Much has been said about the remarkable ability humans have to extract meaning from language. That ability is remarkable indeed. In a split second, we perceive a spoken or written word and immediately ...

This is your brain on stories. By tracking the blood flow in people’s brains as they listened to a storytelling radio show, scientists at UC Berkeley have mapped out where the meanings associated with ...

Without understanding the 'referential function' of language (words as 'verbal labels', symbolizing other things) it is impossible to learn a language. Is this implicit knowledge already present early ...

The death of Joan Didion, the most profound essayist about language since George Orwell, comes at a time when one of her most astute observations — that words have meaning and consequences — is being ...

See the most-read stories in Science this hour » “The idea that there is essentially no relation between sound and meaning has [existed for] over 100 years now,” said lead author Damian Blasi, a ...

Words matter. Words have meaning. Words created our universe. Hashem created the world through ten verbal pronouncements beginning with His declaration that “there should be light,” and concluding ...