Marsh’s Swamp

Marshall | 19 | INTP/J | he/him | main: gloomyxenophon | biotech major & linguistics minor 🌾

[studyswamp]

studyblr intro!

a little about me:

- my name is Marshall, but my friends call me Marsh

- i’m 18 and a freshman in college

- i’m trans ftm and queer

- i know English, Spanish, and Dutton Speedwords

-I’m learning Lojban and Kouri-Vini

- I just have just a few mental and chronic illnesses, but we’re coping

my interests:

- cats

- art (I love oil painting but I’ve done just about every medium lol)

- music

- constructed and reconstructed languages

- logic and mathematics

- neuroscience

-artificial intelligence

- the environment

- graphology

- being a cool cat 😎 (my main is @gloomyxenophon )

academics:

- aiming for a PhD in computational neuroscience (maybe a comp. neurolinguistics specialty?)

- IB program veteran 😒

- analytic geometry and calc 1

- intro to linguistics

- language and culture

- intro to chemistry

- life in the universe

- learning Python

I hope I can make some friends and find even more inspiration from other studyblrs!

Mwah 💋,

Marsh (@studyswamp)

[studyswamp]

why does this look so satisfying???

[studyswamp]

some sage green summary notes in preparation for my first exam of the summer. idk what it is, but at some point something just clicked and now i understand so much more than i thought i would!

[studyswamp]

haven’t taken paper-pencil notes in over a year! my eyesight definitely does not like the inability to zoom in…👓

[studyswamp]

finally settling into the summer semester! i’m so glad i decided to take chem this semester so that i can dedicate more time to it!

[brucebocchi]

i’m the professor of eating dirt call me loam chompsky

[realcleverscience]

[studyswamp]

thus ends season two of undergrad! i’m gonna miss calc, but i’m pumped to start doing more chemistry and bio!

[sadcypher]

stinky study buddy!!

[studyswamp]

exam on monday! tfw you think you have a really good handle on the content but your professor says the test is gonna be hard, so you start sweating

[studyswamp]

my hands are cramping, but this is so satisfying...

[studyswamp]

i am once again photo-dumping my math notes in a desperate attempt to gain motivation on this fine morning.

[lagom-languages-deactivated2022]

Cognitive Load Theory and Language Learning

aka “Me Pretending I’m Doing My Assignment”.

Cognitive Load Theory is what I’m currently studying in educational psychology and you guys seem to like it when I talk about theories of second language acquisition so here we go.

What you first need to know is this:

Learning is essentially engraining information, concepts, and processes, in our long-term memory. 

We take in new information through our sensory memory, which is processed in our working memory. Working memory is the main one to keep in mind here. What we do with information in our working memory determines whether or not it ends up in our long-term memory. 

So what’s cognitive load?

Cognitive load is basically the amount of space we have in our working memory. In other words, it’s the amount of mental space, or our capacity to put in mental effort. There are three sections that make up our total cognitive load:

Intrinsic load = the effort it takes to process the inherent difficulty of the task/information.

Extraneous load = the effort it takes to process unnecessary information that doesn’t contribute to learning.

Germane load = the effort it takes to encode the new information into our long-term memory.

As teachers, even of ourselves, we want to manage intrinsic load, and reduce the amount of extraneous load as much as possible, so as to make room in our cognitive capacity for germane load - actually learning the information.

Applying this to language-learning.

Have conversations with yourself in your TL: This is known as the “Imagination and Self Explanation Effect”, and has shown to increase the construction of schemas (commitment of information to long-term memory). Talk to yourself. Explain new concepts to yourself. Pretend you’re in your target language country and you need to ask a stranger how to get to the train station.

Avoid using too many new resources at once: We all know that just using Duolingo isn’t going to teach you a language. With that being said, it’s important to not use too many resources either, particularly in the beginner stages when intrinsic load is high. If you’re using three textbooks, extraneous load will increase because you’re constantly having to adjust to the new textbook’s different colour scheme, different font, different flow and presentation of information. You’ll have less room left for the all-important germane load. Try to stick to one textbook.

Make sure input is comprehensive: This is a favourite of mine. If I’m a beginner in a language, watching a TV show for adults will hardly contribute to my learning at all. All my working memory capacity will be consumed by intrinsic load, because the task is far too difficult, and this will leave no room for germane load. Making input more comprehensive can mean choosing texts that are written for a younger audience, and/or texts with which you are already familiar (because understanding plot, character relationships, etc. also uses load).

Learn languages that are similar to each other: The disadvantage of learning similar languages is getting them mixed up. However, the advantage of learning a language similar to one that we already know, is that we have already constructed schemas in our long-term memory, which can be retrieved (see first diagram) when processing information from the new language in our working memory. Again, this reduces cognitive overload, and we can learn faster.

Get a teacher: I know many of you won’t want to hear this, but self-studying overwhelms cognitive load to a massive degree. When you are having to find your own resources, understand and explain concepts to yourself, etc. this all requires load, and this can all be removed with a teacher, freeing up more space for germane load. In other words, you’re expending a lot of your limited capacity for mental effort on all these unnecessary things when you could be using that effort on actually learning the content. Indeed, the main takeaway from this theory is that explicit teaching works best.

