalkslanguage.bsky.social · 02/02/2026

I went to repeat the phrase I had just said in Danish (“jeg skal afleverer telefonen” or similar), into English, and I said “I'm going to turn in my cell phone," which would more or less be the direct translation of what I had said in Danish. And, I forgot how to say “return” in English! (3/3 🧵)

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Dr. Grace — Science Communication @gracetalkslanguage.bsky.social · 02/02/2026

An example: the Danish verb "to return" is "at aflevere." The direct translation however, means "to turn in” or “deliver”. One day, after about a year of living in Denmark and speaking Danish every day, I was returning a cellphone I had been borrowing for a while. (2/3 🧵)

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Dr. Grace — Science Communication @gracetalkslanguage.bsky.social · 02/02/2026

It’s Day 2! Did you know that you can technically “lose” or forget parts of your first language? Well, it’s a bit more complicated than that. For example, if you spend a lot of time speaking your second language, you might become more proficient in your second language than your first! (1/3 🧵)

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Dr. Grace — Science Communication @gracetalkslanguage.bsky.social · 02/02/2026

To some this might sound obvious, but there is an entire (sub)field of study that is dedicated to studying how people learn and process second or more languages, called Second Language Acquisition. This would have blown my mind ten years ago! (2/2 🧵)

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Dr. Grace — Science Communication @gracetalkslanguage.bsky.social · 02/02/2026

It’s February 1st, which means it’s Fun Fact February! Every day this month, I’m sharing a new fun fact about second language acquisition/language processing. Today’s fun fact… (1/2 🧵)

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Dr. Grace — Science Communication @gracetalkslanguage.bsky.social · 08/08/2025

Check out my new Substack post, breaking down the difference between our mind and our brain! open.substack.com/pub/gracetal...

open.substack.com

The mind vs. the brain 🧠

Is there a difference?

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Dr. Grace — Science Communication @gracetalkslanguage.bsky.social · 27/06/2025

How does bilingualism impact our mind and our brain? Check out my new Substack post! In short, when we speak multiple languages, they’re all “active” at the same time. Our brain performs a constant “juggling act” when we speak multiple languages! substack.com/@gracetalksl...

substack.com

How does bilingualism impact the mind and brain?

In my last post, I wrote about how difficult it can be to define bilingualism – there are many, many factors that affect the bilingual experience (aptly named, as even more to point, no one person exp...

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