when you study linguistics you tend not to judge people on their accents or dialects. education really does remove racism and inequality Edit: it's been 3 years and I only just realized how many likes this got. Thank you all.
Accents and dialects are not the same thing. Accents are formed from knowing how to produce the phonemes for a language correctly, using the correct number of phonemes, and the correct sequence of phonemes for producing words. People that have an incorrect accent simply means that they have not yet been taught how to use phonemes correctly for their target language. So, when an individual studies linguistics they will know about a thing called phonemic awareness. Dialects are languages that stem from a root language. For example... English is a Western Germanic dialect that is extinct. However, "English" speakers actually speak the German dialect..."Saxon". Anyways.. if I am wrong.. sorry.. ha ha ha
Z Koibito it could be possible. i like to think of accents and dialects like this; I am from New Zealand and I speak the English language. I have a New Zealand accent, however, I speak using an Australian dialect. We do not use a British or American dialect. A similar situation is Canada and USA use the same dialect but have different accents. Hence, I cannot tell the difference between a US accent and Canadian accent due to the dialect. Similarly, it can be quite difficult, even for me, to tell the difference between an Australian and New Zealand accent when I hear it on TV or UA-cam; and yes it is as offensive to say that Canadian and US accents sound the same as it is for New Zealand and Australia.
Why is it that people are so critical of the way that she talks? Did you even bother to listen to what she was actually saying? This talk was amazing and very interesting! A huge amount of work was obviously put into this talk and it was delivered incredibly well. I challenge all of those who are criticizing her to get up on a TED stage and deliver a talk to hundreds of people. I swear, people have no empathy.
I would like this lady to narrate an audio book. I think her accent and tone is exceptionally pleasant. Who cares if the mic is picking up little sounds. How many of you complaining have ever tried speaking in public? Personally my mouth dries up immediately when I get in front of a group.
As someone who is very much interested in language and linguistics, this was absolutely brilliant! The world is gradually becoming more and more Americanized, so I'm sure a lot of people, including myself, already knew about the medial "valley-girl" *like*, but not the socio-linguistic Irish *like*! My mother tongue is Arabic, and I realized that there is an equivalent to "like" in the Jordanian dialect, and this has made me want to investigate that tbh. Very cool stuff!
i agree, this is a very well done talk she gives. I'm American, but I went to study with a specialist in my field who lived in Southern Sweden. I learned my limited Swedish lexicon mainly from TV -- and the basis of my pronounciation was from a TV ad featuring a grisly Harbor Seagull (a Swedish equivalent to the Geico gecko), so my swedish accent is like a very rough sailor.
A rough Swedish sailor... Definitely a stretch for my mind to imagine lol But I do wonder about the linguistic turns your Swedish might've taken since living there. Are you sounding more like a polished sailor? Have you linguistically assimilated to whatever it is that interests you about the culture? Or has only the jargon of your field developed the most? You'd be an interesting case-study :P
***** :) maybe so..another person i met who was trained in linguistics and who was excellent at pinpointing American English geographically couldn't pinpoint mine (he could only narrow it to mid-Atlantic East Coast, non-seagull). (in my field(horse training)...i can follow along in transactions, veterinary, and training in Swedish, Dutch & German, but i'm sure I butcher all of the languages, so a seagull and farmer hybrid. i have some teaching videos filled with my voice if you are actually curious to hear, let me know :) fun to 'talk' to you :) p.s. the horses always know what i mean, that's the main thing :)
I actually checked out one of your videos, and it sucks that I don't know any Swedish or Dutch. I know a small bit of German, but not well enough to detect any change in your inflection or any influence those languages may have made on your English. Thank you nonetheless! Now I know the difference between a straight horse and a curved horse :P
:)Hi Tatiana, that is great you could see the difference...most people can't! if you're ever speaking with other horsemen, a horse whose body is curved along a curved line is also said to be 'straight'. it is one of the peculiarities and confusing points in the vernacular of horsemanship. (i didn't mention it in the video because i try to keep one subject point to each video) the net/net is: when the spine is over the line of travel from ears through tail, the horseman's term is 'straight'.
Very pleasant and well paced voice. She is intelligent and engaging. Love her voice and calm presence. Excellent story teller - enunciates well. She is awesome.
Why so many dislikes? Such a well spoken, BOMB lady, with an incredibly informative and interesting presentation on aspects of language that most of us are ignorant about. Great stuff!
the same people who would ridicule speakers with heavy accents, or speech problems, or wearing dentures....you get my drift? Ridicule the speaker so they don't have to think about the message. How immature.
+Stefan Travis I disagree. Think about it. If people are influenced by BOTH socioeconomic factors as well as agency, then they hit a middle ground. Thus how you speak doesn't really say all that much about you. She said it herself- Mariusz and Anna were outliers.
So thankful for my linguistics professor who taught us that American slang doesn't mean we're stupid, but just as smart as people who speak proper English.
People complaining never spoke publicly, you can tell. I speak publicly for an academic team, it's hard to go up and deliver what you feel matters to you. I like her voice, it's very professional and confident. Study the way her points move her around the stage..positive neutral negative. (Or vice versa)
Her speech reveals that she is a very logical, methodical, analytical and clear minded woman. very detailed style of conversation and expression. I am also like this.
Nietzsche has already said that identity is not what we are but who we want to become. I love when great scientists - like Vera Regan - by their devotion to research can confirm (or at least test) some intuitions that thinkers or artists had expressed based just on their own observations and self-reflection.
Like seems to be a comma substitution people punctuate ideas with when they're thinking of the next thing to say. You can do the same thing with 'right' (watch TYT - Cenk and Ana do it all the time), or 'OK' or 'you know' and doubtless many similar 'throw away' expressions.
like is used in similes (comparison using like or as,,,, throwback to elem :,)) so ig? that shows these newer generations (including me) can compare a lot of our lives/things we experience to things that have happened before because theres "so much" before us to reference to? not in all cases, but in some ??
