📣 We are recruiting participants for a paid research study via Prolific! We are looking for non-native English speakers living in Canada to participate in an online study.

Check out the poster below for details and eligibility! 👇

Graphic with black background. A transparent pink heart and yellow square overlap each. The shapes look like speech bubbles in conversation. Text on the graphic reads: Celebrate Multilingual SFU Feb 22–28. Our stories, our languages. Embrace diversity  •  break barriers  •  build connections.

Join SFU Multilingual Week February 23 to 28, 2026.
Celebrate linguistic diversity in a week-long series of event: a keynote, talks, panels, roundtable discussions, and a language and culture expo. Everyone is welcome—students, faculty members, and staff. And it's free!
www.sfu.ca/wll/mlw.html

Nice examples of toddler overgeneralization in English past tense in this banger

Why Taylor Swift’s Accent Has Changed And yours might too.

second dialect acquisition in The Atlantic! I'm quoted in this piece (along w/@abbyjwalker.bsky.social & other linguists) #linguistics

Bilingual Brains, Better Outcomes?: The Benefits of Multilingual Upbringing Bilingualism shapes minds, identities, and relationships. Research shows it’s more than a “brain boost”—it’s about connection and resilience.

Bilingual Brains, Better Outcomes?: The Benefits of Multilingual Upbringing; Raising kids multilingual can boost brain development and future success.

Polyglot Delivers Speech to High Schoolers in Their “Native” Gen Alpha Slang “It’s lowkey a huge W to be vibing here…”

Slang is an important part of sociolinguistics - an ever-evolving rite of passage as we come of age, giving us a window into different cultures and social groups. Mastering it as an outsider is tough, but when we do, it opens up a new avenue of belonging: mymodernmet.com/gen-alpha-ta...

Do You Think Differently in Different Languages? The brain’s response to information depends on language’s grammatical structure

Does your language's grammar change how you think? A fascinating argument calling for the incorporation of more diversity when crafting linguistic models to provide a realistic picture of human language-based thinking: www.scientificamerican.com/article/does...

2024 Awards for Excellence in Teaching

🎉 Congratulations to our Lab Director, Dr. Henny Yeung, for this esteemed honour! We are so very proud of you! www.sfu.ca/vpacademic/n...

Is there a limit to how many languages a baby can learn? It depends on the input a child receives! This study not only supports this idea, but also explores direct vs. indirect input in infant language learning: www.eurekalert.org/news-release...

The people who 'see' foreign languages: How synaesthesia can help language learning Synaesthesia is a neurological condition found to enhance memory and learning. Now, scientists say seeing in colour could help when it comes to learning a second language.

The people who 'see' foreign languages: How synaesthesia can help language learning #BBC www.bbc.com/future/a...

Depending on where you live in the world, it can be difficult to source books in one's native language to read to children. This is a (free!) fill-in-the-blanks book that allows caregivers to use their language of choice! Great for bi- or multilingual families and a wonderful resource all around.

We're kicking off Multilingual Week today, with an exciting panel tonight! ⤵️ Happening all week until March 1, we have film screenings, workshops, lectures and more. All events are free & open to everyone. Check out the full schedule: www.sfu.ca/wll/mlw

President Joy Johnson is excited to invite you to SFU's Multilingual Week, a vibrant festival that celebrates the diversity of languages spoken within our community.
www.sfu.ca/wll/mlw

@mortabasi.bsky.social @sfuhumanities.bsky.social @sfulinguistics.bsky.social

Escape goats? Carpool tunnel syndrome? The science of mispronounced words Here & Now revisits one of the show’s favorite topics: mispronounced words. It turns out we all do it — sometimes spending years or decades convinced we’re saying a word correctly until we find out we’re not.

Escape goats? Carpool tunnel syndrome? The science of mispronounced words #wbur www.wbur.org/hereand...

This thread is excellent! This duo is also displaying shared eye gaze, joint attention, and parental responsiveness to the child's cues - all of which are crucial to language development. It may look like the child is "swiping" the book pages, but there's more to it if we peel back the layers!

This is super niche, but what fun! Wondering what other beloved games can be...linguistified? 🤔

For linguists, a cartoon is never just a cartoon! An excellent discussion on choices made in children's media that are more than meets the eye (and ears!).

New year, new activities! We're looking for participants aged 4.5 to 18 months for our paid infant language research studies. We have online and in-person studies for BC residents. For more information, DM us or click on the link! bit.ly/3C6dnuw

Wishing you and your loved ones a jolly holiday season, from everyone at the SFU LangDev Lab.

See you in 2025!

The 2024 LinguisticsNOW Colloquium was delivered by @cbchang.bsky.social in partnership with UBC Linguistics. Sharing research from @pamlab.bsky.social, Dr. Chang explored the dynamics of cross-linguistic influence among one’s first and additional languages.
#langsky #language #multilingual #SFU

🤔 A fun thing to try (to put yourself in the shoes of an infant learning a new language!) is to watch an episode - with the subtitles turned off - of a series in a language that you're not fluent in. Can you predict the meanings of some words? Is this hard? Or super easy?

Are we late to the party with Gramle?! A Spectrogram version of Wordle, this is a fantastically frustrating game for linguistics fanatics to lose their mind over during the holidays: nascl.rc.nau.edu/gramle/