Stop translating: I see a lot of posts where people write out a sentence or paragraph translated into several of their target languages, The actual effort of translating, as opposed to thinking in your TL, uses load. 

[chrysa1lism]

studying is starting to grow on me

[studyswamp]

gorgeous notes!!

[allthingslinguistic]

How to teach yourself linguistics online for free

Wish you were enrolled in an intro linguistics class this semester? Starting a linguistics major and looking for extra help? Trying to figure out whether you should study linguistics and what comes after?  Whether you’re just trying to grasp the basics of linguistics or you’re trying to construct a full online linguistics course, here’s a comprehensive list of free linguistics websites, podcasts, videos, blogs, and other resources from around the internet: 

Linguistics Podcasts

Specific episodes:

The International Phonetic Alphabet

Constituency

Gricean Maxims

Kids These Days aren’t ruining language

Learning languages linguistically

Podcasts in general:

Lingthusiasm

The History of English Podcast

Talk the Talk

Lexicon Valley

The World in Words

A Way With Words

Linguistics Videos

Modular topics:

NativLang (cartoons)

The Ling Space

Tom Scott’s Language Files

Arika Okrent (whiteboard videos)

Structured video series like an online course:  

Introduction to Linguistics (TrevTutor)

Another intro linguistics series (DS Bigham)

Phonology (TrevTutor)

Mathematical linguistics (TrevTutor)

Syntax (TrevTutor)

Another syntax series following the chapter structure of a free online syntax textbook (Caroline Heycock)

The Virtual Linguistics Campus at Marburg University

Blog posts

General

How much do I need to know before taking intro linguistics? (Spoiler: not much) 

28 tips for doing better in your intro linguistics course

How to find a topic for your linguistics essay or research paper

For typesetting linguistics symbols: What is LaTeX and why do linguists love it? (with sample LaTeX doc to download and modify).

Further linguistics resources about specific areas, such as sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics, language acquisition (first/second), historical linguistics, neurolinguistics, prescriptivism. 

Phonetics & Phonology

How to make your own paper model of the larynx

Teaching phonetics using lollipops

How to remember the IPA vowel chart

How to remember the IPA consonant chart

IPA transcription practice

A detailed explanation of sonorants, obstruents, and sonority

A very elaborate Venn diagram of English phonological features

The basics of how Optimality Theory works, with coffee analogy

Allophones of /t/, explained with internet gifs

Several good visualizations and explanations of the vocal tract

How to type IPA on your phone (Android and iOS) 

Various ways to type IPA on a computer

Morphology & Syntax

Morphological typology cartoons

So you asked the internet how to draw syntax trees. Here’s why you’re confused.

Types of trees: a sentence is an S, a sentence is an IP, a sentence is a TP

A step-by-step guide to drawing a syntax tree, with gifs

Distributed Morphology

Garden path sentences: how they work, some examples

Structural ambiguity and understanding people in Ipswich

How to draw trees on a computer (TreeForm and phpSyntaxTree) 

Pronoun typology and “the gay fanfiction problem”

The solution to violent example sentences: Pokemon

Semantics & Pragmatics

The difference between epistemic and deontic, necessity and possibility (with bonus modals as Hogwarts houses)

Why learn semantics? Comebacks to annoying people.

Presuppositions, implicature and entailment, and more presuppositions in Lizzie Bennet Diaries

Gricean maxims in Welcome to Night Vale

Scalar implicature and a duck gif

Giving a shit about Negative Polarity Items, NPIs explained using Mean Girls references, and a follow-up on Free Choice Items

The lambda calculus for absolute dummies

The Lambda Calculator (software for practising in Heim & Kratzer style)

Teaching & Academic/career advice

Linguistics resources for high school teachers

Teaching linguistics to 9-14 year olds

On writing an IB extended essay in linguistics (& follow-up)

IPA Bingo

IPA Jeopardy and IPA Hangman

Practising syntax trees using cards and string/straws

Find a linguistics olympiad near you!

Editing linguistics Wikipedia articles instead of writing a final paper that no one but the prof will read (see also wikiedu.org)

Should you go to grad school in linguistics? Maybe

Figuring out if you actually want to go to linguistics grad school

How to decide which linguistics grad school to go to

How to look for linguistics undergrad programs

How to interact with someone who’s just given a talk

An extensive list of undergrad and/or student-friendly conferences - apply to one near you!

Linguistics jobs - a series about careers outside academia

Languages

Linguistic approaches to language learning resource roundup

Will linguistics help with language learning? / Will learning a second language help with linguistics?

The problem with “economically useful” as a reason for language learning

Further link roundups

This list not enough? Try these further masterposts: 

A very long list of linguistics movies, documentaries, and TV show episodes

Books (fiction and nonfiction) about linguistics

Linguistics podcasts

Linguistics videos on YouTube

20 linguistics blogs I recommend following

How to explain linguistics to your friends and family this holiday season

[cileekk]

[studyswamp]

studying for friday’s math exam! lets hope i don’t have a tic attack during this one like last time!!