It's also an approximater. You could say, "She seemed to be about 6 feet tall" or you could say, "She was like 6 feet tall." It's also used instead of "he said" or "she said." You can just say, "he was like...[insert quote]." It has many great uses.
At about 8:20: "more local in outlook at times". I can only admire the deftness and precision with which she puts that euphrmistc understatement just the right distance away from being an outright insult.
In your bus conversation and slides, you're actually discussing two differing forms of 'like', once both used in the same sentence: - She was like, "Cheers" - He was like it's only like two miles. The first like (inseparable from the verb 'to be' = ''was like'') is just the verb for reported speech, and can be interchanged with "to say". - She was like "Cheers" = She said "Cheers" - He was like "It's only like two miles" = He said, "It's only like two miles" The second like is the clausal like, which can be either marginal, medial, or completely absent without changing the meaning. - It's only, like, two miles = It's only two miles, like = It's only two miles. - She was like "Cheers" ≠ She was "Cheers", like ≠ She was "Cheers".
+panicatdx I find the topic interesting, But I find the sounds that dry mouth speakers make to be vomit inducing. I feel about it the same way most people feel about doing things like eating shit or rancid roadkill. It just makes me physically ill to listen to.
+scurvofpcp If you were standing in front of her listening to her talk you wouldn't actually hear this. All TED's videos are like this; they've just done a poor job of sound-editing.
+Kadulikan Not all of them, And I've done sound editing work. It is not that they did a poor job. They did no work on it, that is two very different things. Although in fairness I do know people who make those sounds when they talk. And I've listened to quite a few Ted Video's and most of them do not have this problem to this extent.
I don't know if it's a headphone users thing, but I scrolle ddown to the comments halfway down this video to discover people were obsessing over this, and I previously hadn't noticed it. Once I did notice it, I quickly tuned it out. On speakers it's really not that distracting. Worst case scenario turn the speakers down low enough where you can hear her voice without hearing the sound.
I wrote about something similar and I am amazed that someone understands this concept. I wrote the piece right after listening to BJ Miller Ted Talk. I notice he used a little bit of imagery but what really touched me was the way he delivered his speech. It made me think about how people tell stories.What’s the order of the words? The vocabulary? The style? Very important characteristics to determine what kind of person you're talking to.
Observing the evolution of Grammar as it happen. So cool! I also really liked the speaker herself refreshingly nonjudgemental & great at synthesizing the human factor with precise analysis. As a writer I evidently know how language/ word choice can be used to convey a message, feeling or the personality of your characters (and the likes of Shakespeare or certain Japanese writers have used such differences to highly stylized extremes) and I'd heard that your personality type can influence certain things (and once I read that I couldn't unsee it), but I didn't know it was this frequent in everyday casual language use beyond obvious things like formality level. I mean using internet words IRL very much IS kind of like being part of a culture even though it's mostly simple habit.
I was fascinated with her speech. Than I scrolled down to see the comments and.. Wow. I see why there is so many people with problems. They simply can't hear or understand the simple facts. Or they are just haters because she is telling us how young women can shape the future of language
My father was Scottish, my mother sounded like Merseyside, and yet I sound like I went to Cambridge. I love language, though I am more of an artistic than an academic. I enjoy learning new words to use in conversation. The English language is beautiful. Many people consider it embarrassing to speak correctly as they fear ridicule from their peers, but English is our birthright, we should embrace it.
Woow, absolutely amazing and hit the nail on the head without even insulting anybody! Far from being taken as a language passionate, it feels great to share the common concern with the like minded members of the society, such as Vera Regan. I too have a growing contempt, or let's put it that way; 'dislike' for the excessive and unnecessary use of 'like". But the way how the language is abused seems to be unstoppable in the short run. The question is; could this be nipped in the bud?
My favorite thing is the understood differences and uses for things like said and the other ways to convey that, and how people of at least the younger generations understand it while never actually being taught it. Some people, especially older generations have problems with "was like" instead of said, or "was all" as well. Thing is, they're used to fill in a gap we didn't have before, especially verbally, to convey how exact we're being. "John said" is an exact quote or a very close to exact. "John was like" means its's not exactly the same words but it conveys the meaning of what was said. "John was all" is very paraphrased, likely not close to the real words at all, frequently there was an emotional reaction of some kind to what is being described. It's also frequently mocking. It may not be "proper english" the way we learn in school, but a way of being able to more specifically communicate was developed in the last 10/15 years or so. It's not even something people have to think about, we just understand it and use it without any need for it to be explained, and I find that fascinating.
your pronunciation of the Polish names Mariusz and Anna are spot on. Polish speakers would most likely not pronounce them with such a grace and accuracy! Reminds me of the generations of grandparents who used verbal communication a loy more then through texts obviously, plus they are well read have great memory and are silver-tongued.
Culture in action! I was expecting some boarder sense of guidelines that people can use to better understand colloquialism, but this was a well curated talk for the live audience present during the talk.
Even where I live, in the Netherlands (not an English speaking country, though everyone learns it in school), lots of young women use the 'like'. It's so interesting!
These top comments suck! She was amazing and spot! I love how she ended it! Yessss! We are the movers and the shakers and we are the future! She ripped it. xD
I grew up in England, but my mother is full on, 100% Irish. This means my use of the word "like" is everywhere- "Like, she was like, really tall like." It's a habit that feels impossible to break out of and no-one takes me seriously, haha.
I recently came across the TEDx Talks videos. Most are quite interesting. As much as this might be I couldn't get away from the sound of her gums when she talks. Now you all will hear it. You're welcome.
