[AF]: TED Talks on Language

Language is like the proverbial fish in water (check tattoo) -- we swim in it, not often thinking about what it actually is.  We are born into the world ready and hard-wired to learn a language, and learn the basics inside of 2-3 years; we are then immersed in language, but rarely think about it, how it works, how we acquire more of it, or how our perceptions may change when we switch from one language to another.

Getting better at using language is an advantage, and knowing more than one language is an advantage; anything we can do to improve language proficiency overall will open opportunities that we often cannot even imagine.  For example...

Here's the thing that always blows my mind:  if I don't have a word for something, I can't even really perceive or think about that "something" well, no matter what it is.  I mean, sometimes we may have an idea and then a word will appear that describes this idea and helps us to develop it, but it's usually the other way around.  For me, that word was "hegemony."  Once I learned that word, an entire universe of learning and reading and thinking opened up.  I only had hazy ideas about hegemony before learning the word.

It's a fascinating subject, and one that comes up on the AP exam surprisingly often.  Since you are taking an AP English LANGUAGE class, perhaps you'd like to look into this topic a bit deeper.

TED TALKS ON LANGUAGE