Published by Cambridge University Press, Kaplan uses research, case studies, examples and facts to explain why popular and widely believed myths about language just aren鈥檛 true.
Myth: Women talk more than men.
鈥淭his is often framed as a bad thing 鈥� that women talk too much,鈥� said Kaplan. 鈥淕lobally and historically, the common view has been that women's ways of speaking 鈥� whatever we think they are 鈥� are inferior to men鈥檚.鈥�
Kaplan explains that researchers have studied men and women in many settings and the most common finding is that men talk more.聽But it also depends on the situation: how well people know each other, what the task is, what kind of power people have, and so on. The best study of overall talkativeness, according to Kaplan, had 400 college students wear recording devices for a few days and there was no difference between the average words per day for men and women. 聽
Myth: Texting makes you illiterate because of all the abbreviations used.
In her book, Kaplan discusses three reasons why this myth isn鈥檛 true. First, the types of abbreviations used in texting aren't unique. Acronyms like 鈥淟OL鈥� are informal, but they aren't inherently bad 鈥� people use abbreviations like MIT, NCAA and ASAP all the time. Second, most text messages aren鈥檛 abbreviated very much at all. Many people take pride in not using abbreviations. Third, researchers have compared people who text vs. people who don't and though the results are somewhat mixed, there's just no good evidence that texting lowers your IQ or harms literacy.
Myth: Sign language is pantomime.
Kaplan clarifies that ASL is a distinct language with its own grammar and vocabulary. Signers process sign language with the same regions of the brain that hearing people use for spoken language.聽
鈥淐hildren learning to sign go through the same stages as those learning to speak and deaf children babble with their hands instead of their mouths. Some very young hearing children confuse 鈥榶ou鈥� and 鈥榤e鈥� for a while, and some very young deaf children do the same 鈥� even though 鈥榶ou鈥� and 鈥榤e鈥� in ASL involves pointing to yourself or the other person.聽This is evidence that the pointing sign is a pronoun, not ordinary pointing.鈥�
In her book, Kaplan debunks these and many more common misconceptions about language and challenges readers to rethink what they currently know about communication.
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