Great video ! Small correction. As a Polish speaker I would like to add that we do have equivalent to English ‚like’ which is ‚tak, taki, taka, takie’. It was like ... = to bylo takie… And then she was like … = A wtedy ona na to tak … We don’t use it at the end of the sentence though, like Irish do :) ❤ great content !
I've never understood why people get upset over language changing. In fact, one of the greatest things about the English language is that it is constantly evolving. It is not beholden to the same 'rules' as other languages - that's what makes it SUCH a universal language, as it never stops evolving to be what we NEED it to be. I find it REALLY interesting actually, not something to be denigrated or looked down upon.
Reminds me of psychs who categorize someone's entire personality and developmental history by the way they fold a map. I'm glad she mentioned outliers, because there are plenty, and many people speak quite differently in different situations.
9 років тому+11
This is such an interesting topic, indeed! And the way she presented it was simply perfect. Clear, sharp and illustrative. I've just become a fan of this woman yaaaaay
@@ProwerAdmirer And of course you're the prime example of what we should model our language after, right? Everyone listen to the linguistic teachings of "Mr. Orgasm", who can't even use quotation marks properly.
Her mouth was probably dry because she was nervous. If all you can focus on is that sound that you can hear because of some problem with the technology, you obviously wouldn't gain anything from the video even if you would listen to. The reason for that is because you don't really care for any new information with al the britney spears' videos out there. Just stop commenting on this video and move on over to something that doesn't annoy you. She isn't saying anything offensive, just trying to give a nice, informative ted talk.
i would actually argue that there's another function of "like" in f.ex. "and he was, like, 'what are you doing' ". it signals that you're about to paraphrase someone. you're not quoting them, but expressing general meaning and attitude, emotional load if you will, of what they said. also there's something similar in poznan (a city in poland) and it's surroundings to irish "like". it's "tej" (pronounced "tEy") but literally no one uses this except for people in that area
It can show your history, experience and influences. And if you have multiple styles you like to write or speak in, shows your love of playing characters/appreciation of differences and variation.
9:28 to 9:36 If you've ever moved to a country where people speak a language that's not your native, you know that this sort of thing happens a lot. Definitely not just a "like" phenomenon. Idk, I don't find it so extraordinarily. I think we might even experience that in our native tongue at least once. I'm really surprised at the manner with which she presented that. Was she just inclining to make it more understandable for the (monolingual in the) audience? Nevertheless what she then explained up to 10:46 was very interesting. It should be an obvious thing imo, but it was nice to have someone kinda "wrap it up" all at once. A very interesting talk.
shes a good speaker but what she said could of been summarised in 3-5 mins, same reason I hate school, takes an hour for teacher to deliver a 5 minute message
Aiden Ashbourn it's a lesson in linguistics . most people usually judge people for not speaking the standard language, saying they're speaking incorrectly, but this is a layman perspective - linguists know that there is nothing inherently 'bad' or 'good' about language and there's nothing negative about language change, it is natural.
It's examples and proof... It's basically a university lecture. A lecturer can't just make their main point and walk away, there's gotta be some substance to the source - something interesting. I thought the talk was very interesting :)
I don't mean to be harsh, but I don't think you get the point she's making. She's not just saying that, i quote you, "language change is natural". Her main point is that variations in language reflect aspects of the speaker's identity. And I accept that, but she's not making any valid point to substantiate that claim. She presents correlation as causality, she doesn't address the fact that some variations are intentional and some are spontaneous or absorbed, she gathers data on a very specific and very limited sample (a few non-native speakers) to draw conclusions that she wants to apply to the general case... these are not cogent arguments. I'm glad you enjoyed the talk, I personally expected something different so I found it unsatisfying.
Um, I reckon you know more than one language ? This subject is riveting to me ¨in this moment¨ as I´m learning Spanish (6 years now, still no where near acceptable).....plus my teenagers are doing my head in, with their use of the word LIKE ! It was lovely reading your debate :)
I despise the condescension slang faces, so it was nice to hear such a positive perspective on it. 'Like' isn't laziness, and although I totally agree with her conclusion that it is both reflective of identity and given pride of place in the public portrayal of identity, it's not JUST that either. It's a floor-holder, because people talk over you if you go quiet while gathering your thoughts, and it's also indicative of a description as opposed to solid fact. It gives information a personal, subjective feel, rather than purely objective - like you're trying to communicate emotion and subtext as well.
It seems that the nonstandard "like" is actually a social cue/invitation for a person to actively imagine a situation, visually in many of the instances that I can recall. It has the significance of saying "words aren't quite enough here to communicate my feeling or understanding; imagine what I was thinking when I encountered [xyz situation or idea.]" There are other ways to say that. It's like "come again" compared to "I have not the pleasure of understanding you." In that sense it is quite a meaningful bid for social connection. I would hypothesize that people only use this word in this way around people whom they are comfortable or familiar with.
I don't believe anyone, on here, could come close to her ability to stand before such an educated and large crowd, w/o a dry mouth and or w/o stammering with words. I thoroughly enjoyed her.
I think she is just saying that how we communicate tells people who we are, and so it our choice to communicate the way we want. For young women, they should not feel insecure or being pushed into the way they communicate because it is their future, and they have the right to chose whatever it may be. For those who judge the ways these women talk, there is a reason that they talk the way they do, and like she said, if you don't like it, say something about it.
I had a friend -- an exchange student from Japan -- that spoke English pretty well, but every time I said something like "every time I said something like" or "and I was like," she would become quite confused.
Interesting. I'm a native Dutch speaker (from Belgium), I lived in Dublin for a while, and took over their use of like. I now live in Brussels and am constantly surrounded by French speakers, and I drop the "ne" in the negation just like I hear other French speakers do. I have a masters in languages, so I am very conscious of how I use it, but I really would have to force myself to not talk like the locals. PS I love(d) the Dublin accent :-)
It's called a joke for all of the stiffs. Obviously we're listening to her. This is obviously why we watch Ted talks. But can we have a sense of humor and sarcasm? Intelligence can recognize the difference between complaint and a little teasing. Relax
. . . Proactively setting aside [the perceptual interfering influence of distracting condemnation and judgmental] attitudes on the part of the witness, she included statistical analyses of actual vernacular speech in a few specific cultures, languages, and locations. She emphasized perceiving and understanding social significance
This is fascinating as I do not talk like most people within my community. I speak fast, i stutter without mumbling, and I use large words casually. Most people I know speak with a drawl, and prefer simplicity rather than exuberance. When I was a young child I had a serious stutter because my mother was a fast talker and I was trying to keep up with her. However, as I got older I was able to match her speed and now I find that I talk like someone who lives somewhere else, even though ive lived in my hometown my entire life!!
That was a fascinating topic to hear about. Being Russian myself, I now understand that in our language we have the word that is very similar to "like", especially to the American one. The mouth noises didn`t draw my attention at all, I was completely absorbed with the speech. Why does everybody dwell on them so much? They weren`t that blatant.
Everyone in the comment section is so concerned over the sounds coming out of her mouth that they failed to notice that the air-conditioning has dried up the grease in her right elbow? Come on man.
when you study linguistics you tend not to judge people on their accents or dialects. education really does remove racism and inequality
Edit: it's been 3 years and I only just realized how many likes this got. Thank you all.
Trance Kowhai People just shouldn't judge others based on no information about them.
WELL DEFINED!!
Trance Kowhai What a magnifficent observation, spot on I say!
Accents and dialects are not the same thing. Accents are formed from knowing how to produce the phonemes for a language correctly, using the correct number of phonemes, and the correct sequence of phonemes for producing words. People that have an incorrect accent simply means that they have not yet been taught how to use phonemes correctly for their target language. So, when an individual studies linguistics they will know about a thing called phonemic awareness. Dialects are languages that stem from a root language. For example... English is a Western Germanic dialect that is extinct. However, "English" speakers actually speak the German dialect..."Saxon". Anyways.. if I am wrong.. sorry.. ha ha ha
Z Koibito it could be possible. i like to think of accents and dialects like this; I am from New Zealand and I speak the English language. I have a New Zealand accent, however, I speak using an Australian dialect. We do not use a British or American dialect. A similar situation is Canada and USA use the same dialect but have different accents. Hence, I cannot tell the difference between a US accent and Canadian accent due to the dialect. Similarly, it can be quite difficult, even for me, to tell the difference between an Australian and New Zealand accent when I hear it on TV or UA-cam; and yes it is as offensive to say that Canadian and US accents sound the same as it is for New Zealand and Australia.
Why is it that people are so critical of the way that she talks? Did you even bother to listen to what she was actually saying? This talk was amazing and very interesting! A huge amount of work was obviously put into this talk and it was delivered incredibly well. I challenge all of those who are criticizing her to get up on a TED stage and deliver a talk to hundreds of people. I swear, people have no empathy.
Sophia Featherstone u r Sooo true
Seriously though, speed the video up to 1.5x and tell me she doesn’t sound better and more natural.
And if people don’t like to hear her then why comment. Jus today watch it, it doesn’t bother me oh well.
No one's listening to what she's saying. Everyone is more interested in HOW she's saying it. This video is about sociolinguistics, duh.
White Night Appropriate moniker. I did watch the whole thing. I improved the experience by speeding it up. Try it.
I would like this lady to narrate an audio book. I think her accent and tone is exceptionally pleasant. Who cares if the mic is picking up little sounds. How many of you complaining have ever tried speaking in public? Personally my mouth dries up immediately when I get in front of a group.
she take care on this, she pre-idrat
+elmoterolo
No way!
Drying mouth - nerves, insufficient hydration or she is diabetic and has elevated blood sugar levels.
V. Hansen you're totally right I would really like to hear her read Tolkien L.O.T.R.
If you love the video, don’t read the comments. Lots of micro-prejudice and thoughtlessness ridden like a disease here. Very intriguing talk!
This video is so much better on 1.25x speed! Please try it.
hahaha you are right!
Try 2x
thxx 💕
I always watch yt videos in 2x speed anyway
Tried that exactly and the accent disappeared! In a good way. I mean no disrespect.
As someone who is very much interested in language and linguistics, this was absolutely brilliant! The world is gradually becoming more and more Americanized, so I'm sure a lot of people, including myself, already knew about the medial "valley-girl" *like*, but not the socio-linguistic Irish *like*! My mother tongue is Arabic, and I realized that there is an equivalent to "like" in the Jordanian dialect, and this has made me want to investigate that tbh. Very cool stuff!
i agree, this is a very well done talk she gives. I'm American, but I went to study with a specialist in my field who lived in Southern Sweden. I learned my limited Swedish lexicon mainly from TV -- and the basis of my pronounciation was from a TV ad featuring a grisly Harbor Seagull (a Swedish equivalent to the Geico gecko), so my swedish accent is like a very rough sailor.
A rough Swedish sailor... Definitely a stretch for my mind to imagine lol But I do wonder about the linguistic turns your Swedish might've taken since living there. Are you sounding more like a polished sailor? Have you linguistically assimilated to whatever it is that interests you about the culture? Or has only the jargon of your field developed the most? You'd be an interesting case-study :P
***** :) maybe so..another person i met who was trained in linguistics and who was excellent at pinpointing American English geographically couldn't pinpoint mine (he could only narrow it to mid-Atlantic East Coast, non-seagull). (in my field(horse training)...i can follow along in transactions, veterinary, and training in Swedish, Dutch & German, but i'm sure I butcher all of the languages, so a seagull and farmer hybrid. i have some teaching videos filled with my voice if you are actually curious to hear, let me know :) fun to 'talk' to you :) p.s. the horses always know what i mean, that's the main thing :)
I actually checked out one of your videos, and it sucks that I don't know any Swedish or Dutch. I know a small bit of German, but not well enough to detect any change in your inflection or any influence those languages may have made on your English. Thank you nonetheless! Now I know the difference between a straight horse and a curved horse :P
:)Hi Tatiana, that is great you could see the difference...most people can't! if you're ever speaking with other horsemen, a horse whose body is curved along a curved line is also said to be 'straight'. it is one of the peculiarities and confusing points in the vernacular of horsemanship. (i didn't mention it in the video because i try to keep one subject point to each video) the net/net is: when the spine is over the line of travel from ears through tail, the horseman's term is 'straight'.
I'm in love.
I'm gonna cry.
I think I found my dream profession.
Maybe.
N The One are you gonna do her saliva sounds too
D.O's bødyrølls Infires me omg be my friend everything about this comment and your handle is amazing.
Go for it, like . :)
I'm studying linguistics, it's so worth it!!!! Go for it!
@@fardareismai4495 I'm taking linguistics next semester, I took phonetics and fell in love with it
Very pleasant and well paced voice. She is intelligent and engaging. Love her voice and calm presence. Excellent story teller - enunciates well. She is awesome.
Why so many dislikes? Such a well spoken, BOMB lady, with an incredibly informative and interesting presentation on aspects of language that most of us are ignorant about. Great stuff!
the same people who would ridicule speakers with heavy accents, or speech problems, or wearing dentures....you get my drift? Ridicule the speaker so they don't have to think about the message. How immature.
Coz she looks like hilary
her clickidy clack tongue got us cringing.
I also found her so funny and charismatic!
It has nothing to do with her as a person or what she's saying, it's the sound of saliva that's so awful about this video
I like the way she speaks...so modest.
Put the video on 1.5% speed and you'll hear it better.
+Kaspurr Cakes i dont have a day....
+Kaspurr Cakes LMAO
+Kaspurr Cakes it does。
+Kaspurr Cakes I was thinking that all the way through but couldn't be bothered to get up off of the sofa :P
+Kaspurr Cakes
1.5% speed means the video will play 66.67 times slower than normal. That's what samchanpuru was referring to.
UA-cam Rule #1: The smarter the video, the dumber the comments.
This is a smart video.
Yours is a dumb comment
>.
+Stefan Travis This video is boring af
"smart video"
It's trash
But, like, that's just your opinion!
XD
+Stefan Travis I disagree. Think about it. If people are influenced by BOTH socioeconomic factors as well as agency, then they hit a middle ground. Thus how you speak doesn't really say all that much about you.
She said it herself- Mariusz and Anna were outliers.
+Stefan Travis that makes your comment...
The mic noises don't bother me, I think this is one of the most interesting Ted talks I've ever stumbled upon.
She has a very calming effect as she speaks. Directs you to listen to her.
Yeah, I loved her talk.
yeah, her spit directs you.
So thankful for my linguistics professor who taught us that American slang doesn't mean we're stupid, but just as smart as people who speak proper English.
iloveny22 to be fair people who speak like amazeballs omg are probably not all that bright
@@dbsk06 How do you know 😭? I use slang all the time and I consider myself atleast proficient.
Vera Regan -> Rare Vegan
stop being blind, people
Monsieur Bernoulli
HAHAHA OMG
made my day
That's how dyslexics would read Vera Regan's name as. Haha!
her name is a spoonerism which is funny because spoonerisms are studied in linguistics. they produce the n400 effect thing
What's the "n400 effect thing"?
It’s so interesting, the way we speak not only reflects on who we are and where we came from but also on where we want to go and who we want to be!
Greetings from a Polish native speaker in Belgium 😊 I’m proud you have choosen us, the Poles as a subject. 🌹
This is like, so cool.
I know like!
@@anniebose3637 totes*
Didn't know Hilary Clinton was an Irish sociolinguist
Blasian Buffet hahahah well said
Blasian Buffet with an English accent no less!
Anne Lin that is not an English accent. at all.
It's very clearly an Irish accent, haha.
She's in Dublin, Ireland, speaking with an Irish accent, silly!
Apparently people are complaining about the way she speaks, but I personally think she was incredible
I'm Pole and when Vera Regan said about my nation I was very proud of it. :D
Bonifacy Brzęczyszczykiewicz dont expect the scales to tip just yet
People complaining never spoke publicly, you can tell. I speak publicly for an academic team, it's hard to go up and deliver what you feel matters to you. I like her voice, it's very professional and confident. Study the way her points move her around the stage..positive neutral negative. (Or vice versa)
Her speech reveals that she is a very logical, methodical, analytical and clear minded woman. very detailed style of conversation and expression. I am also like this.
Nietzsche has already said that identity is not what we are but who we want to become. I love when great scientists - like Vera Regan - by their devotion to research can confirm (or at least test) some intuitions that thinkers or artists had expressed based just on their own observations and self-reflection.
This video deserves a "Like"
Like seems to be a comma substitution people punctuate ideas with when they're thinking of the next thing to say. You can do the same thing with 'right' (watch TYT - Cenk and Ana do it all the time), or 'OK' or 'you know' and doubtless many similar 'throw away' expressions.
Steve Gould Very true. I catch myself saying "like" more than I want too. It's better to have pauses between sentences.
Steve Gould I enjoy colloquialisms.
like is used in similes (comparison using like or as,,,, throwback to elem :,)) so ig? that shows these newer generations (including me) can compare a lot of our lives/things we experience to things that have happened before because theres "so much" before us to reference to? not in all cases, but in some ??
These are all crutch words or fillers.
It's also an approximater. You could say, "She seemed to be about 6 feet tall" or you could say, "She was like 6 feet tall." It's also used instead of "he said" or "she said." You can just say, "he was like...[insert quote]." It has many great uses.
its pretty obvious she made up what she heard on the bus
+P “Ponyboy” Boye You could indeed be right!
+Guy Emron "We did some research on the car drive over here..."
Irish classic.
"toats"
+O'Shy xD o'Boye!
At about 8:20: "more local in outlook at times". I can only admire the deftness and precision with which she puts that euphrmistc understatement just the right distance away from being an outright insult.
In your bus conversation and slides, you're actually discussing two differing forms of 'like', once both used in the same sentence:
- She was like, "Cheers"
- He was like it's only like two miles.
The first like (inseparable from the verb 'to be' = ''was like'') is just the verb for reported speech, and can be interchanged with "to say".
- She was like "Cheers" = She said "Cheers"
- He was like "It's only like two miles" = He said, "It's only like two miles"
The second like is the clausal like, which can be either marginal, medial, or completely absent without changing the meaning.
- It's only, like, two miles = It's only two miles, like = It's only two miles.
- She was like "Cheers" ≠ She was "Cheers", like ≠ She was "Cheers".
"It was only about/around/approximately/something similar to two miles."
Or not...
Gringo Show on a side note,in my second life,my first name Gringo.
*woman talking about a very complex and interesting topic* "hahaha there are noises coming from her mouth" are you being serious?
+panicatdx I find the topic interesting, But I find the sounds that dry mouth speakers make to be vomit inducing. I feel about it the same way most people feel about doing things like eating shit or rancid roadkill.
It just makes me physically ill to listen to.
+scurvofpcp If you were standing in front of her listening to her talk you wouldn't actually hear this. All TED's videos are like this; they've just done a poor job of sound-editing.
+Kadulikan Not all of them, And I've done sound editing work. It is not that they did a poor job. They did no work on it, that is two very different things. Although in fairness I do know people who make those sounds when they talk.
And I've listened to quite a few Ted Video's and most of them do not have this problem to this extent.
I don't know if it's a headphone users thing, but I scrolle ddown to the comments halfway down this video to discover people were obsessing over this, and I previously hadn't noticed it. Once I did notice it, I quickly tuned it out.
On speakers it's really not that distracting. Worst case scenario turn the speakers down low enough where you can hear her voice without hearing the sound.
panicatdx Yeahhhhh
I wrote about something similar and I am amazed that someone understands this concept. I wrote the piece right after listening to BJ Miller Ted Talk. I notice he used a little bit of imagery but what really touched me was the way he delivered his speech. It made me think about how people tell stories.What’s the order of the words? The vocabulary? The style? Very important characteristics to determine what kind of person you're talking to.
Was I the only one that heard her saliva?
No you weren't. I believe it's the microphone positioning and set up.
The way you hear also tells a lot about you. haha
Catalin Orange I must be a kinky freak XD
NikaDokaLok no
That's what I have been reading through this whole comment stream.
Am I the only one who loves the way she speaks? I found this talk so relaxing and informative
This is like totally like the first Ted talk that I've like actually liked.
This is something every writer knows. Speaking style is important when thinking up a new character. It's a part of personality.
Observing the evolution of Grammar as it happen. So cool!
I also really liked the speaker herself refreshingly nonjudgemental & great at synthesizing the human factor with precise analysis.
As a writer I evidently know how language/ word choice can be used to convey a message, feeling or the personality of your characters (and the likes of Shakespeare or certain Japanese writers have used such differences to highly stylized extremes) and I'd heard that your personality type can influence certain things (and once I read that I couldn't unsee it), but I didn't know it was this frequent in everyday casual language use beyond obvious things like formality level.
I mean using internet words IRL very much IS kind of like being part of a culture even though it's mostly simple habit.
I concur!
No, really, that's it. With all of my eloquence, I couldn't have said it any better.
5 years later and this is still an incredible video! So fascinating!
8 years later and this is still in incredible video.
I love PBS because there are many shows where people speak with perfect grammar and diction. It's a real turn on for me when people speak well!
I was fascinated with her speech. Than I scrolled down to see the comments and..
Wow. I see why there is so many people with problems. They simply can't hear or understand the simple facts.
Or they are just haters because she is telling us how young women can shape the future of language
omg this was like soo totally informative
Yea.
Amazing speech. I'm enchanted by sociolinguistics. Language is life.
My father was Scottish, my mother sounded like Merseyside, and yet I sound like I went to Cambridge.
I love language, though I am more of an artistic than an academic.
I enjoy learning new words to use in conversation. The English language is beautiful.
Many people consider it embarrassing to speak correctly as they fear ridicule from their peers, but English is our birthright, we should embrace it.
Woow, absolutely amazing and hit the nail on the head without even insulting anybody! Far from being taken as a language passionate, it feels great to share the common concern with the like minded members of the society, such as Vera Regan. I too have a growing contempt, or let's put it that way; 'dislike' for the excessive and unnecessary use of 'like". But the way how the language is abused seems to be unstoppable in the short run. The question is; could this be nipped in the bud?
This was so interesting! I enjoyed it a lot, both as a speaker of Polish and English and as a student of linguistics.
My favorite thing is the understood differences and uses for things like said and the other ways to convey that, and how people of at least the younger generations understand it while never actually being taught it. Some people, especially older generations have problems with "was like" instead of said, or "was all" as well. Thing is, they're used to fill in a gap we didn't have before, especially verbally, to convey how exact we're being.
"John said" is an exact quote or a very close to exact.
"John was like" means its's not exactly the same words but it conveys the meaning of what was said.
"John was all" is very paraphrased, likely not close to the real words at all, frequently there was an emotional reaction of some kind to what is being described. It's also frequently mocking.
It may not be "proper english" the way we learn in school, but a way of being able to more specifically communicate was developed in the last 10/15 years or so. It's not even something people have to think about, we just understand it and use it without any need for it to be explained, and I find that fascinating.
Hillarious to hear her say "amazeballs"
your pronunciation of the Polish names Mariusz and Anna are spot on. Polish speakers would most likely not pronounce them with such a grace and accuracy! Reminds me of the generations of grandparents who used verbal communication a loy more then through texts obviously, plus they are well read have great memory and are silver-tongued.
I need this woman's job. That sounds so fascinating!
Great talk. I appreciate the value of such grand research and eloquence. I also value the meaning behind our human experience through language.
Culture in action! I was expecting some boarder sense of guidelines that people can use to better understand colloquialism, but this was a well curated talk for the live audience present during the talk.
Even where I live, in the Netherlands (not an English speaking country, though everyone learns it in school), lots of young women use the 'like'. It's so interesting!
American TV probably
Omg im indonesian and i use it too but in indonesian
These top comments suck! She was amazing and spot! I love how she ended it! Yessss! We are the movers and the shakers and we are the future! She ripped it. xD
So, I just sincerely don't understand this last statement. What is she trying to say? Educate me please!
@@bellehpham7742 If you mean the "she ripped it" it proly means that she did well
Life creates language. Life is moving and changing. Language just flows with life. Language is shaped by changes in life.
The way she spoke was so elegant. I loved it!
Madam today I learned a lot from you. Thank you my greetings from Aden - Yemen
Interesting findings! And that charming, charming Irish accent.
I grew up in England, but my mother is full on, 100% Irish. This means my use of the word "like" is everywhere- "Like, she was like, really tall like." It's a habit that feels impossible to break out of and no-one takes me seriously, haha.
I recently came across the TEDx Talks videos. Most are quite interesting.
As much as this might be I couldn't get away from the sound of her gums when she talks.
Now you all will hear it.
You're welcome.
Great video ! Small correction. As a Polish speaker I would like to add that we do have equivalent to English ‚like’ which is ‚tak, taki, taka, takie’. It was like ... = to bylo takie…
And then she was like … = A wtedy ona na to tak …
We don’t use it at the end of the sentence though, like Irish do :) ❤ great content !
In France there's an exact equivalent of like, it's "genre", used also as clause medial (man that sounds so technical...)
Thank you Vera for this wonderful talk!
al l th e m o u t h n o i s e s
Klunky Pastel omg i can't unhear it now.. the video is ruined
Klunky Pastel makes me feel sick. a linguist ought to speak proper
J. Onewhomills doesnt change the fact that it makes me feel ill.
*smack smack smack*
HER MOUTH IS DRY. It isn't that serious. lol.
I've never understood why people get upset over language changing. In fact, one of the greatest things about the English language is that it is constantly evolving. It is not beholden to the same 'rules' as other languages - that's what makes it SUCH a universal language, as it never stops evolving to be what we NEED it to be. I find it REALLY interesting actually, not something to be denigrated or looked down upon.
Reminds me of psychs who categorize someone's entire personality and developmental history by the way they fold a map. I'm glad she mentioned outliers, because there are plenty, and many people speak quite differently in different situations.
This is such an interesting topic, indeed! And the way she presented it was simply perfect. Clear, sharp and illustrative. I've just become a fan of this woman yaaaaay
In Swedish, instead of "like" we say "bah". So, "she was like, cheers" would be "Hon bah, skål". Now you know
Speaking of 'you know', 'you know's are another word cancer similar to 'like's.
@@ProwerAdmirer
And of course you're the prime example of what we should model our language after, right? Everyone listen to the linguistic teachings of "Mr. Orgasm", who can't even use quotation marks properly.
How would you pronounce 'bah' in Swedish? My first assumption would be "ba-ah" but I'm not sure!
this is so helpful, thanks!
I thought of the end "like" as "eller" på svenska...
Her mouth was probably dry because she was nervous. If all you can focus on is that sound that you can hear because of some problem with the technology, you obviously wouldn't gain anything from the video even if you would listen to. The reason for that is because you don't really care for any new information with al the britney spears' videos out there. Just stop commenting on this video and move on over to something that doesn't annoy you. She isn't saying anything offensive, just trying to give a nice, informative ted talk.
Her voice is super soothing
I have always been interested in the evolution of language.
i would actually argue that there's another function of "like" in f.ex. "and he was, like, 'what are you doing' ". it signals that you're about to paraphrase someone. you're not quoting them, but expressing general meaning and attitude, emotional load if you will, of what they said.
also there's something similar in poznan (a city in poland) and it's surroundings to irish "like". it's "tej" (pronounced "tEy") but literally no one uses this except for people in that area
It can show your history, experience and influences. And if you have multiple styles you like to write or speak in, shows your love of playing characters/appreciation of differences and variation.
Everything she said is simply common sense and could figure out after a few moments reflection without suffering through a PhD program.
I love this lady's accent. It's so lovely.
Your English is excellent and your so elegant I want be just like you when I grow up.
9:28 to 9:36 If you've ever moved to a country where people speak a language that's not your native, you know that this sort of thing happens a lot. Definitely not just a "like" phenomenon. Idk, I don't find it so extraordinarily. I think we might even experience that in our native tongue at least once. I'm really surprised at the manner with which she presented that. Was she just inclining to make it more understandable for the (monolingual in the) audience? Nevertheless what she then explained up to 10:46 was very interesting. It should be an obvious thing imo, but it was nice to have someone kinda "wrap it up" all at once. A very interesting talk.
The content is very interesting, what makes it boring is the way the message is being passed through
Its just her speaking style
she interest me, like, well... I'lickit... if you follow me... like... a little...
no pun intended...
shes a good speaker but what she said could of been summarised in 3-5 mins, same reason I hate school, takes an hour for teacher to deliver a 5 minute message
Is that the definition of irony? If not, it should be. :p
So, like, what the fuck am I suppose to take out of this?
Aiden Ashbourn it's a lesson in linguistics . most people usually judge people for not speaking the standard language, saying they're speaking incorrectly, but this is a layman perspective - linguists know that there is nothing inherently 'bad' or 'good' about language and there's nothing negative about language change, it is natural.
that's the point of the first 30 seconds, what about the rest?
It's examples and proof... It's basically a university lecture. A lecturer can't just make their main point and walk away, there's gotta be some substance to the source - something interesting. I thought the talk was very interesting :)
I don't mean to be harsh, but I don't think you get the point she's making. She's not just saying that, i quote you, "language change is natural". Her main point is that variations in language reflect aspects of the speaker's identity. And I accept that, but she's not making any valid point to substantiate that claim. She presents correlation as causality, she doesn't address the fact that some variations are intentional and some are spontaneous or absorbed, she gathers data on a very specific and very limited sample (a few non-native speakers) to draw conclusions that she wants to apply to the general case... these are not cogent arguments.
I'm glad you enjoyed the talk, I personally expected something different so I found it unsatisfying.
Um, I reckon you know more than one language ?
This subject is riveting to me ¨in this moment¨ as I´m learning Spanish
(6 years now, still no where near acceptable).....plus my teenagers are doing my head in, with their use of the word LIKE !
It was lovely reading your debate :)
I despise the condescension slang faces, so it was nice to hear such a positive perspective on it. 'Like' isn't laziness, and although I totally agree with her conclusion that it is both reflective of identity and given pride of place in the public portrayal of identity, it's not JUST that either. It's a floor-holder, because people talk over you if you go quiet while gathering your thoughts, and it's also indicative of a description as opposed to solid fact. It gives information a personal, subjective feel, rather than purely objective - like you're trying to communicate emotion and subtext as well.
It seems that the nonstandard "like" is actually a social cue/invitation for a person to actively imagine a situation, visually in many of the instances that I can recall. It has the significance of saying "words aren't quite enough here to communicate my feeling or understanding; imagine what I was thinking when I encountered [xyz situation or idea.]" There are other ways to say that. It's like "come again" compared to "I have not the pleasure of understanding you." In that sense it is quite a meaningful bid for social connection. I would hypothesize that people only use this word in this way around people whom they are comfortable or familiar with.
somebody get this woman a glass of water!
Also it often happens because a speaker ate some sweets/sugar/chocolate before. It's painful to listen to...
craigo please!!!!
I don't believe anyone, on here, could come close to her ability to stand before such an educated and large crowd, w/o a dry mouth and or w/o stammering with words. I thoroughly enjoyed her.
This is an excellent talk.
This stuff is totally fascinating. It's amazing how Irish the clause marginal one sounds, and how worldly the clause medial.
Like I'm Irish and I don't understand what a clause marginal is
I'm Polish (and a student of English) and I didn't expect that kind of research coming my way -- nice surprise!
I think she is just saying that how we communicate tells people who we are, and so it our choice to communicate the way we want. For young women, they should not feel insecure or being pushed into the way they communicate because it is their future, and they have the right to chose whatever it may be. For those who judge the ways these women talk, there is a reason that they talk the way they do, and like she said, if you don't like it, say something about it.
I had a friend -- an exchange student from Japan -- that spoke English pretty well, but every time I said something like "every time I said something like" or "and I was like," she would become quite confused.
Interesting. I'm a native Dutch speaker (from Belgium), I lived in Dublin for a while, and took over their use of like. I now live in Brussels and am constantly surrounded by French speakers, and I drop the "ne" in the negation just like I hear other French speakers do. I have a masters in languages, so I am very conscious of how I use it, but I really would have to force myself to not talk like the locals. PS I love(d) the Dublin accent :-)
could yall stop complaining about her mouth and listen to what she's saying jeez
that's difficult when she's speaking about speaking
tee b ahahahaha
Mohammed Ayad The echo chamber of complaint after complaint is so annoying!
It's called a joke for all of the stiffs. Obviously we're listening to her. This is obviously why we watch Ted talks. But can we have a sense of humor and sarcasm? Intelligence can recognize the difference between complaint and a little teasing. Relax
tee b damn youre attractive
. . . Proactively setting aside [the perceptual interfering influence of distracting condemnation and judgmental] attitudes on the part of the witness, she included statistical analyses of actual vernacular speech in a few specific cultures, languages, and locations. She emphasized perceiving and understanding social significance
her voice is so brilliant I don't know why I just love it
irish accent, I think? beautiful
This is really fascinating!!! Thank you!
I loved this video. I found it so intriguing and I just love language. :)
Our brains are hardwired but can be rewired.
Sean Hennessy neuroplasticity
This is fascinating as I do not talk like most people within my community. I speak fast, i stutter without mumbling, and I use large words casually. Most people I know speak with a drawl, and prefer simplicity rather than exuberance.
When I was a young child I had a serious stutter because my mother was a fast talker and I was trying to keep up with her. However, as I got older I was able to match her speed and now I find that I talk like someone who lives somewhere else, even though ive lived in my hometown my entire life!!
That was a fascinating topic to hear about. Being Russian myself, I now understand that in our language we have the word that is very similar to "like", especially to the American one.
The mouth noises didn`t draw my attention at all, I was completely absorbed with the speech. Why does everybody dwell on them so much? They weren`t that blatant.
Everyone in the comment section is so concerned over the sounds coming out of her mouth that they failed to notice that the air-conditioning has dried up the grease in her right elbow?
Come on man.
HAHAHAHAHHAGA
It's called misophonia. It can't be helped. It's like nails on a chalkboard. Hard to focus on anything else.
this talk was amazeballs
yeah like really
MadkittenzK tots!
Classy Woman. Great Speech!
I LOVE her beautiful accent!! Great information, too. Very interesting stuff about language!!
"We use language to show lots of stuff about who we are and who we are becoming"